Buggery Act 1533
_%26_Childe,_John_(16_-1640)_-_1641.jpg)
The Buggery Act 1533 , fully An Acte for the punysshement of the vice of Buggerie, was the first non-church law in England to make homosexuality , anal intercourse, and sodomy a death penalty . It was prepared by Thomas Cromwell and issued by Henry VIII in 1533. It was in force until 1828.
The law defined buggery as an unnatural sexual act that goes against the will of God and man . This was later specified by the case law to the effect that "buggery" includes anal intercourse between two men or between a man and a woman and vaginal intercourse between a man or a woman and an animal.
The crime was punished by death by hanging . Unlike murder, the clergy were not exempt from punishment either. The property of the perpetrator became the property of the state. If not the act itself but only the attempt could be proven, the perpetrator was usually sentenced to imprisonment in connection with the pillory .
The first man convicted of buggery was Walter Hungerford in July 1540 , but he was charged with treason as well as the sexual offense. Nicholas Udall , who was the headmaster of Eton College , was found guilty of sexually abusing his students in 1541. However, he was only sentenced to prison and was released after less than a year. Mervyn Tuchet , another convict, was beheaded rather than hanged because of his high rank .
The Buggery Act 1533 was repealed and replaced by the Offenses against the Person Act 1828 in 1828 . This did not change anything in terms of the facts or the sentence. John Pratt and John Smith were the last two people to be hanged for buggery / sodomy. They died outside Newgate Prison in London on November 27, 1835 .
The sentence for "buggery" was changed from the death penalty to life imprisonment in 1861 by the Offences against the Person Act 1861 .
Anal sex between men has not been a crime in England since 1967. Since the Sexual Offences Act 2003 , English criminal law no longer distinguishes between vaginal and anal intercourse; at the same time, the term "buggery" disappeared completely from English criminal law.
Web links
- Buggery The free Dictionary, accessed June 21, 2016
- The Law in England, 1290-1885 Fordham University, accessed June 21, 2016
- Homosexuality in Great Britain Section Two: Legislation May 11, 2013