The Treason Act 1415 was an Act

Act of Parliament

An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

 of the Parliament of England

Parliament of England

The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. In 1066, William of Normandy introduced a feudal system, by which he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws...

 which made clipping

Coin clipping

Coin debasement is the act of decreasing the amount of precious metal in a coin, while continuing to circulate it at face value. This was frequently done by governments in order to inflate the amount of currency in circulation; typically, some of the precious metal was replaced by a cheaper metal...

 coins high treason

High treason

High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...

, punishable by death. (It was already treason to counterfeit

Counterfeit

To counterfeit means to illegally imitate something. Counterfeit products are often produced with the intent to take advantage of the superior value of the imitated product...

 coins.) The Act was repealed by the Treason Act 1553

Treason Act 1553

The Treason Act 1553 was an Act of the Parliament of England. The long title was "An Acte repealing certayne Treasons Felonies and Premunire". The Act abolished all forms of treason that had been created since 1351, except the Treason Act 1351 itself...

, and then revived again in 1562. The Act originally only protected English coins, but was later extended in 1575 to cover foreign coins "current

Legal tender

Legal tender is a medium of payment allowed by law or recognized by a legal system to be valid for meeting a financial obligation. Paper currency is a common form of legal tender in many countries....

" within England. By this time the Coin Act 1572 had already made it misprision of treason

Misprision of treason

Misprision of treason is an offence found in many common law jurisdictions around the world, having been inherited from English law. It is committed by someone who knows a treason is being or is about to be committed but does not report it to a proper authority...

 to clip foreign coins not current within the Realm.

The Coin Act 1575 also abolished (for coin clipping only) the penalties of corruption of blood and forfeiture of goods and lands.

Another Act in 1415, 3 Hen. 5 st.2 c.7, extended the jurisdiction to try this category of treason to all justices in the realm, instead of just the select few known as the King's justices.

See also

• Coin Act 1696
  Coin Act 1696
  The Coin Act 1696 was an Act of the Parliament of England which made it high treason to make or possess equipment useful for counterfeiting coins. Its title was "An Act for the better preventing the counterfeiting the current Coin of this Kingdom." It was extended to cover Scotland by the Treason...
  
  
• High treason in the United Kingdom
  High treason in the United Kingdom
  Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; having sexual intercourse with the sovereign's consort, with his eldest unmarried daughter, or with the wife of the heir to the...