Trial of Lord George Gordon

The Trial of Lord George Gordon for high treason occurred on 5 February 1781 before Lord Mansfield in the Court of King's Bench, as a result of Gordon's role in the riots named after him. Gordon, President of the Protestant Association, had led a protest against the Papists Act 1778, a Catholic Emancipation bill. Intending only to hand in a petition to Parliament, Gordon riled the crowd by postponing of the petition, denouncing Members of Parliament and launching "anti-Catholic harangues".^[1] The crowd of protesters fragmented and began looting nearby buildings; by the time the riots had finished a week later, 300 had died. Gordon was almost immediately arrested, and indicted for levying war against the King.

Defended by Thomas Erskine and Lloyd Kenyon, Gordon was accidentally assisted by the Attorney General, James Wallace, who managed to "ridicule" some of his own evidence before Gordon was set back by Kenyon's lacklustre and confusing speech. However, an impassioned speech by Erskine, which argued that Gordon's actions were only crimes under the illegally extended law of constructive treason, led to the jury finding him not guilty. This result, which met with pleasure due to the popular disquiet with the idea of constructive treason, left juries unwilling to apply the extended law of constructive treason; as a result, the government was forced to incorporate it into statute law. Erskine became renowned as an excellent, albeit unorthodox, advocate; Gordon, on the other hand, was later excommunicated and imprisoned, dying in jail in 1793. Kenyon was chosen to replace Wallace as Attorney General at the next change of ministry.