petesergeant 3 months ago

> Napoleon’s misconception was his belief that if he once set foot on a British ship he not only secured ‘the protection of the law of Britain’

Interesting. Britain has parliamentary sovereignty, so there's no protection from parliament _at all_ under the law (then and now), and parliament are well within their rights to pass a bill of attainder which is a new law essentially punishing a specific person or group.

In this case, he was seeking protection from the government on the (surprisingly reasonable!) basis that parliament itself might be sufficiently sympathetic to him to not simply lop off his head.

  • arrowsmith 3 months ago

    > Britain has parliamentary sovereignty

    If only...

ggm 3 months ago

I think the prussians would have been wrong to execute Napoleon. Things we ascribe to modern warcrimes failures or successes would have been admitted into the room a century earlier, had they done this.

be careful where your finger points because 4 of them may point back at yourself.

  • AlbertCory 3 months ago

    True. Kings would start (and lose) wars back then with wild abandon. They didn't want to start a precedent and be the next head on the chopping block.

wwilim 3 months ago

"Disturbance of the peace" indeed

nyc111 3 months ago

published 2010