Mutiny

Mutiny is a criminal conspiracy among a group of people (typically members of the military or the crew of any ship, even if they are civilians) to openly oppose, change, or overthrow a lawful authority to which they are subject. The term is commonly used for a rebellion among members of the military against their superior officers, but it can also occasionally refer to any type of rebellion against authority figures or governances.Mutiny means a combination between two or more persons subject to service law, or between persons two at least of whom are subject to service law—that the maintenance of a standing army in time of peace, unless with the consent of parliament, is against law. Each session therefore the text of the act had to be passed through both Houses clause by clause and line by line. The Army Act, on the other hand, is a fixed permanent code. But constitutional traditions are fully respected by the insertion in it of a section providing that it shall come into force only by virtue of an annual act of parliament. This annual act recites the illegality of a standing army in time of peace unless with the consent of parliament, and the necessity nevertheless of maintaining a certain number of land forces (exclusive of those serving in India) and a body of royal marine forces on shore, and of keeping them in exact discipline, and it brings into force the Army Act for one year. Mutiny is a criminal conspiracy among a group of people (typically members of the military or the crew of any ship, even if they are civilians) to openly oppose, change, or overthrow a lawful authority to which they are subject. The term is commonly used for a rebellion among members of the military against their superior officers, but it can also occasionally refer to any type of rebellion against authority figures or governances. During the Age of Discovery, mutiny particularly meant open rebellion against a ship's captain. This occurred, for example, during Ferdinand Magellan's journeys around the world resulting in the killing of one mutineer, the execution of another, and the marooning of others; on Henry Hudson's Discovery resulting in Hudson and others being set adrift in a boat; and the notorious mutiny on the Bounty. Mutiny often carried capital punishment. Until 1689, mutiny was regulated in England by Articles of War instituted by the monarch and effective only in a period of war. In 1689, the first Mutiny Act was passed which passed the responsibility to enforce discipline within the military to Parliament. The Mutiny Act, altered in 1803, and the Articles of War defined the nature and punishment of mutiny until the latter were replaced by the Army Discipline and Regulation Act in 1879. This, in turn, was replaced by the Army Act in 1881. Today the Army Act 1955 defines mutiny as follows: The same definition applies in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. The military law of England in early times existed, like the forces to which it applied, in a period of war only. Troops were raised for a particular service and were disbanded upon the cessation of hostilities. The crown, by prerogative, made laws known as Articles of War for the government and discipline of the troops while thus embodied and serving. Except for the punishment of desertion, which was made a felony by statute in the reign of Henry VI, these ordinances or Articles of War remained almost the sole authority for the enforcement of discipline until 1689 when the first Mutiny Act was passed and the military forces of the crown were brought under the direct control of parliament. Even the Parliamentary forces in the time of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell were governed, not by an act of the legislature, but by articles of war similar to those issued by the king and authorized by an ordinance of the Lords and Commons exercising in that respect the sovereign prerogative. This power of law-making by prerogative was however held to be applicable during a state of actual war only, and attempts to exercise it in time of peace were ineffectual. Subject to this limitation, it existed for considerably more than a century after the passing of the first Mutiny Act. From 1689 to 1803, although in peacetime the Mutiny Act was occasionally suffered to expire, a statutory power was given to the crown to make Articles of War to operate in the colonies and elsewhere beyond the seas in the same manner as those made by prerogative operated in time of war.