1533: 25 Henry 8 c.6: The Buggery Act

1533: 25 Henry 8 c.6: An Act for the punishment of the vice of Buggery.

FORASMUCH as there is not yet sufficient and condign punishment appointed and limited by the due course of the laws of this realm, for the detestable and abominable vice of buggery committed with mankind or beast:

(2) it may therefore please the King’s highness, with the assent of his lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons of this present parliament assembled, That it may be enacted by authority of the same, that the same offence be from henceforth adjudged felony, and such order and form of process therein to be used against the offenders as in cases of felony at the common law;

(3) and that the offenders being hereof convict by verdict, confession, or outlawry, shall suffer such pains of death, and losses and penalties of their goods, chattels, debts, lands, tenements and hereditaments, as felons be accustomed to do, according to the order of the common laws of this realm;

(4) and that no person offending in any such offence, shall be admitted to his clergy;

(5) and that justices of peace shall have power and authority, within the limits of their commissions and jurisdiction, to hear and determine the said offence, as they do use to do in cases of other felonies.

(6) this act to endure till the last day of the next parliament.

Source: Pickering, Statutes at Large, vol. 4.

Further reading: Wikipedia.