Select Cases Before The Kings Council In The Star Chamber Commonly Called The Court Of Star Chamber Ad 1477 1544 PDF Download

An excerpt from the beginning of the Introduction: THE Court of Star Chamber "is now," says Lord Coke, "and of ancient time hath been called the Chamber of the Stars, the Star Chamber, the Starred Chamber, in respect the roof of the court is garnished with golden stars. In all records in Latin it is called camera stellata." The Council itself, whether Parliament was sembled or not, held its sittings in the "Starred Chamber," situated in the outermost quadrangle of the Palace, next the bank of the river, and consequently easily accessible to the suitors, and which at length was permanently appropriated to the use of the Council. "The Lords sitting in the Starre Chamber" became a phrase. Lord Bacon, in his "History of King Henry VII., thus writes of the origin, authority, composition, and jurisdiction of this court: "The authority of the Star Chamber, which before subsisted by the ancient common laws of the realm, was confirmed in certain cases by Act of Parliament. This Court is one of the sagest and noblest institutions of this kingdom. For in the distribution of courts of ordinary justice (besides the High Court of Parliament) in which distribution the King's Bench holdeth the pleas of the crown; the Common Place, pleas civil; the Exchequer, pleas concerning the King's revenue; and the Chancery, the Pretorian power for mitigating the rigour of law, in case of extremity, by the conscience of a good man; there was nevertheless always reserved a high and pre-eminent power to the King's Council in causes that might in example or consequence concern the state of the Commonwealth; which, if they were criminal, the Council used to sit in the chamber called the Star Chamber; if civil, in the White Chamber, or White Hall. And as the Chancery had the Pretorian power for equity, so the Star Chamber had the Censorian power for offences under the degree of capital. This Court of Star Chamber is compounded of good elements; for it consisteth of four kinds of persons; counsellors, peers, prelates, and chief judges: it discerneth also principally of four kinds of causes; forces, frauds, crimes various of stellionate, and the inchoations or middle acts towards crimes capital or heinous not actually committed or perpetrated. But that which was principally aimed at by this act was force, and the two chief supports of force, combinations of multitudes, and maintenance or headship of great persons." "It is the most honourable Court," says Lord Coke, "our Parliament alone excepted, that is in the Christian world, both in respect of the Judges of the Court and of their honourable proceeding according to their just jurisdiction, and the ancient and just orders of the Court. For the Judges of the same are (as you have heard) the grandees of the realm, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord President of the King's Council, the Lord Privy Seal, all the Lords spiritual, temporal, and others of the King's most honourable Privy Council, and the principal Judges of the realm, and such other lords of Parliament as the King shall name. And it is truly said. Curia cameras stellatae, si vetustatem spectemus, est antiquissima, si dignitatem honoratissima. This Court, the right institution and ancient order thereof being observed, doth keep all England quiet."