Star Chamber

Star Chamber, a judicial court in the palace of our Kings at Westminster, commonly said to have been erected by Henry VIII., but which was in fact, as Hallam pointed out, the old Concilium Regis or Ordinarium, and the object of statute 3, Henry VII. c. I, was to revive the Council and place its jurisdiction on a permanent and unquestionable basis. "The Judges of the Court" were "the Privy Council and the Messengers of the Court, the Warden of the Fleet's servants, the Chancellor, Treasurer, and Keeper of the Privy Seal, with a Bishop and temporal Lord of the Council; and the Chief Justices of the King's Bench and Common Pleas, or two other justices in their absence," are empowered to summon before them certain specified offenders, and after examination to punish them "as if convicted by course of law." But the jurisdiction of the court soon stretched far beyond the boundaries assigned by law. It took cognisance among other offences of "forgery, perjury, riot, maintenance, fraud, libel, and conspiracy." The King was often present at the sittings of the court, and both the Stuarts too often acted the part of prosecutor. Under the Tudors the Star Chamber formed a terrible instrument for the punishment, short of death, of any who had fallen under the displeasure of the Government, but its full capacity in this respect only became manifest under the Stuarts, when by its means, as Macaulay remarks, "the Government was able to fine, imprison, pillory, and mutilate at pleasure." The most famous prosecution of this court was that of the learned Puritan lawyer Prynne, in the reign of Charles I., by the Attorney-General Noy, at the instigation of Archbishop Laud. Prynne had published a bulky volume called Histriomastix, in condemnation of plays and actors, full of erudition, and if possible fuller of invective, some of which were specially directed against female actors. Unfortunately for the author the Queen took part in a court masque about the time of the publication of his book, when attention was directed to an entry in the index, "Women Actors notorious whores." The reference was to the Roman courtesans, but Prynne was summoned before the Star Chamber; other offensive passages were cited, and he was condemned and sentenced to stand twice in the pillory, to have both his ears cut off by the common hangman, to be branded in the forehead, pay a fine of £5000, and to be imprisoned for life. This was perhaps the most atrocious of the sentences inflicted by the court, but others nearly as severe and quite as iniquitous were about this time not infrequent. The Chamber had become in fact an intolerable tyranny. It was abolished by the Act of 16 Charles I. c. 10, the first year of the Long Parliament, and the memory of its misdeeds contributed powerfully to bring about the tragic fate of Laud, if not that of his royal Master.¹

In the Chamber of Stars
All matters there he² mars;
Clapping his rod on the board,
No man dare speak a word;
For he hath all the saying,
Without any renaying.
He rolleth in his Records;
He sayeth how say ye my Lords,
Is not my reason good?
.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
Some say yes, and some
Sit still as they were dumb.

Skelton, Why Come ye not to Court? 85–96 (Dyce's Skelton), vol. ii. p. 32.

Then is there the Star Chamber, where in the Term time, every week once at the least, which is commonly on Fridays and Wednesdays, and on the next day after the term endeth, the Lord Chancellor, and the Lords and other of the Privy Council, and the Chief Justices of England from nine of the clock till it be eleven do sit. This place is called the Star Chamber, because the roof thereof is decked with the likeness of stars gilt.—Stow, p. 175.

The Starre Chamber is a chamber at the one End of Westminster Hall. It is written the Starred Chamber. Now it hath the signe of a Starre ouer the doore as you one way enter therein.—Minsheu, ed. 1617.

Lord Carew writes to Sir Thomas Roe, then absent on his embassy to the Great Mogul, that on June 20, 1616, the King, James I., sat in person in the Star Chamber and "made a large speeche to the admiration of the hearers, speaking more like an angel than a man."³ About this time James purposed building a new Star Chamber. There is a Council Warrant of June 27, 1619, for payment to Inigo Jones of £37, "for making two several models, the one for the Star Chamber, the other for the Banqueting House;" but the design had been prepared by him at least two years earlier.

June 21, 1617.—The Queen is building at Greenwich after a plan of Inigo Jones: he has a design for a new Star Chamber which the King would fain have built if there were money.—Cal. Stat. Pap., 1611–18, p. 473.

The building itself was evidently of the Elizabethan age, and the date 1602, with the initials E.R. separated by an open rose on a star, was carved over one of the doorways. The ceiling was of oak, and had been very curiously devised in moulded compartments, ornamented with roses, pomegranates, portcullises and fleurs-des-lys: it had also been gilt and diversely coloured.—Britton and Brayley's Westminster Palace, p. 443.

There is an engraving of the ceiling by J.T. Smith, and an interesting view of the Chamber in Britton and Brayley's Westminster, Plate XX. In the curious Illumination⁴ in the Lambeth Library of Earl Rivers presenting his book, and Caxton his printer, to King Edward IV., the King is represented seated in a chamber, the roof of which is powdered with stars.

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¹ Hallam, Const. Hist. of England, chaps, i., viii., ix.; Sir F. Palgrave, Original Authority of the King's Council; "Account of Star Chamber," by John Bruce, Archæo., vol. v. p. xxv.

² Cardinal Wolsey, who made much use of the Star Chamber.

³ Cal. State Pap., 1611–18, p. 425.

⁴ Engraved as a frontispiece to Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors.

[Star Chamber] Standing parallel with the river, on the eastern side of New Palace Yard, was the ancient council chamber of the royal palace, where the king sat in extraordinary causes. It was for some time used as the Lottery Office, and had been for centuries known as the "Star Chamber." The origin of the name of the Star Chamber has been much disputed; but "the most satisfactory explanation," says the author of "Things Not Generally Known," "appears to be that given by Mr. Caley, in the third volume of the 'Archæologia,' namely, from the ceiling of the chamber being anciently ornamented with gilded stars." The occupation of the "Chambre des Estoyers" or "Estoilles," by the king's council, in the Palace at Westminster, can be traced to the reign of Edward III.; but no specific mention of the Star Chamber as a court of justice is found earlier than the reign of Henry VII., about which time the old title-deeds of "the Lords sitting in the Star Chamber," and "the council in the Star Chamber," says the author above referred to, seemed to have merged in this one distinguishing appellation. After the sittings, the Lords dined in the inner Star Chamber at the public expense. The mode of the proceedings was twofold: one ore tenus, or by the mouth; the other, by bill and answer. The proceeding ore tenus, usually adopted in political cases, originated in "soden reporte," which Mr. John Bruce, writing in the eighth volume of "Archæologia," considers to mean private and probably secret information given to the council. The person accused or suspected was immediately apprehended, and privately examined. If he confessed any offence, or if the cunning of his examiners drew from him, or his own simplicity let fall, any expressions which suited their purpose, he was at once brought to the bar, his confession or examination was read, he was convicted ex ore suo (out of his own mouth), and judgment was immediately pronounced against him. Imagination can scarcely picture a more terrible judicature. This tribunal was bound by no law, but created and defined the offences it punished; the judges were in point of fact the prosecutors; and every mixture of those two characters is inconsistent with impartial justice. Crimes of the greatest magnitude were tried in this court, but solely punished as trespasses, the council not having dared to usurp the power of inflicting death. Among the many abuses of the process was that, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, "many solicitors who lived in Wales, Cornwall, or the farthest parts of the North, did make a trade to sue forth a multitude of subpœnas to vex their neighbours, who, rather than they would travel to London, would give them any composition, though there were no colour of complaint against them." The process might anciently be served in any place: in the pre-Reformation times it was usually served in the market or church. The largest number of the council who attended the court in the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII. was nearly forty, of whom seven or eight were prelates; in the reign of Elizabeth the number was nearly thirty, but it subsequently declined. The chancellor was the supreme judge, and alone sat with his head uncovered. Upon important occasions, persons who wished "to get convenient places and standing" went there by three o'clock in the morning. The counsel were confined to a "laconical brevity;" the examinations of the witnesses were read, and the members of the court delivered their opinions in order from the inferior upwards, the archbishop preceding the chancellor. Every punishment, except death, was assumed to be within the power of the Star Chamber Court. Pillory, fine and imprisonment, and whipping, wearing of papers through Westminster Hall, and letters "seared in the face with hot irons," were ordinary punishments inflicted by this court.

Henry VII. had a fondness for sitting in the Star Chamber: the court was the great instrument for his "extort doynge;" and " the king took the matter into his own hands," was a Star-Chamber phrase; and "my attorney must speak to you," was a sure prelude to a heavy fine. Wolsey made a great display of his magnificence in the Star Chamber: he proceeded to the sittings of the court in great state, his mace and seal being carried before him; "he spared neither high nor low, but judged every estate according to their merits and deserts." After his fall, with the exception of occasional interference in religious matters and matters of police, we seldom hear of the Star Chamber.

The proceedings in the Star Chamber, being taken under ecclesiastical instead of royal authority, have always been regarded by Englishmen with extreme dislike and aversion. And it may be added that the severity of its sentences in proportion to the importance of the offences has given good reason for its unpopularity. Thus we read that "one Bennet was fined a thousand pounds to the king, and another thousand to the Earl of Marlborough, for saying that he dealt basely with him for not paying him thirty pounds, .... and laying to his lordship's charge that he was a common drunkard." Dr. Osbaldiston, too, a prebendary of Westminster, and formerly a master of Westminster School, and Dr. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, were here found guilty of scandalum magnatum for defaming the great men of the day, by calling Archbishop Laud "the great Leviathan." The bishop was sentenced to pay a fine of £5,000, and Osbaldiston to have his ears tacked to the pillory in Palace Yard, a punishment which he escaped by going beyond the sea.

In the Star Chamber, in the year 1587, Philip Earl of Arundel was fined £10,000. In 1636, John Lilburne, being here convicted of publishing seditious libels, was sentenced to pay £5,000, to stand in the pillory, and be whipped at a cart's tail from Fleet Prison to the gate of Westminster Hall. About this time a more celebrated character figures in its annals. William Prynne, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, was cited to appear in the Star Chamber for having published an attack upon the stage in the shape of a quarto volume of more than a thousand pages, entitled, "Histrio-Mastix: the Player's Scourge, or Actor's Tragedy;" he was also charged with having railed not only against all stage-plays and players, dancing, &c., but against all who thought fit to attend such performances, while he knew that the queen, the lords of council, &c., were oftentimes spectators of masques and dances. It was urged against him that he had thus cast aspersions upon the queen, spoken censoriously and uncharitably against all Christian people, and, in addition, had made use of infamous terms against the king. He was sentenced to stand twice in the pillory, to lose both his ears, to pay a heavy fine, and to be imprisoned for life. Mr. Gerard says, in one of his letters to Lord Strafford, "No mercy was showed to Prynne: he lost his first ear in the pillory in the Palace at Westminster, in full term; the other in Cheapside; where, whilst he stood, his volumes were burnt under his nose, which had almost suffocated him."

The Star Chamber held its sittings, from the end of Elizabeth's reign until the final abolition of the court by Parliament in 1641, in apartments on the eastern side of New Palace Yard; these buildings appear to have been restored by Queen Elizabeth, as they bore the date 1602, and "E.R.," and an open rose on a star; they corresponded with the "Starre Chamber" in Aggas' plan of London (1570). The last of the buildings were taken down in 1836; drawings were then made of the court, which had an enriched ceiling, but there were no remains of the star ornamentations behind the Elizabethan panelling; the style of the chamber was Tudor Gothic. A view of the building will be found on page 504. The remains were sold by auction and purchased by Sir Edward Cust, the walls of whose dining-room at Leasowe Castle, Cheshire, they now decorate. They consist chiefly of oakpanelling, and a handsome chimney-piece of the Renaissance style, together with a single length of an earlier date, which stood at the end furthest removed from the chimney-piece, and was thought to have formed a background for the king's chair of state, if ever he chose to be present in the Council. The rose, the fleur de lys, the portcullis, and the pomegranate, which adorned parts of these remains, show their date conclusively—namely, the period of the first marriage of Henry VIII. The Star Chamber, it may be added, on the suppression of the Court which sat in it, became a depository for rubbish; and when the fire in which the Houses of Parliament were destroyed was extinguished, it was found that one side of it was full of the old "tallies," which were used—though it is difficult to believe the fact—down to the end of the Georgian era, to keep the national accounts!