



handi 



I hilt of tho weapon, .. 



unals unknown to the common law uf the 

 xercuing a jurisdiction quite inoompatil>ic with ih 



: >uoe to examine bore the 



:y of these courts. With >. .-met of 



.ir Chamber !s, and advantage 



han been t;; e colour ' 



"W to maki>' in the COTHJ 



It, will !)- i uiiicient to wiy that it was 



a com i of tho kiiij,' himself, anil .such members of hia 



ouiicii us ho eho.-o Ui .Mimmon; that it took CO;, i 



-i not then noticed as such by tho ordinary law 

 Midi as libel and slander, and also assumed a right to 

 take any cose it chose from tho i n of the 



of law, and especially tho criminal courts, and de|. 



man in this way of tho right of trial by his peers, which had 



d for him by Magna Charta. The lords of the 



1 1 wore at onco judges and jury, even in cases where tho 



orowu was concerned ; there was not any appeal from their 



'o, and the sentences of tho court wore often most ruinous 



( IK >t\v it 1 1 landing tho clause of the Groat Charter which forbade 



any man to be fined to such an extent as would prevent his 



getting a livelihood), even where they did not condemn a man 



to imprisonment, and sometimes to torture. Any pun : 



short of death and many of tho punishments came only just 



short of it the court of Star Chamber asserted its power to 



inflict ; and the claim having been put forward in action at a 



time when men were not able to question it, came at length to 



be looked on almost as a matter of course, except by those who 



sufferec by it, and by those faithful guardians of tho liberties of 



id who only bided their time to announce that the court 



itself was an illegal thing, and ought to be abolished. 



The High Commission was a tribunal invented under Queen 



Elizabeth, a sort of ecclesiastical Star Chamber, composed of 



lastics, who made it their business to " sniff out moral 



. and to bo down on any one who worshipped God in any 



other way than that prescribed by the Church of England. It 



lued with power to fine and imprison, and this power it 



used till resistance became so strong, even under Elizabeth, 



that it was deemed prudent to admonish it from above. It was 



a sort of Protestant Inquisition ; but Englishmen were not 



Spaniards, and the seeds of priestly tyranny were crushed ere 



they could grow into a plant. Still it existed, in company with 



the Star Chamber, which ever waxed more and more intolerable 



In its administration under the successors of Elizabeth. 



Men had endured much from the Tudor princes, as they 

 always will endure at the hands of rulers whose strong personal 

 character makes them respected, even though feared ; but from 

 princes of tho House of Stuart, they were by no means ready to 

 put up with insult and oppression, so that when members of 

 Parliament were cited to appear in tho Star Chamber to answer, 

 as to a crime, for language spoken by them in their place in Par- 

 liament, they resisted, and remonstrated with the king, and 

 declared what he had done to be a breach of privilege of 

 Parliament. Against other acts of the Star Chamber, and of 

 the government, tho Houses also protested, and Puritans in 

 well as in religion, who had been trained up in 

 Elizabeth's parliaments, and who sat in the parliaments of 

 James, uttered their words of remonstrance and warning, not 

 fearing even the dismal dungeons in the Tower, which the 

 chances were would be their reward for their boldness. 



The king was despicable, his government was weak : the 

 Parliament men were for the most part noble, and un<:' 

 ably they were strong ; so all through the reign of James I., 

 !'!25, there were perpetual conflicts between tho sovereign 

 and the people, and though when the king died the Crown had 

 von up any of $s so-called prerogatives, there had been 

 ronjured up a deep spirit of resistance to them, a spirit which 

 found expiession in the reign of James's successor, his ill-fated 

 son, Charles I. 



But much had yet to be borne before order-loving, law-fearing 



Kndi-hintn ...'. 1 bo tadOM : \ r. > up ;.-: i ,-,. "'I;.. ;. .,+, 

 hall not be . government as weak, or weaker than 



James'*, Charlcn pretended even gmsAor nhhns than his father, 

 andexoroutid bin pmgogrtfru evon BOW annoyinfly and nor* 

 tpMufaafly. n- i.-vi-d tjti .::. :,- - . n Iks i* ;.;.-. ( . 

 without the consent of Parliament, bat fa dine* 

 of several statute*; h issued proclamations, and required i 



to be obeyed as laws ; be resented the osr of adrvw as on. 

 MIMtsllu inteff ensues t and he refused finally to stumon the 

 counsellors, whose advise was always so np-dstaKlr Brooght 

 up in the notion that kings are appointed directly by God, and 

 that the Church of England was also of Divine tintitntif^i. he 

 put forward offensively his own claims on the one hand, and 

 with all hi* might the claims of the Church on the other. 

 In order to do this he was necessitated to employ very exten- 

 sively, in the face of increasing opposition, the two coasts of 

 which mention has been made. 



Two members of Parliament, Sir John Eliot and Sir Dudley 

 Digges, were imprisoned by order of tho Star Chaml 

 UH" words used by them, as members, when the 1 

 'ham was impeached ; and when the House refused to 

 -.ill its members were released, the king threatened* 

 them, but gave way about his prisoners. Then came a series of 

 attacks on the constitution by tho king and his ministers, which 

 1 with more or less damage to the good-will between 

 him and his people- ; tho king tried to govern without Parlia- 

 ment, and Parliament was resolved there should be no peace for 

 him if he did. With the Earl of Strafford as chief adv 

 state affairs, and Archbishop Laud as head of theChurch, Charles 

 strove to make himself an absolute king, caring little apparently 

 how rough- shod he rode over the feelings and affections of his 

 people. The honour of the nation was forgotten by a disgraceful ' 

 foreign policy, pirates from Morocco were allowed to prey upon 

 ships in the English Channel, the influence of England abroad 

 had sunk to zero, and at home all power and statesmanship were 

 directed to the one object of laying the nation, bound hand and 

 foot, at the feet of the king. 



The Star Chamber was set in motion against the opponents of 

 the kingly power, and indeed against all who ventured to 

 criticise tho actions of government. Sir David Fonlis was fined 

 .5,000 for dissuading a friend from paying an unlawful tax ; 

 Prynne, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, for an abusive book he had 

 written against some of the practices in the king's household, 

 and against the ultra-High Church practices of the primate, was 

 sentenced to .be disbarred, to be put in the pillory at Clieapside 

 and at Westminster, to have both ears cut off, to be fined 

 .5,000, and to be imprisoned for life ! People were ruinously 

 fined for turning tii .ato posture, in contravention 



of some obscure law of Henry VTL ; for refusing to lend money 

 to the king ; and for encroaching on the royal forests. One 

 man, IU > for reviling and striking one of 



the king's servants at Whitehall ; another, named Allison, was 

 fined .1,000, imprisoned, and pilloried at Westminster, for 

 ly that the Archbishop of York had incurred 

 the kin _ are. For calling the Earl of Suffolk " a base 



lord," Sir Richard Granvillo was ordered to pay ^4,000 tr tho 

 carl and .4,000 to the king ; Sir G. Markham having thrashed 

 Lord Darcy's huntsman for abusing him, and having promised 

 to do tho like by Lord Darcy, should he approve his servant's 

 conduct, was fined 10,000.* Landed proprietors being ordered 

 by the king's proclamation not to live idly in London, but to go 

 to their estates, were fined in tho Star Chamber for non-com- 

 pliance. In 1G37 Burton, a divine, and Bastwick, a physician, 

 were condemned for sedition and schism to the same punishment 

 as had been inflicted on Prynne, and that unfortunate man 

 having again offended, was further mutilated and fined another 

 .5,000. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, was fined 10,000, and 

 sent to the Tower, for some trumpery offence against I 

 Osbaldistone, the master of Westminster School, for having- 

 nicknamed Laud in a letter to Williams, was ordered to bo 

 pilloried before all his school, and to pay 5,000, but he 

 himself by flight Lilburne, charged with distributing set! 

 pamphlets, was whipped by the hangman, pilloried, and im- 

 prisoned with irons on him. 



It was under circumstances like these, when despair c 



This case occurred in the previous reign, but it shows the tension 

 to which the power of the court could be strong. 



