154 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



routs and riots. This Act did not apply to Ireland, where, in consequence of 

 the different conditions which existed there, events had followed a different 

 course. As in England the Privy Council, so in Ireland the Lord Deputy and 

 Council had, from early times, possessed and exercised judicial functions ; but 

 the first indication we get of any special sessions of the Council for judicial 

 purposes is in an Ordinance of 1534 where we find it laid down : " Item, 

 that the lord chancier, calling to him a Juge of every of the Kynges courtes, 

 & such other of the lovdes & counsayle as shalbe present in terme tyme, shal 

 syt twies every weke, during terme season, in the counsayle chamber, there 

 to reeeyue and here such compleyntes as the Kynges subiectes shal exhibite 

 and take order therein accordyngly." 1 



Here we get the germ of the Court which was afterwards to develop into 

 the Court of Castle Chamber. The obligation to meet only in term time 

 was rendered necessary by the fact that the Lord Chancellor and Judges 

 were required to attend. It is probable that the Privy Council found them- 

 selves unable to decide the cases coming before them without such legal 

 assistance. We may suppose that it was to this Court that reference was 

 made in the Irish Act of 28 Hen. VIII, c. 13, § 4, by which offences of 

 ecclesiastics in maintaining the Pope's authority, &c, were to be certified 

 into the Castle of Dublin, and might be tried by witness on confession before 

 the King's Council there. But it had apparently ceased to exist before 

 Elizabeth ascended the throne ; for we find in 1562 the Earl of Sussex, the 

 Lord Deputy, reporting to Her Majesty that "great numbers of disorders 

 and riots and taking of possessions by force be daily committed and left 

 unpunished, for that there is no place to hear and determine these matters 

 but at a Council Board, which for the most part is occupied with other 

 affairs of greater weight; and therefore it were necessary to have a like 

 Court of record established here by Parliament as the Star Chamber is in 

 England, to order the like causes here." 2 He immediately received orders " to 

 appoint a session of a Council for riots and like the Star Chamber." There 

 is no evidence of any Commission being issued to create this Court ; but that 

 it was so created we have proof not only in a letter from the Queen to 

 Sydney in 1566, in which she speaks of " that place which was erected by 

 our cousin of Sussex, and named the Castell Chamber to resemble our Starr 

 Chamber at Westm r ," but also in the appointment of Thomas Walsche, 

 clerk, to be clerk of the Castle Chamber in 1563 3 ; and in the following 

 year, grants to the attorney-general, solicitor-general, and serjeant-at-law 



Cal. State Papers (Ireland), Hen. VIII (Lemon), vol. ii, pt. 3, p. 209. 

 ; Carew MSS., p. 3-13. 3 Fiants, Elizabeth, No. 565. 



