98 The Star Chamber : its Practice and Procedure. 



bears to the House of Lords, the third council may be said to 

 have borne to the second a relation somewhat similar to that 

 which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council now bears 

 to the Council itself. 



From hearing complaints upon petition, to instituting pro- 

 ceedings on its own account, whether by causing the Attorney- 

 General to bring informations against particular persons before 

 it, or by summons under the privy seal, was neither a long nor 

 a difficult stage in the progress of the court; and we find — 

 the troublous times of Henry VI. favouring the growth of 

 excesses of all kinds — that in the reigns of Henry VI. and 

 Edward IV. the select committee of the Privy Council, while 

 discharging those judicial functions of the council which it 

 derived from the parent council, the House of Lords, arrogated 

 to itself a power in criminal causes which was often bene- 

 ficially exercised, but was too unbounded not to tempt the 

 wielders to abuse it. 



A glance at the headings of many of the earlier statutes, 

 a cursory glance at the roll of the Exchequer, will show the 

 crying need there must have been for some supreme and 

 powerful judicial arm to overawe the passions of vindictive 

 officers acting in the king's name, and to counteract the wide- 

 spread disease of the " itching palm," which caused the judges 

 to sell, delay, and pervert justice. The fact that statutes were 

 passed against judicial crookedness and rapacity, is proof 

 enough that such crookedness and rapacity existed ; and when 

 we find entries on the roll of the Exchequer of so. many hens, 

 of a butt of wine, of money given to the king that the giver 

 might "have justice," we are tempted to ask, Who guarded 

 the guardians of the right ? The 52 Henry III. (the statute 

 of Marlbridge) c. 11, forbids the payment of a fine to the 

 judge to induce him to grant a fair hearing; the statute of 

 Westminster the First, 3 Ed. I. c. 25, forbids the clerks of the 

 court to encourage litigation for the sake of the court fees ; 

 the 38 Ed. III. st. i. c.12, provides a punishment for jurors who 

 take bribes ; the 20 Ed. III. st. iv. c. 1 and 2, prohibit the 

 judges from taking fees, or giving counsel in suits to which 

 the king is a party; and there are others of a like nature here 

 and there in the statute-book, down to the 3 Hen. VII. c. 1, 

 which last act shows in its preamble the necessity that still pre- 

 vailed for curbing judicial wickedness in high places. 



The statute 3 Hen. VII. c. 1, is called An Acte geving the 

 Court of Star Chamber authority to puwyshe dyvers mysde- 

 meanors. It recites that "the King our Sovereign Lord 

 remembereth how, by unlawful maintenance, giving of liveries, 

 signs, and tokens, and retainers by indenture, promises, oaths, 

 writing or otherwise, embraciaries of his subjects, untrue 



