100 The Star Chamber : its Practice and Procedure. 



supports of force,, combination of multitudes, and maintenance 

 or headship of great persons."* 



Up to the time when, as Palgrave says, " the Star Chamber 

 raged with savage vigour for the punishment of mere political 

 offences/'' it would not seem that the court had drawn any 

 great amount of odium to itself by acts of tyranny done in the 

 name of justice. There were, now and again, complaints made 

 that the council took notice of causes which ought to be tried 

 at common law ; but, on the whole, the court had worked for 

 the public good, discharging some of the functions which are 

 now exercised by the courts of Chancery, Queen's Bench, 

 Admiralty, and Probate, and constituting, in criminal matters, 

 a kind of court of conscience, administering justice rather 

 according to the particular circumstances of the case than 

 the law of it„and having the advantage of freedom from the 

 forms and trammels of the common law procedure. It could 

 adjourn a case for further evidence, which a law court could 

 not j it could examine and cross-examine the principals in a 

 cause civil or criminal, and it was entirely free from the highly 

 technical system of pleading which often worked injustice in 

 the common law courts. Whether a civil and a criminal court, 

 erected out of distinct committees of the Privy Council, sat at 

 the same time and by virtue of the same authority, as Lord 

 Bacon would seem to suggest, is a question involved in much 

 obscurity ; but it is at least not irreconcilable with his state- 

 ment to suppose that the same members of the Privy Council 

 discharged both the civil and criminal functions of that body, 

 only changing their place of meeting according to the business 



* It is but right to state what that great father of English law, Sir E. Coke, 

 who was to Francis Bacon what the Chief Justice of to-day is to the youngest 

 barrister that is "sure to make his way," says on the subject of the Star 

 Chamber. 



Sir E. Coke (Institutes, Part 4, c. 5) begins by showing out of the Rolls of 

 Parliament and Year Books the nature of the cases triable in the Star Chamber. 

 These are identical with those set forth in the present pauer. He then says that 

 formerly the Court sat rarely, because it was not often that flagrant occasion was 

 given for its interference ; and because then it did not meddle with causes which 

 the other Courts were competent to try. He goes on to show that the statute of 

 Henry VII. did not originate the Court of Star Chamber, and claims to the credit 

 of the Court that it dealt with offences " especially of great men," ...... 



" to the end that the medicine may be according to the disease, and the punish- 

 ment according to the offi nee." 



Sir E. Coke says the Court is named of " Star Chamber " because "the "roof is 

 starred." He explains the holding of the Court coram rege et concilio to mean, 



1. Before Lords and others of his Majesty's Privy Council. 



2. Before the Judges of either bench, and the Barons of the Exchequer. 



3. Before the Lords of Parliament, who however were not standing Judges 



unless they were also Privy Councillors. 

 And he had so high an opinion of the Court that he says, "It is the most 

 honourable Court (our Parliament excepted) that is in the Christian world, both 

 in respect of the Judges of the Court, and of their honourable proceedings 

 according to their just jurisdiction, and the ancient and just orders of the Court." 



