The Star Chamber : its Practice and Procedure. 103 



punishment, which would only have the effect of hardening 

 or destroying them, are ingeniously put by the apologist of 

 the court ; but though there might be some ground for this 

 assertion with reference to Plantagenet times — bat then the 

 criminal jurisdiction of the Star Chamber was not developed 

 — people will not be disposed to give the princes of the House 

 of Tudor still less of the House of Stuart, credit for so much 

 disinterestedness and exalted virtue. They will, it is to be 

 feared, rather think that the power to u take acknowledgment, 

 fine, and ransom," of people who else would be destroyed 

 or imprisoned at the king's expense, for their offences, was the 

 reason why common law offences should have been drawn into 

 the Star Chamber. As a matter of fact this was so. Empson 

 and Dudley set the hateful example of exacting enormous 

 fines under colour of a judicial sanction, which was not based 

 upon any known rule of law, but was dictated by the caprice 

 of the judge or the emptiness of the exchequer at the moment. 

 Though these men were punished for their temerity, their ex- 

 ample had many imitators. Ruinous fines were inflicted for 

 offences perfectly venial, without any regard to that clause of 

 the Great Charter, which forbids the imposition of such a fine 

 as will disable a man from earning his livelihood. Even Hud- 

 son speaks of the fines as " trenching to the destruction of the 

 offender's estate, and utter ruin of him and his posterity. - " 



The causes which ' ' in strictness of law cannot be otherwise 

 questioned, and may be here examined/'' included forgery, 

 perjury, riot, maintenance, fraud, libel, and conspiracy. The 

 perjury was not merely that committed by a witness coram 

 judice. For such an offence punishment was provided by 5 

 Elizabeth c. 9, which inflicted a fine of twenty pounds, or in 

 default sentenced the delinquent to the pillory and nailing of 

 both ears. In considering punishment, the Star Chamber 

 acted analogously to the statute, but extended its authority 

 very much further. It punished perjuries committed by jury- 

 men, who gave a verdict against the evidence, or sold their 

 verdict, or did anything which the Star Chamber, judging of 

 fact, law, and punishment, deemed to constitute perjury ; and 

 this last came to mean that any jury which had given a verdict 

 contrary to what the court thought should have been given, 

 was " in danger of the council." There are many instances of 

 heavy fines imposed upon juries, one of the most celebrated 

 being that of the jury in 4 and 5 Philip and Mary, which 

 acquitted Throckmorton of treason, upon evidence which the 

 Star Chamber thought sufficient to warrant a conviction. The 

 jurors were imprisoned, and some of them attempting to jus- 

 tify themselves before the council, were fined in sums varying 

 from two thousand pounds to a thousand marks each. Other 



