106 The Star Chamber : its Practice and Procedure. 



man or public officer."" There are cases of convictions for 

 libel where the accused " spoke certain words against the Lord 

 Cardinal "; used uncivil words to the Sheriff of London ; and in 

 Elizabeth's time a man was pilloried for saying Lord Dyer was 

 a corrupt judge. Whitelocke, a barrister, was charged before 

 the court for having advised a client that a commission issued 

 by James I. was illegal. John Selden was, in the same reign, 

 summoned on account of a passage in his History of Tithes, 

 whereby he, had thrown doubt upon the clergy's claim of divine 

 right to them. Some students of Lincoln's Inn were brought 

 before the court for having at a wine party drunk ' ' Confusion 

 to the Archbishop !" (Laud). The informer against them was 

 their own servant, and the Earl of Dorset, who sat at the council 

 board, took advantage of the circumstance to excuse the stu- 

 dents by suggesting that the man being constantly in and out 

 of the room, had heard only part of the toast, which, he said, 

 probably was, " Confusion to the Archbishop's enemies !" The 

 students were dismissed with a severe reprimand. Publishers 

 of a libel were as severely punished as the makers ; and " to 

 hear it sung or read, and to laugh at it, and to make merriment 

 with it, hath ever been held a publication in law," says Hud- 

 son, who would also appear to be the high priest of that im- 

 moral doctrine, until recently taught by the English law, that 

 the greater the truth the greater is the libel. For when citing a 

 case in which a " scandalous letter" had been sent, he says 

 with some show of indignation, "and yet the defendant would 

 have undertaken to have proved the contents of the letter to 

 have been true, he thereby charging himself (the plaintiff) with 

 bribery and extortion in his place." Further on he mentions 

 "two gross errors. 1. That it is no libel if the party put his 

 hand unto it. 2. That it is not a libel if it be true ; both which 

 have been long since expelled out of this court." 



Conspiracy included false accusations and malicious prose- 

 cutions. A man named Lee was pilloried, lost his ears, and 

 was branded with F. A. on the face, for accusing some lords 

 of the Gunpowder Plot. 



In virtue of its high jurisdiction, " which by the arm of 

 sovereignty punisheth errors creeping into the Commonwealth, 

 . . . . yea, although no positive law or continued -custom of 

 common law giveth warrant to it," the Star Chamber punished 

 disobedience to royal proclamations ; attempts to coin, to com- 

 mit burglary or murder; and to extort money from foolish 

 young men through the medium of infamous women feigning 

 themselves married. It also punished uncivil conduct towards 

 magistrates; arresters of privileged 'persons, the keepers of 

 dicing-houses, and bowling alleys ; enticers of young men into 

 unthrifty marriages ; engrossers of wares in order to raise the 



