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XVIII. An Outline of the History of the Court of Star Chamber, in a Letter from John Bruce, Esq. F.S.A., addressed to Thomas Amyot, Esq. F.R.S., Treasurer

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2012

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Extract

The jurisdiction of the Court of Star Chamber is connected with a variety of curious questions relative to the ancient “Consilium Regis,” which, although often approached by writers of great reputation, do not appear to have been as yet satisfactorily elucidated. Whilst men were within the reach of this powerful judicature, they seem to have been unwilling to inquire too curiously into its origin; and, since its overthrow, the loss, or destruction, of its records, has increased the difficulties inseparable from such an investigation. I propose to attempt an outline of that part of the subject which is necessary to be considered by those who desire to form a general idea of the nature of the judicial jurisdiction exercised in the Star Chamber, and, by that means, to understand the reasons of the abhorrence in which that Court was held by our ancestors of the seventeenth century. If you deem the inquiry likely to interest the Society of Antiquaries, you will oblige me by submitting my remarks to that body. Amongst them I am aware there are many persons who are more favoured by circumstances, and better able, than myself, to treat the whole subject satisfactorily;—perhaps my paper may induce some one of them to give his attention to the inquiry.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1832

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References

page 348 note a In the 26th of Edward I. there is an instance of the Council holding a sitting in the “Hospicium” of the Archbishop of York in Westminster. Rot. Parl. i. 143.

page 349 note b Lansdowne MS. No. 639, p. 196. Hudson died in December 1635.

page 351 note c This rule does not seem to have been inflexible. The case of the Earl of Northumberland (4 James I.) for being concerned in the Powder Plot, was ore tenus, and yet not upon confession, (Col. Jur. ii. 63.)

page 354 note d In the Lansdowne MS. No. G39, p. 50, is the form of an affidavit of the service of a Privy Seal, in the parish Church of Barton-upon-Humber, “on the Sunday before May-day” “between Mass and Mattins;” and see another instance p. 101 of the same vol.

page 359 note e Henry VIIth and VIIIth.