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III. The Payment And Mitigation Of A Star Chamber Fine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

G. R. Batho
G. R. Batho
Affiliation:
Department of Education, Sheffield University
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Extract

The severity of many of the fines imposed in the Court of Star Chamber in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries has impressed historians as much as it impressed the members of the Long Parliament. For example, it has been calculated that out of the 240 cases brought in Star Chamber in the years 1625–41 where the sentence is known, fines of over £500 were imposed in eighty–five instances. Hudson, in his famous contemporary treatise on the Court, contended that this severity had markedly increased in the reign of Charles; ‘fines’, he wrote, ‘are new of late imposed secundum qualitatem delicti and not fitted to the estate of the person; so that they are rather in terrorempopuli than for the true end for the which they were intended, when fine and ransom was appointed£10,000 or more, under both Elizabeth and the early Stuarts.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , March 1958 , pp. 40 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1958

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References

1 Phillips, H. E. I., The Court of Star Chamber, 1603–41 (unpublished London M.A. thesis, 1939), 130Google Scholar; William, Hudson, ‘A Treatise on the Court of Star Chamber’, in Hargrave, F. (ed.), Collectanea Juridica (n.d.), 11, 224.Google Scholar

2 Miss Elfreda, Skelton (Lady Neale), The Court of Star Chamber in the Reign of Elizabeth (unpublished London M.A. thesis, 1931), I, App. lixGoogle Scholar; Phillips, , op. cit. 314–25Google Scholar. See also, for example, Baildon, W. P. (ed.), Hawarde's Les Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellate (1894), 411–14 (mitigations of fines, 1602–9)Google Scholar; Gardiner, S. R., History of England, 1603–42 (1894ff.), VII, 148 (Leighton's case, 1630)Google Scholar; Cal[endar of] S[tate] P[apers] Dom[estic] Eliz. xi, 91 and CCLXII, 137, and Cal[endar of] Salisbury MSS. xin, 61–2 (the Earl of Hertford's case, 1560); Cat. S.P. Dotn. Eliz. CCL, 46 (the Earl of Northumberland's case, 1572), and CCLXXXI, 67 (the Earl of Rutland's case, 1601).

3 Collectanea Juridica, II, 224–30.Google Scholar

4 Cal. S.P. Dam. Jac I, xv, 26, xx, 56, xxxi, 58.Google Scholar

5 Cal. S.P. Ireland, Jac. I, ccxvIII, 21.Google Scholar

6 Cal. S.P. Dom. Jac. I, 1, 7, xvI, 83, xxIII 10, and LXIV, 67Google Scholar; P[ublic] R[ecord] Offfice], S[tate] P[apers], 14/216, no. 86.Google Scholar

7 Baildon, , op. cit. 287–92; P.R.O. S.P. 14/216, no. 181Google Scholar; Cal. S.P. Dom. Jac. I, xvI, 83.Google Scholar

8 P.R.O. S.P. 14/216, no. 182; Cal. S.P. Dom. Jac. I, XVIII, 28Google Scholar; P.R.O. E 401/1891, 21 March 1613/14; Patent Roll, 12 Jac. I, pt. 22, m. 17; Acts of the Privy Council, 1617–1919, 384Google Scholar; Cal. S.P. Dom. Car. I, CXLI, 2Google Scholar.

9 Collins, A., Peerage (1750), 139–40Google Scholar; Robert, Halstead (pseud.), Succinct Genealogies of the Noble and Ancient Houses of... Mordaunt of Turvey (1685), prints the pardon, 641–3Google Scholar, from a state paper apparently since lost, but the pardon was not enrolled on the patent rolls; Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 80 Dorset; S.P. Dom. Jac. I, XLVIII, 85.Google Scholar

10 S[yon] Hfouse] MSS. at Alnwick Castle, U. I. 10; Alnwick Mss, , L[etters] and P[apers], vol. 7, fo. 209Google Scholar; Cal. S.P. Ireland, Jac. I, ccxvni, 21.Google Scholar

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12 Pat. Roll 2 Jac. I, pt. xviii; Acts of the Privy Council (1601–1604), 495; S.H. MSS. at Alnwick Castle, O. I. 2c, fos. 25, 50 rGoogle Scholar; Cal. Salisbury MSS. XVIII, 274.Google Scholar

13 Cal. Salisbury MSS. xvIII, 280Google Scholar; Fonblanque, E. B. De, Annals of the House of Percy (privately printed, 1887), II, 293–4.Google Scholar

14 Cal. S.P. Dom. Jac. I, LXV, 26, 32, 33, 69, 83; LXVI, 28, 29, 35, 93; LXVII, 7, 33, 67; LXXII, 16.Google Scholar

15 S.H. MSS., O. I. 2c, fo. 54r.

16 Alnwick Mss, L. and P. vol. 10, loose sheetGoogle Scholar. I have analysed the household accounts of the period, S.H. MSS., U. I. 3, 4; from 1607 to 1612 an almost complete set survives (see my article, in Economic History Review, 2nd ser. ix, 433–50).Google Scholar

17 Mss., S.H., O. I. 2c, fos. 57, 58Google Scholar; Alnwick Mss, L. and P. vol. 10, fo. 19.Google Scholar

18 Alnwick Mss, , 101, fos. 51, 52.Google Scholar

19 S.P.Dom. Jac. I, LXVIII, 83Google Scholar; Alnwick Mss., L. and P. vol. 10, fo. 43 and a loose sheet (the earl's letter to the Council, 28 Mar. 1612)Google Scholar; S.H. MSS., O. I. 2c, fo. 58r; Alnwick Mss, ., 101, fo. 58.Google Scholar

20 Alnwick Mss, L. and P. vol. 10, fos. 43, 44, sir, 52V, and loose sheets (the earl's letter to the king, 13 June 1612; and to Caesar, 13 Oct. 1612).Google Scholar

21 S.H. MSS., Q. I. 41–4.

22 S.H. MSS., O. I. 2C, fo. 65; Q. 1. 45; Alnwick Mss, ., 101, fo. 66.Google Scholar

23 Mss, S.H..Google Scholar, 0.1.2C, fos.|76–9; U. 1.4; De Fonblanque, op. cit. H,621–6. Both the household and the estate accounts (S.H. MSS., C and U) show that the earl received his revenues unimpaired throughout. James, M. E., in his introduction to the Estate Accounts of the Earls of Northumberland, 1562–1637 (Surtees Society, vol. CLXIII, 1955), xxiii, refers to the earl's lands as having been ‘sequestrated since his arrest (although in practice the revenues and administration were allowed to remain in his hands)’. This I regard as a contradiction in terms. De Fonblanque (op. cit. II, 313) more understandably falls into the error of assuming that the extent of 1612, which he prints as Appendix xvI, 616–18, was enforced. In fact, the earl's lands were not sequestrated.Google Scholar

24 S.H. MSS., U. I. 4, V. X. 4, 5.

25 Gardiner, , op. cit. VII, 148Google Scholar; Cecil Papers, vol. 134, no. 86; De Fonblanque, op. cit. II 292–3. 322.Google Scholar

26 Gardiner, loc. cit.; De Fonblanque, op. cit. II, 316.

27 I am indebted to His Grace the Duke of Northumberland for free access to his archives at Alnwick and Syon and to the Most Hon. the Marquess of Salisbury for access to the Hatfield MSS. I would also acknowledge my indebtedness to the University of Sheffield Research Grant Committee for financial aid.