Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/532

 524 STAR CHAMBER UNDER THE TUDORS October There are a number of statutes referring either to the act of 1487 or to the star chamber, but none connects the two before 5 Elizabeth, c. 9, 1 and that refers guardedly to ' the power or aucthoritee given by Acte of Parliament in the tyme of Henry VII th to the Lord Chancellor of England and others of the Kinges Counsell ... to examine and punish Riottes, heinous Perjuries. . . which Lord Chancellor and others since the making of the saide Acte have mostly commonly used to hear and determyne such Matters in the Courte at West m - commonly called the Starre chamber '. The political writers tell the same tale. Sir Thomas Smith in 1565 2 does not mention the 1487 act in his account of the star chamber, but attributes its augmentation to Wolsey. Before 1600, however, Camden and Lambarde are familiar with the connexion between 3 Henry VII, c. 1, and the court ; 3 a con- temporary annotator of Crompton's L'Authoritie et Jurisdiction des Courts (1594) believes that that act was its foundation ; 4 and from that time onwards every writer feels bound to mention 3 Henry VII, c. 1, though all of them, who have any pretence to scholarship, denounce the absurdity of the theory, while they are puzzled to explain exactly what effect the act had upon the court. Maitland noted that Edmund Plowden (1518-85), a great common lawyer, was credited with the opinion that the star chamber derived all its legal authority from Henry's act, 5 but the junior counsel who quoted him was overruled by the court. Plowden, however, begat the theory on which the long parliament abolished the star chamber. History is very much of a palimpsest, and, having cleared the 1487 act of its later pseudo-star chamber accretions, we may proceed to examine its original character. We can do so best by contrasting the committee which it set up with the council sitting 1 There may be an earlier legislative reference to the supposed connexion. In a draft for 1533 of ' acts necessary to be made at this Parliament ' (Letters and Papers, vi. 1381) is a proposal that the chancellor with two judges may proceed in all cases in the star chamber notwithstanding the absence of the treasurer and others men- tioned in previous acts. The proposal got no further ; it was probably pointed out to the originator of the idea that it was unnecessary and mistaken. The star chamber was the king in council in the star chamber, and no statutory requirement of a quorum in the king's council was permissible. A quorum was often required by statute when the officiating body was not technically the king in council, but a group of officials like those named in 3 Henry VII, c. 1, 21 Henry VIII, c. 20, 25 Henry VIII, c. 2. 3 Camden, Britannia, ed. 1586, p. 63, ed. 1590, p. 107, ed. 1594, p. 112, ed. 1600, p. 141 ; Lambarde, Archeion, pp. 165-200, dedicated to Sir Robert Cecil in 1591, but not published till 1635. In 1586 Camden has nothing about the history of the court ; in 1590 he has super iori secvlo instituta fuit ; but not till 1594 has he any reference to Henry VII or parliamentary statute. He probably got it from his friend Lambarde, who seems first to have given literary currency to Plowden's theory. 4 Manuscript note in the University College copy by Charles Hales, who has written the date 10 December 1594 on the title-page. B Lectures on Const. History, p. 262. No reference is given, but it is obviously to the story in Hudson apud Hargrave, Collectanea luridica, ii. 50.
 * De Republica Anglorum, ed. Alston, p. 117 ; see below, note 2, p. 529.