Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/536

 528 STAR CHAMBER UNDER THE TUDORS October may be based on the Liber Intrationum, that the star chamber ' did usually determine causes when neither treasurer, chancellor, nor privy seal were present, but sometimes the president of the council alone, 1 and sometimes assisted by others of the council, above forty times in the 12 and 13 of Henry VII. And sometimes, when neither treasurer, president, chancellor, nor privy seal were present, other lords of the council sat for the determining causes.' Other evidence bears out this account ; and it is very probable that Wolsey, soon after he became chancellor in December 1515, transferred to the star chamber the jurisdiction over household misdemeanours. There was nothing in the act of 1487 to prevent the council from hearing such cases in the star chamber, and Wolsey did not share Henry VII's reluctance to humiliate others of the king's servants in public. The more he did so, the more he magnified himself and his office, and he made the star chamber his megaphone and his press agency. ' And for your realm,' he wrote to Henry VIII, 2 ' our Lord be thanked, it was never in such peace nor tranquillity ; for all this summer I have had neither of riot, felony, nor forcible entry, but that your laws be in every place indifferently ministered without leaning of any manner. Albeit, there hath lately been a fray betwixt Pygot, your serjeant, and Sir Andrew Windsor's servants for the seisin of a ward, whereto they both pretend titles ; in the which one man was slain. I trust the next term to learn them the law of the Star Chamber that they shall ware how from henceforth they shall redress their matter with their hands. They be both learned in the temporal law, and I doubt not good example shall ensue to see them learn the new law of the Star Chamber.' It is difficult to say precisely what Wolsey meant by ' the new law of the Star Chamber '. There had been no new legislation, and Wolsey may merely be contrasting the temporal ( = common) law with the civil law procedure of the star chamber. But he would hardly describe this as new, and the word refers more probably to Wolsey's new administration. The case between Piggott and Windsor, both of them eminent king's servants, was just the sort of case which would, if our interpretation of 3 Henry VII, c. 1, is correct, have been dealt with under that act ; and it has long been thought that in Wolsey's time the committee of 1487 was reabsorbed into the whole council. When he was deprived of the Great Seal, Norfolk, treasurer, and Suffolk, the president-designate of the council, sat ' with the assent of other 1 These were probably poor men's suits, the ' court ' of requests being a still undeveloped part of the council in the star chamber. We must also remember that Hudson regards everything done by the council in the star chamber in Henry VII's reign as star chamber business in the sense attached to the phrase under James I. 2 Letters and Papers, ii, app. 38. The letter is undated, but belongs probably to August 1518.