Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/537

 1922 STAR CHAMBER UNDER THE TUDORS 529 lords ' to hear and determine cases in the star chamber for a week, 17-22 October, until Sir T. More took his seat as chancellor on the 24th. 1 The act of 1529 may be a somewhat clumsy reaction to 1487, from Wolsey's predominance in favour of his two ducal and secular rivals. So far as star chamber jurisdiction was con- cerned, 21 Henry VIII, c. 20, was even more abortive than 3 Henry VII, c. 1. The council in the star chamber continued to exercise its traditional jurisdiction in complete indifference to these statutes ; and Sir Thomas Smith, who rightly remarks that the court began long before, and with equal justice that it ' took great augmentation and authoritie ' in Wolsey's time, has as little to say of the act of 1529 as of that of 1487. 2 We need not retail the conclusive proofs that during the fifteenth century the council sat in the star chamber, dealing there with judicial as well as political business and calling in the justices of the two benches, not as judges in the council, but as referees on points of law. 3 It is more to our purpose to remark that, while it is necessary to point out that under the Lancas- trians the council was also the star chamber, there is equal need to remember that under Henry VII the star chamber was also the council. The Liber Intrationum* for instance, is not, as it was treated by Elizabethan and Jacobean transcribers, merely a register of judicial proceedings in the star chamber, but a general council book recording such matters as an order for the arrest of Robin of Redesdale, 5 the conclusion of peace with Scotland and Spain, arrangements for succouring Calais by means of levies in Kent, Sussex, Suffolk, and Essex, and for the defence of the Scottish borders, discussion of proposed parliamentary legislation, and resolutions to execute Warwick and Per kin Warbeck and to dispatch and equip an expedition to Ireland. 6 1 Hall, Chron., p. 760 ; Cavendish, Wolsey, 1852, pp. 159-61 ; Letters and Papers, iv. 6025. that he has set forth the government of England as it stands ' at this day the xxviii of March Anno 1565 '. 3 Leadam, Star Chamber, Cases ii, p. xii. The exchequer chamber, says Bacon (Henry VII, s. a. 1485), was the council chamber of the judges. The surviving exeerpts from it (e.g. Lansd. MS. 639, pp. 78, 92-5, 97, 114-18) are of precisely the same character as the Brit. Mus. MSS. from which Nicolas com- piled much of what he called ' The Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council ', and they need to be treated as fragments of the council book of Henry VII. They do not appear to belong to the same category as the ' Kallendars ' handed over to Sir F. Bacon as clerk of the star chamber in 1608 (Egerton Papers, Camden Soc., p. 428). 6 A somewhat mysterious reference ; see Scofield, p. 7 n. Ibid. pp. 20-4. A. similar jumble, not of administrative and judicial, but of legislative and judicial business, can be seen in the ' Orders of the Day' for the house of lords at the present time. No distinction is drawn between the proceedings of the house as a legislative 5 body and as a supreme court of appeal. The Liber Intrationum VOL. XXXVII. NO. CXLVHI. - M m
 * T. Smith, De Republica Anglorum, ed. Alston, p. 117. Smith states (ibid. p. xiv)