Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/540

 532 STAR CHAMBER UNDER THE TUDORS October cases for his own decision, even cases of riot. 1 But as early as 1494, by steps which have not been traced, the council in the star chamber had come to be regarded as the chancellor's court. ' Ther hath be ', writes one in November of that year, ' so gret cownsell for the kynges maters that my lord chawnsler kept not the ster chawmber thys viii days but one day at London.' 2 Henry VIII in his earlier years was not so assiduous as his father, 3 and when in middle life he devoted himself to government, it was to matters of high politics rather than to the administration of law and order ; and these were better treated in a privy council than in the public court of star chamber. Meanwhile Wolsey had made the star chamber famous throughout the land by its ' new law ' or unprecedented vigour of administration. There he sat in his estate and held his court, while the king was left with an almost insignificant council attendant ; and the outward manifestation of Wolsey 's impending fall occurred when in October 1529 he ' came into Westminster hall with all his trayne the first day of the Terme ; but none of the kynges seruantes would go before, as they were wont to do, ancl so he sat in the chauncery, but not in the starre chamber, for all the lordes and other the kynges counsaill were gone to Wynsore to the kyng '.* But Wolsey's energy had attracted so much business to the star chamber as to make it unmanageable ; and in 8 Henry VIII (21 April 1516-20 April 1517) he ' ordeyned by the kynges com- mission diuerse under-courtes to here complaintes by bill of poore people '. 5 One was kept in the white hall, one before the king's almoner (Stokesley), a third in the lord treasurer's chamber beside the star chamber, and the fourth at the Rolls. The experiment, says Hall, had only a transient success, partly owing to the defects of the subordinate judges ; and in 1525-6 Wolsey embarked upon a different and far more extensive policy of decentralization. Part of it was possibly due to the demands of the king to be better provided with counsel, which led to the provisions in the Eltham ordinances. The rest was the delegation to provincial councils of all star chamber cases arising within their spheres of jurisdic- tion, notably the Lady Mary's council for Wales and its marches 1 Scofield, p. 6 : ' the L. Lisle and Brightmere and others dismist of the riott, for that the kinge himselfe would heare the same, as his atturney made certifficate '. Probably this was to induce the offenders to compound. council in the star chamber, whereas he had no such pre-eminence in the council attendant, so that Wolsey had personal as well as public reasons for magnifying the former. 8 Occasionally he sat in the star chamber ; cf. Hall, Chron. pp. 599-600. 4 Hall, p. 760. 8 Ibid. p. 585 ; Letters and Papers, iii. 571 (placed under 1519 by Brewer, but probably belongs to 1517) ; Fiddes, Life of Wolsey, p. 532 ; Hudson, Collectanea luridica, ii. 219.
 * Paston Letters, iii. 385. The chancellor became almost an autocrat in the-