Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/545

 1922 STAR CHAMBER UNDER THE TUDORS 537 abeyance, the Crown's power of varying the personnel of the court for each occasion increased. It is certain that only some of the scores of counsellors of Henry VII and Henry VIII sat in the star chamber, and that Wolsey and Henry VIII on occasion made the selection. In Elizabeth's reign the rank and description of councillor, apart from that of privy councillor, tended to die out, and was not even applied to peers. 1 But she recognized the desirability of calling others than privy councillors to sit in the star chamber, especially in important cases, and adopted the practice of calling them by commission, 2 a term which emphasized, as against consiliarius natus, the royal derivation of the authority in virtue of which the commissioners sat. So we find persons appointed to try Secretary Davison in the star chamber ' by virtue of a commission to them directed ' ; 3 another case in February 1597 is tried there ' by the Lord Keeper and the rest of her Majesty's commissioners ' ; 4 in May 1601 'these gentlemen hereunder mentioned were called at the starr chamber before theire Lordshippes by vertue of her Majesty's commission ' ; 5 and in February 1591 a peerage case is ordered to be ' heard at the star chamber by such of their Lordships and others as are therunto appointed by her Majesty '. 6 The same terminology was used in the court of requests ; on 9 March 1552 Edward VI appointed eight ' speciall commissioners ' to hear all the sutes and requeues aforesaide ', and although only one was a privy councillor, the appearances before them are coram consilio. 1 The records of the star chamber under Elizabeth and James I leave no doubt that others besides privy councillors sat in the court. In Davison's case ten out of the thirteen members of the court were not privy councillors. 8 This was a quite unusual proportion, due no doubt to the delicacy of privy councillors condemning a colleague in the star chamber for what they had ordered him to do at the council board. At the well-known trial on 15 November 1581 of Lord Vaux and others on the charge of har- bouring Edmund Campion 9 three, besides the professional lawyers, 1 Lords' Journals, i. 576. Commission is a delegation of power, not the instrument by which it is delegated ; and power may be delegated by letters patent or close, privy seals, warrants, writs, or even word of mouth (cf. Cowell, Interpreter ; Egerton Papers, pp. 24, 319-21 ; Leadam, Court of Requests, p. Ixxxiii ; Lit. Remains of Edward VI, p. 499). 3 Nicolas, Life of Damson, pp. 303, 330. Ibid., 1590-1, p. 251. ' Public Record Office List of Cases, pref. 8 Nicolas, loc. cit., prints two manuscripts, both of which give the same personnel ; so does Camden, Annales, ii. 540 ; Hudson also discusses the case (Collectanea luridica, ii. 25). There is a full report of this case in Harl. MS. 859, fos. 44-51, and a shorter one in the Ellesmere MSS. is printed in extenso in Hist. MSS. Comm. , 1 1 th Rep., App. vii, p. 1 62. Bruce printed the Harl. MS. in Archaeologia, xxx. 80-110. The Privy Council Register
 * There are no sixteenth-century documents properly called ' commissions '.
 * Acts of Priv, Coun., 1596-7, p. 479. Ibid., 1600-1, pp. 356-7.