Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/546

 538 STAR CHAMBER UNDER THE TUDORS October were not privy councillors, Lords Buckhurst, Cromwell, and Norris. 1 At Arundel's trial in the star chamber on 17 May 1586 there were present ' the judges of every Bench, saving the Lord Chief Justice of England who was sick. Mr. Justice Periam gave judgement, with his opinion, the first, whereto all the rest did consent '. 2 At the end of Elizabeth's reign the bishops of London, Winchester, and Worcester were occasionally present, 3 although not privy councillors, and the queen's almoner regularly sat in the court to claim deodands and goods of felones de se. 4 An examination of the list of attendances given in Mr. Baildon's edition of Hawarde's Reports (pp. Ixxv-lxxxv) shows that the attendance of others than privy councillors continued till 1609, when his reports cease. James I's mention of privy councillors as only one of the four sorts of persons composing the court contradicts any other supposition as late as 1616 ; and Rushworth carries on the practice to 1640. All the authorities are in fact agreed, though it is doubtless true, as Hudson says, that the attendance was ' much lessened since the barons and earls, not being privy councillors, have forborne their attendance '. 5 The star chamber abolished by the long parliament was not therefore a court created in 1487 and resting on 3 Henry VJI, c. 1, but a jurisdiction appertaining to the king's medieval council ; and a realization of this fact helps us to answer the much-vexed question what, if any, was the statutory authority for the vague and extensive jurisdiction exercised in the star chamber. The doubt arises from speaking of the star chamber when we should speak of the king's council, and the question is what was the statutory authority upon which that council's is wanting from 1582-6, but Buckhurst's admission in February 1585-6 is mentioned by Walsingham in For. Col., 1585-6, p. 353, and also in Rutland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.) i. 189. Cromwell and Norris were never privy councillors. 1 The account in Harl. MS. is particularly interesting as showing that in the star chamber members voted as they did in treason trials before the house of lords, i. e. beginning with the junior member, the chancellor or lord keeper voting last. This rule of the council in the star chamber was formally adopted in 1627 for the privy council and was reaffirmed in 1878 to regulate proceedings in its judicial committee (Anson, Law and Custom, ed. 1908, n. ii. 293-4). ' No publication,' continues the order in council, ' is afterwards to be made by any man how the particular voices and opinions went'; and this rule applies or applied also to the cabinet committee of the privy council. As early as 16 July 1428, however, a councillor subscribed a minute nolens volo (Nicolas, iii. 312). All votes were equal, except possibly that of the chancellor it was even maintained that he could give sentence by himself (Hawarde, Reports, pp. 5-6). In this respect as in so many others the judges' interpretation of the act of 1487 that all members of that committee except the chancellor, treasurer, and lord privy seal, were merely assistants and not judges was not regarded as binding the star chamber ; and no distinction was there made between the privy councillors and other members. * Lodge, Illustrations, ii. 286. 8 Egerton Papers, p. 322; Hudson, ii. 19, 56, 137; Leadam, Star Chamber Cases, i, p. xxxix ; Hawarde, Reports, passim. Hudson, ii. 57. Ibid. ii. 36.