Star Chamber

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For other uses see Star Chamber (disambiguation).

The Star Chamber (Latin Camera stellata) was an English court of law at the royal Palace of Westminster that sat between 1487 and 1641 when the court itself was abolished.

In modern usage, legal or administrative bodies with strict, arbitrary rulings and secretive proceedings are sometimes called, metaphorically or poetically, star chambers.

1 Name origins
2 History
- 2.1 Under the Stuarts
3 Abolition and aftermath
4 References
5 See also

[edit] Name origins

The court took its name from the Star Chamber which was built in Edward II's reign specifically for the meetings of the King's council. The origin of the use of the word "Star" is in dispute.

Some sources [1] state that the name refers to the decoration on the room's ceiling; however, there are other suggested etymologies and there is no proof that there were stars on the ceiling. (Their absence in later times does not disprove the theory either, since they could have been obscured with grime or been otherwise covered over. This happened frequently with decorated ceilings.)

An alternative theory about the origin of the name is that the name comes from the use of the chamber to store the Starrs. A Starr is any written contract between Christians and Jews. In Hebrew such contracts were called Shtaroth. The Starrs were written in triplicate and one part was deposited in the court for safe keeping. The court chamber where these contracts were kept became known as the Starr (or Star) Chamber. The origins of the Star Chamber became obscure after the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 by Edward I while the chamber continued to house a Court of Law.

[edit] History

The Court evolved from meetings of the king's royal council, with its roots going back to the medieval period. Despite popular belief, the so-called "Star Chamber Act" of Henry VII's second parliament (1487) did not actually empower the Star Chamber, but rather created a separate tribunal distinct from the King's general Council.^[1]

Initially well regarded because of its speed and flexibility, it was made up of Privy Councillors as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters. In a sense the court was a supervisory body, overseeing the operations of lower courts, though its members could hear cases by direct appeal as well. The court was set up to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against prominent people, those so powerful that ordinary courts could never convict them of their crimes.

Star Chamber sessions were closed to the public. Henry Tudor (Henry VII) utilized the power of Star Chamber to break the power of the landed gentry which had been such a cause for problems in the Wars of the Roses. When local courts were often clogged or mismanaged, the court of Star Chamber became a site of remittance for common people against the excesses of the nobility.

Under the leadership of Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey and Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (1515-1529), the Court of Star Chamber became a political weapon for bringing actions against opponents to the policies of Henry VIII, his ministers and his Parliament.

Although the court was initially a court of appeal, Henry VIII and his councillors Wolsey and Cranmer encouraged plaintiffs to bring their cases directly to the Star Chamber, bypassing the lower courts entirely.

The Court was used extensively as a colonial legal weapon to control the Celtic fringe, most notably Wales, after the Acts of Union of 1538-43. The Tudor-created gentry in Wales turned to the Chamber to turn out Welsh landowners and protect themselves, and in general protect the English advantages of the Acts of Union.

Court sessions were held in secret, with no indictments, no right of appeal, no juries, and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing.

[edit] Under the Stuarts

The power of the Court of Star Chamber grew considerably under the House of Stuart, and by the time of Charles I of England it had become synonymous with misuse and abuse of power by the king and his circle. James I of England and his son Charles used the court to examine cases of sedition, which meant that the court could be used to suppress opposition to royal policies. It came to be used to try nobles too powerful to be brought to trial in the lower court, including the actions of Henry VIII.

Charles I used the Court of Star Chamber as Parliamentary substitute during the eleven years of Personal Rule, when he ruled without a Parliament. Charles I made extensive use of the Court of Star Chamber to prosecute dissenters, including the Puritans who fled to New England.

On 17 October 1632, the Court of Star Chamber banned all "news books" because of complaints from Spanish and Austrian diplomats that coverage of the Thirty Years' War in English newspapers was unfair. Newspapers had to be printed in Amsterdam and then smuggled into the country until the ban was lifted six years later.

[edit] Abolition and aftermath

In 1641, the Long Parliament, inflamed by the severe treatment of John Lilburne, abolished the Star Chamber. The Chamber itself stood until demolished in 1806, when its materials were salvaged. The door now hangs in the nearby Westminster School.

The excesses of the Star Chamber under Charles I, including the case of John Lilburne, constituted one of the rallying cries for those who eventually executed Charles I. Throughout its history, however, it enjoyed some degree of support from the lower classes, who saw it as a bulwark against the aristocracy and gentry.

In the early 1900s, American poet, biographer and dramatist Edgar Lee Masters, 1868-1950, commented:

"In the Star Chamber the council could inflict any punishment short of death, and frequently sentenced objects of its wrath to the pillory, to whipping and to the cutting off of ears. ... With each embarrassment to arbitrary power the Star Chamber became emboldened to undertake further usurpation. ... The Star Chamber finally summoned juries before it for verdicts disagreeable to the government, and fined and imprisoned them. It spread terrorism among those who were called to do constitutional acts. It imposed ruinous fines. It became the chief defense of Charles against assaults upon those usurpations which cost him his life. . . ."