Star Chamber has come down to us through history as an institution of pure, unalloyed evil; it is seen as ranking "with such proper names as ‘the Inquisition’ and ‘Machiavelli’ as one of modern history’s few really dirty words". However, only a relatively short time earlier, none other a common-law luminary than Coke, had praised the Court as "the most honourable court...that is in the Christian world". The theme of this essay will be to analyse the reasons for this remarkable transition from popularity, to its portrayal by the Whig historians as a court whose sole function was to "fine, mutilate and imprison every man who dared to raise his voice against the government".

The origin of the Court’s name is, as Holdsworth points out, a matter of some controversy, but it seems most likely to have come from the room in which the Council met in Westminster. The Court emerged out of the omnipresent judicial jurisdiction of the King’s Council, and crystallised into a court during the reign of Henry VII. The pressing need to find a court to "repress the insolency of the noblemen...of the north part of England", as Smith put it at the time, (in other words the "over-mighty subject" that had plunged the country into the Wars of the Roses,) was the precipitant. It was, however, under the Chancellorship of Wolsey that the Court’s jurisdiction and business really exploded. Indeed, many of the accusations of arbitrariness and illegality that were to plague the Court in its later years stem from the unique judicial practices of this supremely self-confident man.

Procedure in Star Chamber was very quick and simple, although, as with all the conciliar courts, it decelerated and solidified the further it strode into time. The court initially dealt with civil cases, but by our period it exercised a criminal jurisdiction. Proceedings were begun by written information and thus bypassed the need for convincing a grand jury of the possibility of an offence having been committed. This was of clear benefit to the Crown, as indeed for private litigants, but suspected abuse, along with the oral proceedings developed later, caused the system to attract considerable "odium" during the seventeenth century. Perhaps, in this area, the seeds of the Court’s downfall were sown from the beginning. It should also be noted that proceedings were conducted inquisitorially, without a jury. Not something to endear the Court to many Englishmen.

Now that a skeleton understanding of the background has been established, it is time to look at the various grounds under which the Court earned its unenviable reputation as a "terrible ... tyrannical tribunal".

The first, and perhaps the most notorious, is that of the harsh corporal and financial punishments which it meted out, if we are to believe the Whig historians, with terrible impunity. The annals of history are replete with examples of these atrocities: of which a typical punishment would be as follows, this from a 1597 decree:

"For these deceits and falsehoods they were sentenced ...to wear paper [specifying their offence]...to lose either of them an ear ... and to pay one hundred pounds"

This was mild by what was to come.

Kenyon quotes a number of cases where severe punishments were handed out, such as to Sir Thomas Wiseman, who was fined ten thousand pounds, with seven thousand damages, degraded from the order of the knighthood and his baronetcy cancelled, his ears cut off, placed in the pillory and ordered to be imprisoned during the King’s pleasure. As that author says in a different work: "as the High Commission could unfrock a priest, so it seemed Star Chamber could degrade a gentleman.". Of course, there was also the notorious case of Prynne, Burton and Bastwick, which caused such a public uproar (of whom and which more later), who were fined five thousand pounds each, with mutilation, and of Bishop Williams, fined ten thousand pounds. Perhaps the most severe case is mentioned by Phillips. which is the horrifying case of Dr. Leighton, who was fined ten thousand pounds, committed to the Fleet for life, degraded from his ministry, then brought to the pillory and whipped. Following which, he was branded, had one ear cut off and one nostril slit. After a few days dubious respite, the same process, with the corresponding mutilation on the other side of his face.

Of course, as Phillips says "there is nothing that can excuse the appalling cruelty of the sentence or the ruthlessness with which it was carried out". However, there is evidence to suggest that these punishments were the exception rather than the rule, and indeed that they were not as severe as it would appear at first glance. Firstly, although the fines were frequently enormous, it was very rare that anyone would pay the full amount. They would be reduced at mitigation sessions at the end of each term, in the vast majority of cases, including some of those mentioned above. The reason such huge fines were imposed in theory was to express "the indignation of the amateur judges" and as a deterrent: "in terrorem populi" as Holdsworth puts it. So, it can be seen that the Court did make efforts to reduce the fines to a more realistic size.

Nor was corporal punishment meted out in every case: Kenyon and Phillips point out that between 1630 and 1641, out of 239 known sentences of the Court, only 19 involved corporal punishment. In any case, ear-cropping "was not out of line" in the cruel age in which the Court operated. One must also remember, in an age when capital punishment was common, and the Star Chamber was denied the power to touch life and limb, what few alternatives were open to it. Furthermore, as Barnes tells us "Imprisonment, while often for a term at the King’s pleasure seldom extended more than a few months".

So, to tie up all the above evidence; with regard to "vindictive punishments", it would seem that Star Chamber’s reputation doe not conform to its record. Certainly, on occasion the punishments were nothing less than barbaric, but this was very much the exception. By enlarge, the actual punishments were nothing out of the ordinary for the time.

It is traditionally claimed that Star Chamber "habitually employed torture", a claim shared by Trevelyan and Maitland. However, this classical Whig contention is hotly disputed by more modern writers such as Barnes and Elton. They stress that torture was never used in the course of a trial by Star Chamber, but only rarely by the security services of the state, which were administered by the Privy Council. Furthermore, they claim that most cases in which torture was employed were those of treason, which was outside Star Chamber’s jurisdiction. Any torture involved in a Star Chamber case was therefore carried out before the suspect first appeared in the Court, which had no part in it. This may all be true, but these writer’s contentions rely heavily on the distinction between the Privy Council and Star Chamber. A distinction in role there certainly was, but membership of the two bodies was almost identical. This is therefore a very technical distinction: the same people were ordering the torture, regardless of what body they were sitting in. This is of course the danger in having one group of people making and enforcing the laws: this will be discussed in greater detail shortly. In any case, the statement that the Court "used torture to extract confessions" is incorrect, albeit on arguably technical and insubstantial grounds.

One ground that might explain the Star Chamber’s bad reputation is the possibility of a clash with the Common Law. Hostility to the conciliar courts had existed since medieval times. However, historiographical opinion on this issue is divided, indeed it seems that the more modern writers favour the idea that there was no clash of interests between the two systems. Firstly, as Churchill points out, the Star Chamber owed something to Roman Law, which was seen by common lawyers as a foreign importation, with no place in our system. The inquisitorial, jury-less procedure added to the perceived "un-English" nature of the Court. This may well explain part of the Court’s reputation at the hands of Whig historians; to whom anything other than their own system would be abhorrent. Barnes, however, is scathingly critical of this perception, pointing out that the inquisitorial procedure had English origins, (in the Lord Chancellor’s jurisdiction,) and that it gave the defendant many advantages, such as being able to put his own case permanently on record; something not usually allowed. Perhaps this contributed to any jealousy from the common law, in any case, it seems an undeserved contributor to an already bad reputation.

It has also been claimed that the Court’s "very wide jurisdiction" made it "the great rival of the common-law courts". This has support in the way the 1641 Act of Abolition tried to use the 1487 Act to show that the Star Chamber had exceeded its jurisdiction, not a very sound historical claim. Holdsworth too supports the idea of a clash between the two systems, but modern writers argue that it did not "arouse the jealousy of the common-law courts". They point to the fact that common-law judges sat in Star Chamber, and that it administered the common law, albeit by different procedures. Although this is undoubtedly true, on balance, it seems likely that the inherent jealousy of the common law towards other courts, and its closeness to the Parliamentary party, makes it highly likely that there was a certain amount of tension, which may have contributed to the Court’s abolition and subsequent reputation. History does, after all, pay homage at the court of the victors.

The crux of any argument over Star Chamber is politics. The Court did not exist in a vacuum, and it would be fatal to any analysis of this area to ignore the political and social storms that were brewing in the 1630s.

Firstly there is the issue of religion. In particular, the looming presence of Archbishop Laud. As Young and Holmes point out, "religious and political considerations were closely linked". Laud used the quasi-political Star Chamber (and High Commission, which never had a good reputation, and by association with which Star Chamber was to suffer,) to "suppress Puritan propaganda and enforce conformity on clergy and laity alike". Bearing in mind the strong Puritan elements in Parliament (Cromwell himself is an excellent example,) and the growing resentment of "Popery" in the nation at large, this was not an especially wise idea in the long-term. It is here that we return to the notorious case of Prynne, Burton and Bastwick, cruelly punished by Star Chamber in 1637 for opposing Laud by "seditious", i.e. opposing literature. Censorship was something for which Star Chamber had assumed jurisdiction, which in itself counted badly in its subsequent reputation. The real reasons for the outcry over this case are twofold, but severity of punishment is not one of them. Firstly, religious politics: as opponents of the deeply unpopular Laud, they were made martyrs. As Zagorin points out, "a wave of sympathy went out to them form the spectators... well-wishers were so many that the ecclesiastical authorities threatened some with punishment". Secondly, they were gentlemen, who were perceived as being "members of a class traditionally free from the savagery of corporal punishment.". Clarendon stated at the time that it was thought that "their education and degrees and quality [sic.] would have secured them from such infamous judgements". Although gentlemen had suffered in this way in Tudor times without raising much comment, there had not been cases of such controversy before, and the combination was explosive. As Lockyer puts it: "it was guilt by association rather than the actual abuse of its historical powers" that led to the end for Star Chamber. One can see a recurring theme in all the quoted examples of Star Chamber harshness and the reaction to them: "it is to the bishops that the paramount objection is taken" (Phillips). A contemporary source, Rushworth, illustrates this perfectly when he says "nothing would satisfie the revenge of some clergymen [my emphasis] but Cropt Ears, slit noses, branded faces, whipt Back, gag’d Mouths" (sic.). It is becoming clear then, that the animosity to Star Chamber, on which its reputation is based, stems from its unpopular, political, religious prosecutions, not the severity of its sentences.

Closely linked to religion was the King’s power, against which a movement had been steadily building, and which reached one of its bloodier confrontations during Charles I’s "personal rule". The Court was used to enforce royal proclamations, so much so that in 1620 Chamberlain complained "the world is now much terrified of the Star Chamber, there being not so little an offence against any proclamation but is liable and subject to the censure of that court". This was exacerbated by the increase in the number of government prosecutions, many upon the oral procedure of ore tenus, based upon the defendant’s admission of guilt. A good example of the way Star Chamber was used for Charles’ personal rule is the case of Richard Chambers, fined £2000 for "comparing of his Majesty’s government with the government of the Turks, intending thereby to make the people believe that his Majesty’s happy government may be termed Turkish tyranny" .

So, there was clearly a growing opposition to Charles’ "personal rule" in general, which Star Chamber was used to suppress. One aspect which most irked the influential classes, next to religion, was finance. Charles, like his father, spent huge amounts, and when his lavish personal life and the needs of state were combined, he was perpetually short of funds. In the absence of a helpful Parliament, he turned to "unconstitutional modes of extorting revenue". Namely, Star Chamber, for fines naturally went to the Crown. As Kenyon states, "the most important single cause of Star Chamber’s unpopularity was the role it was called to play in the 1630’s in the enforcement of the King’s financial and social policies". So much so that Pym, one of the leaders of the Parliamentary faction complained in 1640: "The Star Chamber now is become a court of revenue". Between 1631 and 1641, 175 actions were brought by the Attorney-General in Star Chamber, most for breach of proclamations; effectively a demand for money. A good example of this are the actions for payment of ship money. Social policies were enforced too, and naturally the fines for such offences as building tenements, enclosures and monopoly infringements, all went to the Crown. This was realised, and the arm grabbing money for the King’s purse, Star Chamber, was noted and despised. Its reputation declined accordingly.

However, there is much evidence that "this evil reputation is not really deserved". For example, during the last ten years of the Court’s life, although there was an increase in government prosecutions, over 80% came from private individuals. So, although "political cases were merely a small fraction of (its) judicial business,...they left a strong impression on the public mind.". As with other areas, the publicised, notorious cases have obscured the rest of the Court’s existence, to paint it all black. However, in this case, this is probably deserved; small in proportion though these cases may have been, they had a momentous impact.

When considering whether Star Chamber’s reputation is deserved, it is useful to see what the rest of the law was doing in the same period. Firstly, as Barnes points out, Star Chamber was not alone in enforcing the Royal Prerogative: so too did the common-law Courts, for example: R v Hampden (1637), a ship money case, which Star Chamber had refused to try as being outside its jurisdiction. Furthermore, if Star Chamber was barbarous, so was the common law. For this was an age when women were lashed for having an illegitimate child, when felons had their hands severed and nailed to the gallows for throwing a stone at a judge, and when, under the Poor Law, women were to be "whipped ‘til their backs be bloody". Star Chamber was hardly a sore in a sea of enlightened tranquillity. The most graphic example of the common law equalling anything from Star Chamber was the "Bloody Assizes" after the Monmouth Rebellion, a little later in time, where the infamous Judge Jeffreys tried and convicted over a thousand men in two weeks, often forcing convictions out of unwilling juries.

So, on balance, what are we to make of all this contradictory evidence? It is possible that the Court simply outlived its time (as Guy has suggested,) and thereby became vulnerable to abuse. Certainly it had made its valuable contribution (especially in the more sophisticated areas of our law, such as libel and forgery,) before its controversial last ten years.

It is useful to bear Butterfield’s thesis in mind at this point. We must be careful not to be too easily persuaded by the Whig view of good triumphing over the evil Star Chamber, so producing our system today. This ignores the contributions Star Chamber has made, and is too simplified. For our system today is the result of clash and combination, not of our righteous system beating down the iniquity that went before. Unfortunately, it is on this simplified basis that Star Chamber’s reputation has been built up. This is a reputation that is exaggerated and ill-deserved, as far as punishments were concerned, for the outcry was for political reasons. However, its reputation for unpopular prosecutions is more complicated. Certainly, it ignores all its good work and popularity in its early existence. But, holding up Star Chamber as a justification of our separation of powers probably is deserved, not so much because of what did happen, for that has been exaggerated, but as a good indication of what might happen. The minority of political cases in the 1630s are evidence enough of what could happen in a state where the executive has too strong a judicial hand. One must remember that private business will always continue: the fact that the state did not entirely take over the Court’s business does not mean that undesireable things were not happening.

It is unfortunate for this court that the autumn of its life should have been its undoing, but the realities of its existence have been obscured by the more important political considerations, giving it a reputation that is undeserved, but justified as a warning of what can happen when power goes astray.