1922 STAR CHAMBER UNDER THE TUDORS 525 in the star chamber. The committee sat in private, while the star chamber was a public court ; the committee had a rigid statutory quorum, the star chamber had none. The committee had a definite personnel, but was limited to no time or place ; the star chamber had no definite personnel, but was fixed at Westminster and limited as a rule to term-time. 1 Bills with which the committee dealt were to be put to the chancellor ; those heard in the star chamber were put to the king and council. 2 The two duties specifically allotted to the 1487 committee by 21 Henry VIII, c. 20, which added the lord president to its number, were the fixing of prices of wines and the naming of sheriffs, both of them purely administrative functions, the latter of which was exercised not in the star chamber but in the exchequer or the exchequer chamber. 3 The committee of 1487 is not known to have had a clerk or kept any records ; the clerk of the star chamber was the senior clerk of the council, and its records are abundant. But in those records there has riot yet been found a single case in which the adjudicators in the star chamber correspond with the personnel laid down by the act of 1487. 4 The committee was probably bound by the judge's interpretation in 1493 of the act of 1487 to the effect that the chancellor, treasurer, and lord privy seal alone were judges of the court, and the other four members only assistants ; the star chamber certainly was not. 5 It has long been admitted that, if 3 Henry VII, c. 1, referred to the star chamber, the star chamber never considered itself bound 1 Later on, when the confusion between the committee of 1487 and the council in the star chamber had been made, the latter, as reported by Hudson, used the confused argument that ' the Stat. 3 Henry VII extended not any way to this court, but that the lords authorized by that act may at all times in all places determine the matters therein specified ' (Collectanea luridica, ii. 10). The real point was that the star chamber, being the king's council, was not limited, like the common law-courts, to Westminster or term-time ; but 3 Henry VII, c. 1, imposed no limit of time or place, did not refer to the council in the star chamber, and did not specify the acts done in the star chamber in Hudson's time. As to the personnel of the star chamber, the king or queen, but more normally the lord chancellor, selected it ad hoc on each important occasion. Cf. Letters and Papers, xvin. i. 746, the council in London to the council with the king, ' We . . . appointed the Emperor's Ambassador to be here at the Sterre Chamber, yet we are ignorant of the King's pleasure what audience should be called '. 8 Star chamber proceedings sometimes begin with a bill to the king and council complaining of the defendant's neglect or refusal to observe an injunction made by the chancellor (Trevelyan Papers, i. 129). The bills in Mrs. Temper-ley's Star Chamber Proc. (Somerset Rec. Soc. xxvii) are all addressed to the king or king and council except one (pp. 62-4) which belongs to the court of audience and is addressed to the archbishop.
- There are a number of other acts authorizing the chancellor, treasurer, lord
president, and lord privy seal to make administrative orders, but none of them men- tion the star chamber, though it is sometimes provided that offenders against these orders are to be tried in the star chamber (e. g. 25 Henry VIII, cc. 1, 2), just as offenders against the statute of Proclamations were to be tried there under 31 Henry VIII, c. 8.
- See Leadam, Star Chamber Cases, ii, p. x. 5 See below, p. 538, n. I.
