STAR CHAMBER, a British tribunal which met in the old council chamber of the palace of Westminster, and is said to have received its name from the roof of that apartment being decorated with gilt stars, or because in it "starres" or Jewish bonds had been kept. It is sup posed to have originated in early times out of the exercise of jurisdiction by the king's council, whose powers in this re spect had greatly declined when in 1487 Henry VII., anxious to repress the in dolence and illegal exactions of power ful landowners, revived and remodelled them, or, according to some investi gators, instituted what was practically an entirely new tribunal. The statute conferred on the Chancellor, the Treas urer, and the Keeper of the Privy Seal, with the assistance of a bishop and a temporal Lord of the Council, and Chief-justices, or two other justices in their absence, a jurisdiction to punish, without a jury, the misdemeanors of sheriffs and juries, as well as riots and unlawful assemblies. Henry VIII. added to the other members of the court the president of the Council, and ulti mately all the privy-councillors were members of it.
The civil jurisdiction of the Star Chamber comprised controversies be tween English and foreign merchants, testamentary causes, disputes between the heads and commonalty of corpora tions, lay and ecclesiastical, and claims to deodands. As a criminal court it
could inflict any punishment short of death, and had cognizance of forgery, perjury, riots, maintenance, fraud, li bels, conspiracy, etc. Treason, murder, and felony could be brought under the jurisdiction of the Star Chamber, where the king chose to remit the capital sen tence. The form of proceeding was by written information and interrogatories, except when the accused person con fessed.
Regardless of the existing rule that the confession must be free and uncon strained, pressure of every kind, includ ing torture, was used to procure ack nowledgments of guilt; admissions of the most immaterial facts were construed into confessions; and fine, imprison ment, and mutilation inflicted on a mere oral proceeding, without hearing the accused, by a court consisting of the im mediate representatives of prerogative. In 1641 a bill was carried in both Houses which decreed the abolition of the Star Chamber and the equally unpopular High Commission Court.