The judges of the court of Star-Chamber were the lord chancellor or lord keeper, who presided, and when the voices were equal gave a casting vote, the lord treasurer, the lord privy seal, and the president of the council, who were members of the court ex officio, probably by usage sineo the statute of 3 Henry VII. Iu addition to these, were associated, in early periods of the history of the court, any peers of the realm who chose to attend. According to Sir Thomas Smith, the judges in his time were tho "lord chancellor, the lord treasurer, all the king's majesty's council, and the barons of this land." (' Common wealth of England,' h. iii c. 5.) Hudson states that the number of attendant judges "in the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. hare been well near to forty ; at some one time thirty ; in the reign of Queen Elizabeth often times, but now (that is, in the time of James 1.) much lessened, since the barons and earls, not being privy councillors, have forborne their attendance." He further states, that "in the times of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. the court was most commonly frequented by seven or eight bishops and prelates every sitting-day ; " and adds, " that in those times, the fines trenched not to the destruc tion of the offender's estate, and utter ruin of him and his prosperity, as now they do, but to his correction and amendment, the elergy'a song being of mercy." (' Coll. Jurid.; vol. ii., p. 36.) The settled course during the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth and the reigns of James I. and Charles I. seems to have been to admit only such peers as judges of the court as were members of the privy council.
The civil jurisdiction of the Star-Clamber comprehended mercantile controversies between English and foreign merchants, testamentary causes, and differences between the heads and commonalty of corpo rations, both lay and spiritual. The court also disposed of the claims of the king's almoner to deodands, as above referred to, and also such claims as were made by subjects to deodands and catulla felonum by virtue of charters from the crown. The criminal jurisdiction of the court was very extensive. If the king chose to remit the capital punishment, the court bad jurisdiction to punish as crimes even treason, murder, and felony. Under the comprehensive name of con tempts of the king's authority, all offences against the state were included. Forgery, perjury, riots, maintenance, embracery, fraud, libels, conspiracy; and false accusation, misconduct by judges, justices of the peace, sheriff's, jurors, and other persons connected with the administration of justice, were all punishable in the Star-Chamber.
It was also usual for the judges of assize previously to their circuits to repair to the Star-Chamber, and there to receive from the court directions respecting the enforcement or restraint of penal laws. Numerous instances of this unwarrantable interference with the ad ministration of the criminal law occur with reference to the statutes against recusants in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I.
A court of criminal judicature, composed of the immediate agents of prerogative, possessing a jurisdiction very extensive, and at the same time imperfectly defined, and authorised to inflict any amount of punishment short of death, must, even when best administered, have always been viewed with apprehension and distrust; and, accord ingly, in the earlier periods of its history we find constant remon strances by the Commons against its encroachments. As civilisation, knowledge, and power increased among the people, the jurisdiction of the lords of the council became more odious and intolerable. A measure which was introduced into the House of Commons in the last parliament of Charles I., to limit and regulate the authority of this court, terminated in a proposal for its entire abolition, which was eventually adopted without opposition in both houses. The statute 16 Car. I. c. 10, after reciting Magna Charts. and several early statutes in support of the ordinary system of judicature by the common law, goes on to state that " the judges of the Star-Chamber had not kept themselves within the points limited by the statute 3 Henry VII., but had undertaken to punish where no law warranted, and to make decrees having no such authority, and to inflict heavier punishments than by any law was warranted ; and that the proceedings, censures, and decrees of that court had by experience been found to be an in tolerable burthen to the subjects, and the means to introduce an arbitrary power and government." The statute then enacts, " that'the said court called the Star-Chamber, and all jurisdiction, power, and authority belonging unto or exercised in the same court, or by any of the judges, officers, or ministers thereof, should be clearly and Aso lately dissolved, taken away, and determined, and that all statutes giving such jurisdiction should be repealed."