HIGH COMMISSION, Tin. Cm .Ali extraordinary tribunal, famous in English his tory. originating under the .1(st of Supremacy during the first year Of Elizabeth's reign. which authorized the Queen to appoint an ecclesiastical •ommis.sion to inters or correct all er• rors, schisms, abuses, contempt., and enormities whatsoever." In July. 1559. Elizabeth granted a commission to "Matthew Parker, nominate Bishop of l'anterbury, and Edmund Casindall, nominate Bishop of London." with sea ellteell lay men, constituting them a court for the whole realm. The eourt might proceed by witness, with or a jury. or in any way it should deem proper. It might compel attend:alley on mere examine either the witnesses or the ac cused their corporal oath," and commit them to 'ward' for disobeying its summons or any of its decrees.
The tribunal was erected primarily to admin ister the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity. As already seen, this lint commission authorizes the use of the oath ‘0111.11 the ac cused might be forced to convict himself. procedure, which was 'wholly founded on the canon law. consisted in a series of interrogations so emnprehensive as to embrace the whole scope of clerical uniformity, yet so precise and minute as to Iv ivy no room for evasion, to which the suspected party was bound to upon his 'corporal' oath. According to Strype, the oath r.r ofli•io was the ground of much of the popular hatred of the High C'oniniission. That tribunal Vas regarded a; a kind of ecclesiastical star chamber; awl, in fact, the relations of the iwo bodies were ...IT dose. The real activity of the High Commission began in 134:1 on the sin-cession of \Vint•n' to the Mlle)) of Archbishop of Canter bury. It 1111-. maintained with Mere:I-ed powers
during the reigns of James T. and Charles I.; Init. hated by the people and opposed by the law (-o•ls, with the Star Chamber it was abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641. It was restored in a modified form by James 11. in 11;46, hilt was definitively abolished in 1G44. (sommission issued by Elizabeth authorized the commissioners to act throughout the whole kingdom; but in practice their jurisdiction was rest rioted to the Province of Can.terbliry or Southern England. "There is evidence to show that during, at all events, t he greater part of I be period 1339 1640, a northern ronimission was sit t lug at York. Durham, r elsewhere. and diseharged fictions an•ilogems to those by the southern eommission at Fulham. Croydon. or Canterbury" (Prothero. S') ler/ Sint There was also a eommission for Ireland. and until TflOg commissions were sometimes issued for particular dioceses. The text of the prineipal commissions and other doenments may he found in Prothero's Srlert Statute-9 (Oxford. IS941. Consult also: Hallam. ("mix/national History (new ed., London, 1876); Strype, Annals (4 vols., new ed.. ll‘ford. \ ol. iii,: (turn. Tit, Nfnr rhumb, r: ofic•s ei flu Court and its Pro “rings, with ot, x on fhc llolh Cumin ismon ; t)ardiner. ll•porf of Cams to flu Court 0/ .'.fur burn bcr am! 11 rominIssion, iti.t1-.Q, ill 1. din den . %.11. xxxix.