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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Want to walk the halls of Anne Boleyn's childhood home?
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Or explore the castles that made up Henry VIII's English stronghold?
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
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ancient world to to World War II.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
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Jack Myers
What makes a leader worth following?
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Dr. Daniel Gosling
What should you really care about in your job? As technology is changing so quickly, is
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Jack Myers
it just gonna be about machines talking to other machines? I mean, should you quit your job and start something on your own? What would that take?
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Dr. Daniel Gosling
What does success and risk look like when we're all at the starting gate together?
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Jack Myers
These are the questions we answer each week on Lead Human with Jack Myers and Tim Spengler.
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Dr. Daniel Gosling
Join us each week and subscribe at your favorite podcast platform and YouTube.
- [01:03]
Jack Myers
We'll tell stories, we'll hear from some of the best, and we'll try to figure this out together.
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Dr. Daniel Gosling
A Better Help Ad matching with my
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therapist was very quick and easy. I just filled out a couple of questions. Before you know it, I was matched with a therapist.
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I just felt like a weight just was lifted off of my shoulders and I felt like it was a good match from the first time we talked.
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Dr. Daniel Gosling
BetterHelp is there to meet people at their needs, giving them a space to feel safe.
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There is a stigma about therapy, but with BetterHelp, I meet people where they are. Wherever you are. That's where BetterHelp begins. Visit betterhelp.comrandompodcast to get started.
- [01:40]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Pay testimonials. Results may vary.
- [01:42]
Jimmy Conrad
Jimmy Conrad here and I have something to put on your radar. The core short from Viori, because after getting my first pair, I was hooked. They work for everything that I like doing soccer, tennis hoops and lifting weights, to name a few. And they're unbelievably comfortable, which is why I wear them doing everything else. They are designed to work for whatever your day throws at you. For our listeners, they're offering 20% off your first purchase, so head to vuori.com footy that's v U-O-R-I.com f O-O-T-Y exclusions apply. Visit the site for full details.
- [02:17]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb, and welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn and to the Aztecs from Holbein to the Huguenots from Shakespeare to samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Few institutions in English history have acquired
- [02:52]
Co-host or Producer
a darker reputation than the Star Chamber. For much of its existence, it was one of the most important courts in England, created to handle cases that ordinary courts struggled with and offering a route to justice for people who might otherwise have been ignored by the powerful. From 1487, under Henry VII until 1641, the Star Chamber met behind closed doors. Witnesses were interrogated by noblemen, judges and royal councillors. And punishments were meted out that could ruin reputations, careers and fortunes. Yet the very powers that made the Star Chamber effective also made it controversial. Supporters saw it as a vital instrument of justice. Critics viewed it as a tool of intimidation where royal power could be exercised without the safeguards of the common law. By the 17th century, it stood at the heart of growing arguments about authority, liberty and the limits of government. Today, its name is often used as a byword for arbitrary justice and government overreach. But the reality was far more complicated. Today, I want to explore the rise of the Star Chamber and its prominence under the Tudors and early Stuarts. How did monarchs like Henry VII use the court to strengthen royal authority, curb over mighty subjects, and enforce order in a kingdom still recovering from civil war? How did the Star Chamber expand its reach over time, hearing cases that range from riot, corruption and fraud to libel, public disorder and political dissent? Joining me is Dr. Daniel Gosling, Archivist and historian at the National Archives, whose work to improve the accessibility and visibility of its legal collections has revealed the complex history behind one of the most misunderstood institutions in early modern England. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and you are listening to Not Just the Tudors from history hit.
- [05:07]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Dr. Gosling, welcome to the podcast.
- [05:09]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Hello. Thank you so much for having me.
- [05:11]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
It's an absolute treat because I feel like this is something I really need to understand. So it's wonderful to have somebody like you on to explain it. Sometimes I have to pinch myself that this is my job. So can you set the scene for us? What exactly was the Star Chamber and why was it so significant in early modern England?
- [05:31]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
I mean, Star Chamber, let's start with the name because it's a really interesting name. We don't have names like that. So the Star Chamber is named for the room where the court sat, which was literally a starred chamber. So in the Latin it's camera stellata. And this was a room in Westminster palace, which is modern day Houses of Parliament. And it's where the kings or the Queen's Council would sit. So they would sit to hold their Privy Council meetings, but also they would sit to hear judicial business. And that's how the court developed. So the court, its name from where the judges were sitting for it. So yeah, the court of Star Chamber or the council in the Star Chamber.
- [06:09]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And what exactly did it do?
- [06:13]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
So its jurisdiction was pretty wide reaching. So it was developing in sort of the 14th, 15th century as just a place in Westminster palace where the Council was sitting and that they started to hear petitions, grievances of people and sort of sit in judgment on it. And by Henry VII's reign, this is what we would understand to be a court like a conciliar court, where, where the authority is coming from the King's council. So they were sitting in judgment, they were hearing grievances and complaints. Now the reason that it could be so large because the conciliar courts and like the Equity courts like or Chancery, they didn't have juries, which made them sometimes preferential to things like the common law process, which had sort of 12 jurors and you're tried by your peers. But that was a very sort of slow and could be cumbersome process. And the equity courts like Chancery and the concilia courts like Starcham developed because people can complain they weren't going to get a fair trial, a jury or some other thing that meant that they couldn't get a fair trial at common law, meant they would take their grievances to courts like Chancery, to courts like the Star Chamber. And so the council sitting, sort of acting like that, people bring their complaints and then the Council can make those judgments based on sort of what the complainant is saying, what the defendant is responding to and depositions of witnesses, and without having to go through that jury process and sort of guilty or not guilty, they could fit in between those little grays of non black or white judgments.
- [07:43]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So how does it become such a powerful and sometimes controversial court?
- [07:50]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Well, I think it's because it's developing from the King's Council. It's about sort of unchecked power. So it's a very positive thing that it can do what things like the common law courts can't do do. And you can direct your grievances directly to them, but equally that power can be abused. And we see in six, seven. So Thomas Woolsey was sort of using it to intimidate people that he didn't particularly like he could bring them to Star Chamber and He could hear a case and he could find them huge amounts. But really into the 17th century, the reason it was abolished in 1641, it was the parliamentarians that sort of said, well, this court of Star Chamber is just the King and his council and intimidating people they don't like. There's no due process, there's no juries. And it was. So it was being seen as an abuse of royal and conciliar power, which it always had the potential to be that. But it was, yeah, it was only in the 17th century where they really went, no, you are abusing the power. Now there are other avenues for justice. We are going to get rid of the court.
- [08:52]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
We'll definitely come back to talk more about the end of it. But you're giving us an idea there about the sort of people who sat in the star chamber handing out verdicts. Woolsey presumably one of them. Who else do we have? What sort of people?
- [09:08]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
So it's the Privy Council, so it's the highest men that are operating at the time in 16th, 17th century. So, yeah, Woolsey is noteworthy because when he was Lord Chancellor, he was sort of transforming Chancery a bit in terms of the way that people could come into that court, but also he was sort of reforming the conciliar courts, like Star Chambers. So he was sitting there with the rest of the Privy Council, which would include the Chief justice of the King's Bench, or could include Chief justice of the King's Bench, but also like the Treasurer, sometimes the Archbishop of Canterbury. So you've got a mix of these really sort of high ranking people in Tudor and Stewart's Council.
- [09:46]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So we have this sense, therefore, that it differs from ordinary courts in that there's not a jury of the peers of those who are being tried. What else makes it different? Does it have a different procedure to that of common law courts?
- [10:02]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Yes. So the court star chamber follows what's called equity process, which is the same process that the Court of Chancery, which was an Equity court and there was a Court of Exchequer, Equity as well. And what that means is the process was initiated by someone bringing a complaint to the court. Sometimes that'll be a bill of complaint. So this, this is the documents created after they come to the court is called a bill of complaint because they've appeared and they've said they've outlined their grievance so that they say this, I've been wronged in this way. But then the defendant has an opportunity to provide what's called an answer, which is the response to the bill of complaint. So you get the defendant usually saying, no, that's all untrue, or sometimes, no, the court can't hear this, it should be heard at the common law. Because one of the important things about these courts was they were operating because the common law couldn't try them. I think the. The idea was that you would try your cases at the common law, if you could, if they were sort of reasonable, that you were able to do that at the common law. So sometimes in the answer they would say, well, no, this is a case of debt and should be heard at the common law. So that's what the defendant's answer. But you get all this back and forth because then the. The complainant has the opportunity to respond to the answer in what's called a replication. And that's sort of how I came to learning about this court, because each stage of that, it creates records which are now held at National Archives. So you get this bill, the answers, the replications, this back and forth, different interpretations of sometimes the same event. And the role of the judges sitting in Star Chamber is to work out the exact wrong that's been incurred. But then who's telling the truth?
- [11:37]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Basically, from your experience of reading these, do you have any sense of how long an average case lasted? Whether that's in days or folios?
- [11:47]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
It can last a lot. They can last years because people coming in. So the case doesn't all happen in one day. So the complainant will come and bring or submit their complaint, they'll create a bill of complaint, then writs are sent out to summon the defendants to appear in Star chamber at a later day, usually a few weeks, sometimes a couple of months later to respond. And then that back and forth can take months. And then after that you have things like the depositions of witnesses and just trying to get to the facts of the matter. So, yeah, it can take years to actually get to a sort of final judgment or decree on the case.
- [12:23]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So you could be involved in a case for a huge chunk of your life. I mean, it suggests that early modern England is pretty litigious.
- [12:35]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Absolutely, yes. And I think you definitely said late Elizabethan period, early Jacobean, particularly people based around London, they are suing each other in basically every court they can. So it's not just star chamber. You'll often quite see star chamber cases where they say, oh, we've also done a countersuit in Chancery, or there's common law actions between the same people. So, yeah, they have to be quite dedicated to be appearing in Court and bringing this dispute to court for. Yeah, several months and sometimes years.
- [13:05]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And you're suggesting that the Star Chamber is handling awkward cases that aren't, you know, easily categorized, that don't necessarily fit into other courts.
- [13:15]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Yeah. So when it first started, it was meant to be. It's a court that only dealt with riots. Right. The definition of right was more than two people. So you sometimes get a lot of descriptions of. There is a right of three people that have turned up and caused trouble. But by Elizabeth's reign, 1558, you start to see they're dropping that and sort of expanding the jurisdiction to have sort of a wider criminal jurisdiction as well as more civil disputes. You see in case of debt, marriage disputes, sort of criminal trespass, libel, even sort of treason or treason adjacent cases. So there's a couple of Star Chamber cases after the Gunpowder Plot, basically investigating the Catholic lords that weren't going to attend on the 5th of November and they found that suspicious, so they brought them before Star Chamber to get their excuses.
- [14:02]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
An area that particularly interests me is the witchcraft trials. And it's interesting that this court plays a role, especially in the Elizabethan period. Why and what role did it play?
- [14:15]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
So it plays a part in the Elizabeth and Beer because it's taken on criminal cases. So witchcraft at this time in England, England and Wales was a criminal action. So should have been tried at the Assizes or at King's Bench, which was the criminal court. But by Elizabeth reigns, certainly Star Chamber is taking on this or greater criminal jurisdiction, which means it can hear accusations of witchcraft. It was usually accusations of witchcraft tied to things like murder. So we are using enchantments or sorcery to bring about the death of someone. So you see, and there are some really interesting Star Chamber cases where it's allegations of witchcraft to cause sort of criminal damages or death.
- [14:56]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Okay, that makes sense. So that's why they're not taken to local assizes, which is where the majority of witchcraft cases are heard. Are there any you've find particularly interesting that you can tell me about? We've done a lot of generalities.
- [15:08]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Yeah, yeah. No, there's some really interesting ones and I would say that a lot of these you can actually now find just by searching the catalog for these things, like searching for witchcraft and things come up with these Star Chamber records. But one of the really interesting ones that we know quite a lot about because there was a law report talking about the case is from 1593 and it's a case against a man called Richard Roughley. It's quite interesting because it's essentially a marriage dispute. So the complainant is a man called Henry Dauber, but he's bringing it on behalf of Anne, roughly. So, yeah, it's in essence in a marriage dispute. But Anne starts to bring in all these claims about witchcraft and male witchcraft as well, which is particularly interesting. She claims that she was estranged from her husband, but that her husband Richard had hired a local cunning man who was called Roger Barnes. He's described in this bill of complaint. So this document is created when Anne turns up, describes him as an enchanter, witch or charmer, and great practicer in the black arts. And she alleges that her husband Richard had written a letter to Roger to use unlawful sorceries, witchcraft and enchantments to bring about Anne's death. And she goes in sort of great detail about those. So she says that the letter to the cunning man is asking, like, is Anne pregnant? When will Anne die? How long do I have to wait after Anne's death before I can marry one? Ms. Jane? So there's a legend, there's this letter being written to a cunning man asking all these very leading questions about when his wife's going to die and how long after he has to. What mourning period. He has to wait until he marries again. But alongside all of these allegations that they're using witchcraft to do that,
- [16:52]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
and that's what escalates it to that court, because otherwise, you might think a sort of family dispute, a marital dispute, a sort of thing that might go before an ecclesiastical court rather than turning up before some of the most important men in the country.
- [17:07]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Yeah, yeah. We have to remember that the. Yeah, this is the privy council of the Queen that are sitting in judgment. But, yeah, so she's making these accusations and it's because it is murder. It's. Or attempted murder by witchcraft. So alleging. Yeah, the murder is the criminal intent. But actually, Richard has the opportunity to provide a response to this in his answer. And we have that answer, so we know what his response was. And his response was exactly that it's witchcraft and murder cases should be heard at the common law. He also goes into a lot of things, basically saying how, you know, Anne is not telling the truth at all. He said that he's no longer married to Anne and hasn't been for a long time because of her many and apparent adulteries. So his response is, well, no, we're not married anymore because she has been committing adultery and that nullified the marriage, as well as.
- [17:55]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
How interesting. And of course, At a legal level, that may not have been the case, but it's his understanding that the marriage has come to an end because of that.
- [18:06]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
And that's one of the really interesting things and sort of important things to remember when we're working with these sort of bills of complaint and answers is this is one person's perspective, another, as he said, she said. And you can't take one at their word. You have to sort of try and work out the truth, which is exactly what the judges are doing. They're trying to work out who's telling the truth of the matter. And that's why they bring in deponents and depositions. But in this case we know that. So the judges then sort of discuss the case and they actually agreed with Richard not about whether or not there was witchcraft and sorcery, but the fact that this case should be heard at the common law. So they threw out the case in Star Chamber and the case ended in Star chambers. No more records. But because they said, if you want to pursue this, you have to take it to common law because it is a murder by witchcraft case.
- [18:54]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
One of the most vivid stories that comes out of the Star Chamber records, as I understand it, is the dispute between the Lake family and the Earl of Exeter. Can you tell us about that famous feud?
- [19:05]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
I can. So Thomas Lake was Secretary of State to James I, and in 1617, he gets involved in a bitter family dispute in the court of Star Chamber. That creates a huge amount of records, a huge amount of law reports, and quite a lot of embarrassment for the Lake family. So in 1617, Lake's eldest daughter Anne had married William Cecil. Not that one. It's a different William Cecil, Baron de Ross. The marriage didn't last very long, but while they were married, the families were exchanging lands. So following the divorce, there was sort of a bitter dispute between Sir Thomas Lake and Cecil's grandfather, who was Thomas Cecil, the Earl of Exeter. So they're getting into a vicious land dispute about lands that were exchanged during the marriage and who actually had the right of them. But then this escalates even further. So Lake's eldest son, who was Sir Arthur Lake, violently attacked Cecil when he saw him and then Lake's wife and daughter. So the whole family are sort of piling on. They threatened to start a rumor that Cecil was having an affair with his grandfather's new young wife. So, yeah, so they're violently assaulting him and then threatening to create rumors of adultery with family members wives. Cecil flees to Rome, says, I don't want anything to do with this fleece robe. But while he's away, Anne starts forging a load of incriminating letters to prove these rumors. So what that escalates into is Star Chamber proceedings, as you would expect. So Lady Exeter charged Lake and his family with defamation of character because all of these incriminating documents, or falsified incriminating documents were making them look very bad. And in particular, Anne was accused of adultery, incest, murder and attempted poisoning against her husband, who's Lord Bruce. And these accusations that actually there's Star Chamber proceedings, but both sides are bringing Star Chamber proceedings against the others. So we have a huge amount of documentation because it's in essence two cases where one person is, one side is the complainant and then the other one, the other side is complainant. But this is quite a high profile dispute. This isn't going on behind closed doors, particularly not when it gets to Star Chamber, because Star Chamber is the whole Council, who Thomas Lake would know. And this is a big sort of family dispute airing your dirty laundry. So it's not long before actually James, James I gets involved himself. He's getting really annoyed about particularly all the slanders against sort of nobility and particularly female nobility. So they bring it all to Star Chamber to make a final decree. And this is actually a really noteworthy case because James sat in judgment in Star Chamber himself. So it wasn't just the King's Council. James turned up to Star Chamber to issue that final decree. That's quite noteworthy because that's actually the last time a British monarch or an English monarch sat in direct judgment over their subjects. That's 1618. 1619.
- [22:07]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
How fascinating. Yeah.
- [22:18]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb
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- [24:34]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And why do you think the public was so particularly enthralled with this case?
- [24:38]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
I think it's, it's gossip and rumor. It's. You're hearing these, you don't know if they're true, but you've got accusations of murder in says poisoning amongst nobility, people that you sort of know or have heard of or aware of and they're embarrassing themselves basically to the point where the King has to step in and sort of say enough is enough. James benefits quite a bit financially from it because part of the Star Chamber decree, oh, they all have to pay the crown tens of thousands of pounds.
- [25:06]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And so the verdict in the end,
- [25:09]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
so the verdict is the Lake family are basically found to be the losing side, so they fine Lake and his family over £10,000. Lake himself gets put in the tower and then is brought out of the tower and basically has to appear in Star Chamber again to make a public apology to the the winning side for the various slanders that his family had been making up about the Exeters.
- [25:35]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Talking about slander and the fact that we're looking at sort of he said, she said type cases Quite a lot. Libel does become. Or libel is written down, of course, but slander or defamation libel become a focus for the Star chamber. How does the court handle these accusations?
- [25:54]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
So that's what I mean. It's really interesting. Yeah. Because we've got that he said, she said the bill of complaint. And the answer. But what in libel cases and defamation cases is the sort of. The point of wrong. The offense is something that's been said or written. So they have to bring that into court. In some ways, when you see it in the earlier King's bench and common law records, often especially the Latin ones, you see it switched to English to say exactly what has been said, because that is the point of law that they are arguing. In Star Chamber, they do a similar thing. So you might see in a bill of complaint, they will say exactly what has been said, what has been wronged. In some rarer cases and more entertaining phone cases, you get. So once they've had the bills and answers, what's called the pleadings, you get to the deposition stage where they'll bring in witnesses or sometimes defendants to ask them questions. And in libel cases, sometimes they bring out a copy of the libel to put to those witnesses to say, did you write this or is this what was said? So the Star Chamber proceedings can include these quite early printed libels or written libels, bawdy poems, things like that that are the. The issue that is in dispute. But it has to be brought into court to prove that it was either written or that's what was said.
- [27:15]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And how did the court symbolically quiet, libelous speech during the trials?
- [27:21]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
They are sharing the details to. Well, to the witnesses and they will show them the dirty poems. Sometimes they'll read them out for them. So there's a really interesting Star Chamber case from James's reign, which is a libel about the vicar's wife. And the vicar's wife has now died, but he brings a case against the people that had allegedly written it, because he claims that it was being written down and passed around, around town and that it basically had made his wife so sad that she died. So the Star Chamber case is sort of like causing death by this libel. But as part of that case, they bring in the actual libel about the vicar's wife and yet includes sort of. You get the whole poem. It does rhyme. It's a proper poem, bawdy poem. And it accuses her of cacauldry against the vicar and with multiple men, I think it says. So it's addressed to the vicar and sort of as a warning. And it's just like, just so you know, this is happening. So be ruled by me, man and hear what I say for thy wife she will have a trick of false play with many a one who comes to and fro she will cast a rolling eye on them before they go.
- [28:34]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
I'm really struck by the fact that by dealing with this libelous speech or writing, they're preserving it for posterity. I mean, they continue to enact the libel, if it is such, for all time.
- [28:51]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Yeah, absolutely. It becomes part of the written record and we suddenly have to have it. And actually, there's some really good studies of looking at the Jacobean Star Chamber as an archive of early modern libel and ballads and poems, because they're being brought, complained about and then written down and preserved in the archive.
- [29:10]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Do you see the Star Chamber as a forum in which ordinary people, or those who were less powerful than those they were litigating against, could try to seek justice?
- [29:26]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Yeah, absolutely. And that's a really good counterpoint, too. Some people would say that Star Chamber is quite exclusionary and it's nobles prosecuting people they don't like. But actually anyone can appeal to the Court of Star Chamber or the Court of Chancery, or there's other conciliar courts like the Court of Requests, which was also known as Court Poor Men's Causes, for that very reason that you could turn up to these judges, these people, with your grievance and it would be heard. And the costs of. Because the common law process was an expensive process, you're paying basically every time you come in to have writs drawn out and sent out. It was cheaper to go to these conciliatory courts and these equity courts, or could be cheaper. So, yeah, there's a sense of that. And in the record, you see very high profile people, and the Lake versus Exeter is a very, very high profile Star Chamber case. But you also see cases of quite, very lower level people bringing their disputes to be judged by the Council, because that carries weight. These men are known about, they know they. And they. They've got their authority from the Crown to sit judicially. And that. That carries a lot of weight for subjects within the realm. So they can bring their disputes and grievances to the Court of Star Chamber and they can be heard. And that's why one of the reasons that the records of courts like Star Chamber and Chantry are so interesting is sometimes that is the only written evidence we have of individuals. They might not have ever done anything else that caused a record to be written or created, but because they have one grievance that went to the Central court and got written down, suddenly there is this person that we wouldn't know about otherwise.
- [31:04]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
You just briefly, if it's possible, explain the difference between Star Chamber and Chancery or the Court of Request, so we can understand that.
- [31:13]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
So the Court of Chancery is the key Equity court, so it follows the same process as Star Chamber and requests. It had the Lord Chancellor as its head, so the Lord Chancellor is the Judge of Chancery. Chancery developed in the 14th century this equity side, again, specifically to deal with cases that couldn't be heard at common law. The Court of Chancery was actually situated in Westminster hall, so the House of Parliament with the Court of King's Bench and the Court Common Pleas, so the two main common law courts and the Equity call all in one room. So that's how Chancery differs from the common law courts. When Star Chamber comes in, it works in a very similar way, but it's get. It's getting its authority from the Council and against the authority through the Crown. So it's. It's all the same crown. The justice is coming down from the same head, but it's just different judges. The conciliar courts are a little more ad hoc in terms of the process, like it's the rooms that they sit in. So the Court of Requests, this Court of Performance Causes, is also a conciliar court and was also called the Court of Whitehall because it was heard at Whitehall. And Certainly in the 15th, 16th century, a lot of the same men that were sitting on Star Chamber were also sitting or could be sitting in Request. So they have a very close relationship, these concilia courts and the councils, and they sort of are related to the Court Chancery, but the Court Chancery is a more sort of established court,
- [32:55]
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Dr. Daniel Gosling
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- [33:25]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
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- [34:10]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
And that gives some sense of the workload for those who were on these courts. I mean, Woolsey, we know is up and down to Whitehall every day. If you're serving on more than one of these courts, that's, that's quite a, that's quite a commitment.
- [34:28]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Absolutely. And it's. Yeah, it's, it's a huge commitment, especially for things like Star Chain, because then you're doing the rest of the Privy Council business on other days, usually in the same room or there's an inner chamber in the Star chamber and outer chamber. But so they're not always sitting in judgment as the court of Star Chamber. Sometimes they are doing privy council proceedings or what have you. But yeah, it's incredibly busy. A huge amount of paperwork is being created in all of these courts and you get all these stories in the sort of late 16th, early 17th century where they're struggling to store all this paperwork because they haven't built these lovely modern archives which you can hold these records in. And they're all climate controlled and good for the documents.
- [35:08]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
We've got some idea of this from what you said about the Lake case. But I know Star Chamber is known for its sometimes harsh punishments. What kind of penalties could it hand down?
- [35:21]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
So this is another really good example of how the concilia courts and Equity courts differed from the common law, because the common law had very set punishments based on whichever statute and action was being brought upon, usually death or, or not death or not guilty. But for Star Chamber and for the Equity courts there was a lot more variation. So you could sort of cater the punishment to fit the crime a little bit. So things like a contract dispute at the common law, if someone was found guilty, they wouldn't, they couldn't be made to honor that contract, they would just be fined. But Star Chamber and Chancery in those courts could go, the punishment is have to honor that contract and do exactly what's been said in it. But because Star Chamber was hearing these really serious criminal cases, the punishments could be very harsh and quite varied compared to the common law punishments say. So there's. In the 1630s, there's a man that was called Pickering. He was a recusant and he was sentenced to lose his ears and be bored through the tongue. So hole through the tongue. Because he said that the king, King Charles, was a papist in his heart and that all Protestants were heretics and making a hog sty of the churchyard. So the punishment is sort of fitting the crime. Because he has spoken these words, they're like, okay, we are going to. We're gonna cause violence. Still damage to your tongue because of these words that you have spoken.
- [36:48]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes. Pretty grim stuff.
- [36:49]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Yes, it's pretty gruesome.
- [36:51]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Around that time. Complaints about the Star Chamber were intensifying in the 1630s, especially regarding bishops acting as judges. Why was that?
- [37:05]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
So this is the period in the run up to the English Civil War. Charles had grown quite tired of Parliament and started what was called his personal rule, which is he basically didn't call a parliament for 10 years. He was like, fine, if you're not going to do what I want, then I'm not gonna call a parliament. I'm just gonna do it on my own. But what that meant was, I mean, Parliament, by that point was the main way that the Crown could get money through subsidies and taxation. Charles had to find ways to make that money. One of those was using Star Chamber to put hefty fines on people, but also to bring it back to the Church and religion. At the time, some of Charles's closest confidants in the council were churchmen. So Archbishop Loud is the main one that we know about because he was tried and executed in the 1640s for the treason. So, yeah, so it's Charles surrounding himself with these people, these. These Catholics in some ways, or not, if they weren't Catholics, they were sympathetic to the Catholic cause. And he's not listening to Parliament to other people and going about that. So you see the criticisms of the Church and that sort of criticisms of Charles being close with the Catholic faith, linking into the criticisms of the Star Chamber, because he's not meeting with Parliament, he's meeting with his council and Star Chamber and all of that.
- [38:32]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So then that seems like that's the backdrop to the court's abolition in 1641. What were the key reasons?
- [38:43]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
So the key reason is it's the parliamentarians that finally Parliament has been called again in the early 1640s after nearly 10 years of having no Parliament store. And one of the first things they comment on is the Court of Star Chamber has to go because it is now it's the King's council, so people sympathetic to the royal cause bringing in people and punishing them. I think one of the really key things is in the 1630s, Star Chamber finds the Corporation of the City of London, so the whole of the city of London, 70,000 pounds and a huge amount of money. And it's because they failed to honor a contract that they had made in James's reign about the colonies in Ulster in Ireland. These charges don't really amount to any kind of criminal charge, but they bring the Corporation City of London into Star chamber, fine them £70,000, because that is a way for Charles to make money. He said, you haven't honoured his contract. Pay that money. So that is one of the things that the parliamentarians in the early 1640s can go, look, look, you are using Star Chamber in this illegal way. And they also claim that actually a lot of these cases can be heard elsewhere and that's where it sort of goes back to the common law. So the Court of King's Bench, which would have heard all these criminal trials and these treason trials after the abolition of Star Chamber, they just take all of that business back. So one of the arguments parliamentarians are making it was that, that this court was set up to deal with things that couldn't be done with the common law, but it actually can be now, so we can get rid of that and we won't lose access to justice because the other courts will exist which can hear those cases.
- [40:25]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
I'd like to come towards our end by asking you a bit about the process of working with these. As a historian, is the chief problem that there's huge amounts of documentation, that there's too much, or is it that there's not enough, that there are gaps where you need evidence? What sort of things are you working with and what are the challenges?
- [40:48]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
So it's a bit of both. The good news is, in terms of the pleadings, those bills and answers and the depositions, the survival rate for those survives a little bit piecemeal from Henry VII's reign. But by the time you get to Henry VIII's reign over the sixth reign, actually, there's a lot of these. And certainly by Elizabeth's reign and James's reign, there are, yeah, a huge amount of material that you can have to work through, pleadings and depositions. We don't have the pleadings for Charles, the first reign. We also don't have what's called the decree and order entry books, which is what would have given us those judgments and those outcomes in star chamber cases. And this is a really interesting. The reason that it's lost is basically all of that paperwork that was being produced in early in James's reign, about 1608, they're building sort of presses and things in Westminster palace to house these records, but they realize that they don't have enough space. So they create a satellite archive for Star Chamber at Gray's Inn, because that's where the clerks of the court were working at that time. So the end of call, Gray's Inn, just down the road. But what that meant was there's now two places where those records exist. Order, decree and order entry books, and what they called current cases, current pleadings went to that archive. So after James's reign, all of the James pleadings went back to the sort of central archive. The problem is when it was abolished in the 1640s, that archive stayed separate. So that included all of the child pleadings. It included the crude order entry books. And about 50 years later, there's a report when they're sort of examining what legal records are around Westminster and London, they make a note and they say, well, the main records of the court star chamber are in the chapter house of the Exchequer. But we don't know where the decree and order entry books have gone. They're nowhere to be found. And they sort of mentioned that they were last seen in a house in St. Barts about 15 years ago, but we don't know where they've gone since. And that was 200, 300 years ago. So they're probably destroyed, certainly lost. But, you know, we live in hope that those are going to turn up. But what it does mean so we can find out the outcome of cases, even though we don't have those records because of law reports and things that were written about the case at the time. So before the loss of those decreen or entry books, lawyers were writing about those reports. But it does mean that it can be a challenge working with records because you can have this incredible story about witchcraft, about treason or what have you, and it gets really, really interesting. And then you don't know what happened to those people because no one ever reported on it. And the decree and order entry book doesn't survive. So, yeah, it's a mix of having too, but also crucially, not that very end point of the case.
- [43:32]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
So your job really is reconstruction when we've got incomplete archives.
- [43:38]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Yeah, and it's a really interesting way to research, like identifying where the gaps are and identifying ways that you can fill in Those gaps. So, yeah, it's knowing what records do survive and where to find those. But equally it's knowing what records don't survive and how we can sort of piece together the puzzle of the story with these cases and stories.
- [43:57]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Well, you've done huge amounts with these. But are there areas of research that you would say to up and coming young historians, the Star Chamber is full of X, Y or Z. You should come and look at it where not enough has been done?
- [44:15]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
I think, yes. I think for pretty much every court there is work that can be done with improved catalog descriptions of things. You can now search for things like witchcraft or treason or even names or places. So you can do local history studies. You can do looking at certain offenses in different courts, not just Star Chamber, but particularly Star Chamber, because the catalog descriptions have improved so much in the last few years where, if you're interested in those records, you can just go and search and see what is there. And if you want, you can come to the National Archives and look at those records and see these records that were created in the 16th and 17th century and see these stories for yourself and how you can piece together those stories through those records.
- [44:54]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
How amazing. And I can imagine that there'll be quite a lot of people who are interested in their own family histories that might find something in them as well. I mean, how exciting is that? Move beyond the baptismal records. Find your ancestors going before the Star
- [45:08]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Chamber and yeah, you see them having sort of the petty family disputes which go back centuries in the same piece of land.
- [45:15]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Yes. Do you want to know this about your ancestors?
- [45:17]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
That's the question.
- [45:19]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Well, Dr. Cousin, thank you so much for introducing us to this really crucial institution of the early modern period. And it's fascinating that it really does speak to the nature of authority and how things are changing between Henry VII and Charles I. It's so much of that age and tells us a lot about both how justice was enacted, acted, and how it was abused.
- [45:44]
Dr. Daniel Gosling
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much.
- [45:46]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode
- [45:51]
Co-host or Producer
of Not Just the Tudors from History Hit. Thank you also to my researcher, Max Wintool, my producer Rob Weinberg, and to
- [45:58]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Amy Haddow, who edited this episode.
- [46:00]
Co-host or Producer
We are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for
- [46:05]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line and Not Just the tudors@historyhit.com and I look
- [46:11]
Co-host or Producer
forward to joining you again for another episode.
- [46:13]
Professor Susannah Lipscomb
Next time on Not Just the Tudors From History. Hit.
- [46:25]
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