Thousands and tens of thousands among his contemporaries raised their voices against ship-money and the Star-chamber.

Lye is the grand salad of arbitrary government, executor to the star-chamber and the high commission; for those courts are not extinct, they survive in him like dollars changed into single money.

Waller had formerly enjoyed a lucrative office under the crown, but he had been fined in the Star-chamber, and his wife was a "godly woman;" her zeal and his own resentment made him a patriot; he raised a troop of horse for the service, and was quickly advanced to a command.

To excuse his participation in the arbitrary measures of the council, and his concurrence in the severe decrees of the Star-chamber, he alleged, that he was only one among many; and that it was cruel to visit on the head of a single victim the common faults of the whole board.

Before the Star-chamber he refused to take the oath ex officio, or to answer interrogatories, and in consequence was condemned to stand in the pillory, was whipped from the Fleet-prison to Westminster, receiving five hundred lashes with knotted cords, and was imprisoned with double irons on his hands and legs.

He subscribed the engagement, and, though he openly explained it in a sense conformable to his own principles, yet the parliament made to him out of the forfeited lands of the deans and chapters the grant[b] of a valuable estate, as a compensation for the cruel treatment which he had formerly suffered from the court of the Star-Chamber.

We copy the following eloquent and impassioned paragraph from the last Edinburgh Review: "Thanks unto our ancestors, there is now no Star-chamber before whom may be summoned either the scholar, whose learning offends the bishops, by disproving incidentally the divine nature of tithes, or the counsellor, who gives his client an opinion against some assumed prerogative.

This Stafford law, Which I till nowe heard never nam'd in France, Is for the present a more fearefull coort Then chancery or star-chamber.

"Come," thought John as he paused, "they deserve a 'wigging,' but I don't want to make a 'Star-chamber matter' of this.

Luke Hatton ````"I will make a Star-Chamber matter of it.

Their miserable victims dared scarcely murmur; having ever the terrible court of Star-Chamber before them, which their persecutors could command, and which punished libellersas they would be accounted, if they gave utterance to their wrongs, and charged their oppressors with mis-doing,with fine, branding, and the pillory.

Thus they enjoyed a complete immunity of wrong; and, with the terrible court of Star-Chamber to defend them and to punish their enemies, they set all opposition at defiance.

A Star-Chamber victim.

Clement Lanyere, the owner of this gashed and ghastly face, who was also reft of his ears, and branded on the cheek, had suffered infamy and degradation, owing to the licence he had given his tongue in respect to the Star-Chamber.

"Who is this young man, Sir Giles?" "He is named Jocelyn Mounchensey, my lord Marquis; and is the son of an old Norfolk knight baronet, who, you may remember, was arraigned before the Court of Star-Chamber, heavily fined, and imprisoned.

He hath spoken contemptuously of the Star-Chamber,and that, my lord Marquis, as you well know, is an offence, which cannot be passed over.

And as I could only affirm, that as he was guilty of no crime, so he could confess none, the King returned me the petition, coldly observing'The dignity of our Court of Star-Chamber must be maintained before all things.

Showing how judgment was given by King James in the Star-Chamber in the great cause of the Countess of Exeter against Sir Thomas and Lady Lake XXVIII.

" The serjeant-at-arms, a tall, thin man, with a sinister aspect, advanced towards the young knight, and touching him with his wand, said"I attach your person, Sir Jocelyn Mounchensey, in virtue of a warrant, which I hold from the High Court of Star-Chamber.

You need not be uneasy about this young man being summoned before the Star-Chamber.

We are told in Strype's Stowe, that the Star-Chamber was "so called, either by derivation from the old English word Steoran, which signifieth to steer or rule, as doth the pilot of a ship; because the King and Council did sit here, as it were, at the stern, and did govern in the ship of the Commonwealth.

But though this seat is erected into a tribunal before which accusations against wrong-doers can be brought, and sentence upon them pronounced; still, whatever charges are now made, and against whomsoever they may be preferred, those charges will have to be repeated to the Lords of the Council of the Star-Chamber, before whom the accused will be taken; and any judgment now given will have to be confirmed by that high and honourable Court.

It is chiefly he and his partner who, by their evil doings, have brought the Star-Chamber into disrepute, and made it a terror to all just men, who have dreaded being caught within the toils woven around it by these infamous wretches; and the Court will do well to purge itself of such villanies, and make a terrible example of those who have so dishonoured it.

" "I know not that," replied the tormentor,a big, brawny fellow, habited in a leathern jerkin, with his arms bared to the shoulder,taking up his hammer and selecting a couple of sharp-pointed nails; "but in any case he has an order from the Council of the Star-Chamber to stand here.

Strict search had been made by the officers of the Star-Chamber for concealed treasure, but little was found, the bulk having been carried off, as before related, by the myrmidons.