rately called the Court of Star Chamber. This new court consisted of the chancellor, treasurer, and lord privy seal, or any other two of them, as judges, together with a bishop, a temporal lord of the council, and the two chief justices, or in their absence two other justices, as assistants. By a later statute, 21 Henry VIII. c. 20, the President of the Council was added to the number of the judges. Neither in this statute, nor in that of the 3rd Henry VII, is the name of Star Chamber applied to this court; but as most, if not all, of its members were also members of the king's Continual, or as it was now termed Privy, Council, it was practically a judicial committee of that body. It continued to exist as a distinct tribunal from the Privy Council till Jurisdiction towards the close of the reign of Henry VIII.; but in the meantime, probably during the chancellorship of Wolsey, ber revived the jurisdiction of the ancient Star Chamber (i.c. the under Henry Council sitting for judicial business) was revived, and in it the limited court erected by Henry VII. became gradually merged. In the revived court, the lord chancellor (as president), the treasurer, lord privy seal, and the president of the council, still continued to sit, but with them were associated all other members of the council and, at one time, apparently, all peers spiritual or temporal who chose to attend. Under the Stewart Kings the court was practically identical with the Privy Council, thus combining in the same body of men the administrative and judicial functions.

of the old

Star Cham

VIIL

Nature of

of the re

The Star Chamber exercised a jurisdiction analogous, jurisdiction in principle and procedure, to that of the Court of Chancery, vived Court, and founded on the inefficiency of the ordinary tribunals to do complete justice in criminal matters and other offences of an extraordinary or dangerous character. Its civil jurisdiction comprised disputes between alien merchants and Englishmen, questions of prize or unlawful detention of ships, and other matters of maritime law; certain testamentary causes, and suits between corporations.

13 Hen. VII. c. I.

These were gradually absorbed by the Admiralty, Chancery, and Common Law courts, leaving to the Star Chamber its criminal jurisdiction; which, greatly extended under James I. and Charles I., rendered that court so potent and

'Criminal

ments.

so odious an auxiliary of a despotic administration.' As A court of a court of criminal equity,' it took cognizance of forgery, Equity." perjury, riot, maintenance, fraud, libel, and conspiracy; and generally of all misdemeanours, especially those of a public nature, among which were included all breaches of proclamations, without regard to the illegality of the proclamations themselves. Fine and imprisonment were the Its punish usual punishments inflicted; but the court was held competent to pronounce any sentence short of death. The fines were frequently of enormous amount, and though, as a rule, they were reduced or remitted, they in many cases proved ruinous to the sufferers. Under the Stewart kings the pillory, whipping, and cruel mutilations were inflicted upon political offenders by the sentence of this court; and at length the tyrannical exercise and illegal extension of its powers became so odious to the people that it was Abolished in abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641.1 1641.

ganization.

One of the special characteristics of the English consti- Police and tation-the permanence combined with progressive deve- military or lopment of its primitive institutions-is illustrated by the system which we find in use under the Norman and Plantagenet kings, for the preservation of the internal peace of the country, and its defence against hostile invasion. There were two principal methods by which these ends were attained in ancient times, the one civil, the other military: (1.) the police organization of the mutual frith- The Frithbork, or frankpledge, supplemented by the 'hue and cry' in pursuit of offenders, in which all the inhabitants of the hundred or tithing were bound to join; (2) the fyrd, or The Fyrd. national militia, available not only for the defence of the country, but for the maintenance of peace at home.

116 Car. I. c. 10. See Palgrave, Essay upon the Original Authority of the King's Council; and Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 48, ii. 29.

borh.

The IIus

carls of Cnut.

troops.

Service in this national force was one of the three dutiesthe trinoda necessitas-to which all alodial proprietors were subject. These primitive institutions, which may be traced in the laws of Eadgar and Cnut, and had probably been customary for ages previously, are all met with in full vigour long after the Norman Conquest, working their way through the superstructure of feudalism and gaining strength in the process.'1

·

The fyrd, the armed folk-moot of each shire, was originally the only military system known to our ancestors. The Danish conqueror, Cnut, introduced the germ of a standing army in the body-guard with which he surrounded himself, composed of mercenaries drawn from various nations. But these hus-carls were not very numerous, being variously estimated at from three to six thousand. Employment The limited period of service to which the feudal vassals of mercenary were bound by tenure, and their general unmanageableness, caused both William the Conqueror and the succeeding Norman and early Angevin kings to employ mercenary forces, who, however, soon became odious in the eyes of the nation, and had eventually to be given up. Throughout this period the ancient national militia, though thrown into the shade for a time by the feudal and mercenary troops, still subsisted, and occasionally did good service in defence of their country, as at the battle of the Standard, in 1138, which was won by their exertions, and again in 1174, at the battle of Alnwick. The introduction of scutage, on the occasion of the Toulouse war in 1159, as a commutation of personal service, had the effect of diminishing the feudal levies; and although Henry II. was enabled with the money thus obtained to hire mercenaries for his foreign wars, the hatred of the English towards these forces prevented him from employing them for the purposes of home

Stubbs, Select Chart. 459. Although not an essential part of the constitution, these early methods of ensuring peace and defence are ancient buttresses of the fabric, and their very permanence attests as well as sustains the corporate identity of the English nationality, which feudalism has disguised, but has not been able to mutilate.'-Ibid. 362.

armis, 1181.

defence, while the feudal army, besides being insufficient, was too much under the influence of the barons, whose power he was bent upon curtailing. Under these circumstances, the King determined to resuscitate the ancient national force. By the Assize of Arms, issued in the year Assize of 1181, in addition to requiring every military tenant to The ancient possess a coat of mail, with helmet, shield, and lance, for Fyrd reevery knight's fee which he held in demesne, it was vived. ordained that every free layman having chattels or rent to the value of sixteen marcs should be armed in like manner; that he who was worth only ten marcs should possess a habergeon, an iron skull cap, and a lance; and that all burgesses and the whole community of freemen (tota communa liberorum hominum) should furnish themselves with doublets of mail, iron skull caps, and lances. To enforce this, the itinerant justices were charged to ascertain, by the recognition of a jury of lawful knights, or other free and lawful men of the hundred or borough,' the value of the rents and chattels of all freemen, and to enrol their names in separate classes, with the nature of the arms appertaining to cach; and then, after causing the schedule to be read in open court, to oblige all to swear that they would provide themselves with these arms within a stated time, and be true and faithful to the King.1

military sys

The two military systems, the ancient alodial and the The alodial more modern feudal, continued for some time side by side and feudal without coalescing, but tending more and more to amalga- tems amalmate into the general national armament which we meet under Henry with under Henry III. and Edward I.

In 1205, a writ of King John, issued in accordance with a provision of the Commune Concilium Regni, directs that every nine knights throughout England shall provide a tenth well equipped with horses and arms for the defence of the kingdom, and shall contribute two shillings per diem

gamated

III. and

Edward I.

1 Benedict, Abb. i. 278; Hoveden, ii. 261.

Cum assensu archiepiscoporum, episcoporum, comitum, baronum, et omnium fidelium nostrorum Angliae.'

for his keep. This tithe of knights is to repair to London three weeks after Easter, ready to go wherever ordered, and to remain in the King's service, for the defence of the kingdom as long as need shall require. So far, the military tenants only are affected; but a connexion with the national militia is traceable in the provision which follows, that in case of foreign invasion, all men shall unanimously hurry to meet the enemy with force and arms, without any excuse or delay, at the first rumour of their coming;' and also in the penalties for neglect, which were, in the case of a knightly or other landholder (unless his absence had arisen from infirmity), the absolute forfeiture by him and his heirs of the land which he held; in the case of knights or others having no land, perpetual slavery for them and their heirs (ipsi et haeredes sui servi fient in perpetuum), with the obligation to pay an annual poll tax of four pence each.1

In the following reign we find the two military forces amalgamated for the purposes of national defence. In 1217, a writ issued during the minority of Henry III., shortly after the battle of Lincoln, and while Lewis of France was still in the country, directs the Sheriff of Berkshire to bring up the whole force of his county, both the feudal levy and also the jurati ad arma, the ancient local militia as re-organized under the Assize of Arms. In 1231 the plan already adopted in the case of the military tenants, of dispensing with the personal service of a part

Patent Rolls, i. 55. More than five centuries before, the laws of Ine of Wessex (cir. A. D. 690) had declared: If a gesithcund man owning land neglect the "fyrd" let him pay cxx. shillings and forfeit his land; one not owning land, Ix. shillings; a ceorlish man, xxx. shillings, as "fyrdwite. So, in the laws of Ethelred (A.D. 978-1016): And if anyone without leave return from the "fyrd" in which the King himself is, let it be at the peril of himself and all his estate; and he who else returns from the "fyrd" let him be liable in cxx. shillings. In the customs of Berkshire as recorded in Domesday (i. 56) we read: Si Rex mittebat alicubi exercitum, de quinque hidis tantum unus miles ibat et ad ejus victum vel stipendium de unaquaque hida dabantur ei iiii solidi ad duos menses. Hos vero denarios Regi non mittebantur sed militibus dabantur. Si quis in expeditionem summonitus nou ibat, totam terram suam erga regem forisfaciebat.' The customs of Oxfordshire were more lenient : Qui monitus ire in expeditionem non vadit c. solidos regi dabit.'-Select Chart. 61, 72, S7.

Report on Dignity of a Peer, App. p. 2.