The Court of Star Chamber.
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THE COURT OF STAR CHAMBER. VII. By John D. Lindsay. A NARRATIVE of a few of the later cases prosecuted in the Star Chamber may prove of interest. They give a very clear idea of the procedure of the court, and show the extent to which it went in ascertaining the real facts and upholding the dignity of its jurisdiction. It is true that their proceedings were marked by an almost ludicrous deference to the King's royalty and sovereignty, but one cannot fail to be im pressed with the solemnity of its treatment of the cases, and its apparent desire to vin dicate the cause of justice. Very full re ports of several of the more important cases may be found in the State Trials. In 1632, Henry Sherfield, Recorder of Sa lisbury, was informed against by the Attorn ey-General Sir Robert Heath (who became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas before the case was heard in the Star Chamber, and sat at the trial as one of the members of the court), for breaking, in October, 1629, a painted glass window in the Church of St. Edmunds, containing a representative de scription of the creation, in contempt of the King as the supreme head (next under Christ) of the church. The information recited that all churches are sacred and both founded and maintained by regal and sovereign power; that no subject can meddle with them in doing any thing for their ornament or structure without license of the Bishops in their several dioceses, or the ordinary for the time being, who derive their authority from the sovereign power. Sherfield was one of the parishioners and a vestryman of the church, who, as he claimed, "as lawful owner" of the church "had law ful power, without the Bishop, to take down or set up any window and to do any other
thing in repairing or adorning the said church, and for reformation of such things as are amiss in the same." Although the broken window had been in the church for upwards of 300 years with out exciting displeasure, it offended Sherfield and apparently others of the parishioners. "It is no true relation or story of the crea tion," he said in his answer, " in that true manner as it is set down in the Book of Moses; but there are made and committed by the workmen divers falsities and absurdities in the painting ... as that he hath put the form of a little old man in a blue and red coat for God the Father, and hath made seven such pictures, whereas God is but one in deity; and in his order of placing the several days' works of God in the creation, he hath placed them preposterously, the fourth be fore the third; and that to be done on the fifth which was done on the sixth day; and in one place he hath represented God the Father creating the sun and moon with a pair of compasses in his hand, as if he had done it according to some geometrical rules." There had been a meeting of the vestry men of the church in January, 1632, where the offending window being discussed, Sher field was given permission to take it down at his own cost and replace it with plain glass. The Bishop of Sarum hearing of this, forbade it being done. Although it was not proven that Sherfield had received notice of the Bishop's command it was significant that from January to October Sherfield had found no opportunity to execute the vestry's order, and then did the work secretly. In October Sherfield gained access to the church, locked the door and with his staff pulled down the window. He claimed that he had done so in order
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