Editing Star Chamber (section)

===Stuarts===
{{anchor|Under the Stuarts}}

The power of the Court of Star Chamber grew considerably under the [[House of Stuart]], and by the time of [[Charles I of England|King Charles I]], it had become synonymous with misuse and abuse of power by the King and his circle. {{cn span|[[James I of England|King James I]]|reason=Article does not discuss him further|date=March 2023}} and his son Charles used the court to examine cases of sedition, which meant that the court could be used to suppress opposition to royal policies. It came to be used to try nobles too powerful to be brought to trial in the lower courts.

King Charles I used the Court of Star Chamber as a Parliamentary substitute during the eleven years of [[Personal Rule]], when he ruled without a Parliament. King Charles made extensive use of the Court of Star Chamber to prosecute dissenters, including the [[Puritan]]s who fled to [[New England]]. This was one of the causes of the [[English Civil War]].

On 17 October 1632, the Court of Star Chamber banned all "news books" because of complaints from Spanish and Austrian diplomats that coverage of the [[Thirty Years' War]] in England was unfair.<ref>Trevor-Roper, Hugh ''Archbishop Laud'' Phoenix Press reissue 2000 pp.254–257</ref> As a result, newsbooks pertaining to this matter were often printed in [[Amsterdam]] and then smuggled into the country, until control of the press collapsed with the developing ideological conflict of 1640–41.<ref>Raymond, Joad ''Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain'' Cambridge University Press, 2003</ref>

The Star Chamber became notorious for judgments favourable to the king, for example when [[Archbishop Laud]] had [[William Prynne]] branded on both cheeks through its agency in 1637 for [[seditious libel]].<ref>Trevor-Roper, Hugh ''Archbishop Laud'' Phoenix Press reissue 2000 pp. 317–324</ref>

In 1571, [[Elizabeth I]] set up an equivalent Court in Ireland, the [[Court of Castle Chamber]], to deal with cases of riot and offences against public order. Although it was initially popular with private litigants, under the Stuarts it developed the same reputation for harsh and arbitrary proceedings as its parent court, and during the political confusion of the 1640s, it disappeared.<ref>Crawford, Jon G. ''A Star Chamber Court in Ireland – the Court of Castle Chamber 1571–1641'' Four Courts Press Dublin 2005</ref>

In the early 1900s, [[Edgar Lee Masters]] commented:<ref name="Masters1904">{{cite book|author=Edgar Lee Masters|title=''The new star chamber: and other essays''|url=https://archive.org/details/newstarchambera00mastgoog|year=1904|publisher=The Hammersmark Publishing Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/newstarchambera00mastgoog/page/n16 12]}}</ref>

{{blockquote|In the Star Chamber the council could inflict any punishment short of death, and frequently sentenced objects of its wrath to the [[pillory]], to [[Flagellation|whipping]] and to the [[mutilation|cutting off of ears]]. ... With each embarrassment to arbitrary power the Star Chamber became emboldened to undertake further usurpation. ... The Star Chamber finally summoned [[jury|juries]] before it for verdicts disagreeable to the government, and fined and imprisoned them. It spread [[fear|terrorism]] among those who were called to do constitutional acts. It imposed ruinous fines. It became the chief defence of Charles against assaults upon those usurpations which cost him his life.}}