[57] P. 62. Lord Bacon observes, that the council in his time did not meddle with meum and tuum as formerly; and that such causes ought not to be entertained. Vol. i. 720; vol. ii. 208. "The king," he says, "should be sometimes present, yet not too often." James was too often present, and took one well-known criminal proceeding, that against Sir Thomas Lake and his family, entirely into his own hands.
[58] P. 82.
[59] P. 108.
[60] Pp. 100, 102.
[61] P. 107. The following case in the queen's reign goes a great way: An information was preferred in the star-chamber against Griffin and another for erecting a tenement in Hog-lane, which he divided into several rooms, wherein were inhabiting two poor tenants, that only lived and were maintained by the relief of their neighbours, etc. The attorney-general, and also the lord mayor and aldermen, prayed some condign punishment on Griffin and the other, and that the court would be pleased to set down and decree some general order in this and other like cases of new building and division of tenements. Whereupon the court, generally considering the great growing evils and inconveniences that continually breed and happen by this new erected building and divisions made and divided contrary to her majesty's said proclamation, commit the offenders to the Fleet, and fine them £20 each; but considering that if the houses be pulled down, other habitations must be found, did not, as requested, order this to be done for the present, but that the tenants should continue for their lives without payment of rent, and the landlord is directed not to molest them, and after the death or departure of the tenants the houses to be pulled down. Harl. MSS. N. 299, fol. 7.
[62] Harl. MSS. p. 142, etc. It appears that the court of star-chamber could not sentence to punishment on the deposition of an eye-witness (Rushw. Abr. ii. 114): a rule which did not prevent their receiving the most imperfect and inconclusive testimony.
[63] P. 36, 224. Instead of "the slavish punishment of whipping," the printed book has "the slavish speech of whispering," which of course entirely alters the sense, or rather makes nonsense. I have followed a MS. in the Museum (Hargrave, N. 250), which agrees with the abstract of this treatise by Rushworth, ii. 348.
[64] Vallenger, author of seditious libels, was sentenced in the queen's reign to stand twice in the pillory, and lose both his ears. Harl. MSS. 6265, fol. 373. So also the conspirators who accused Archbishop Sandys of adultery. Id. 376. And Mr. Pound, a Roman catholic gentleman, who had suffered much before for his religion, was sentenced by that court, in 1603, to lose both his ears, to be fined £1000, and imprisoned for life, unless he declared who instigated him to charge Serjeant Philips with injustice in condemning a neighbour of his to death. Winwood, ii. 36.
[65] The scarcity must have been very great this season (1631), for he refused £2 18s. for the quarter of rye. Rushworth, ii. 110.
[66] Rushworth, 340. Garrard, the correspondent of Wentworth, who sent him all London news, writes about this: "The attorney-general hath sent to all taverns to prohibit them to dress meat; somewhat was required of them, a halfpenny a quart for French wine, and a penny for sack and other richer wines, for the king: the gentlemen vintners grew sullen, and would not give it, so they are all well enough served." Strafford Letters, i. 507.