Court of Castle Chamber
The Court of Castle Chamber (which was sometimes simply called Star Chamber) was an Irish court of
It was established by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571 to deal with cases of
The Court of Castle Chamber in its early decades was, like Star Chamber, popular with members of the public who, under the guise of complaining about cases of riot or public disorder, brought their private
In the seventeenth century, Castle Chamber, like its English counterpart, was seen by the
Origins, structure and procedure
While Star Chamber developed gradually over time, Castle Chamber was established by a special commission under the
to the intent that such pernicious evils and griefs shall not escape without just and due correction, we have thought it meet to appoint that a particular court for the hearing and determination of those detestable enormities faults and offences shall be holden within the castle of Dublin.[3]
Remit of the court
The remit of the new court was very wide: it had the power to deal with cases of riot,
Not all the cases it heard fit neatly into any of these categories: in its early years the court heard a petition against the levying of cess, the military
In Castle Chamber's last years, it was much concerned with cases of misappropriation of Church lands. Again it is unclear how such cases fell within its remit, and this activity should perhaps be seen as part of the Earl of Strafford's wider campaign to curb abuses of power by the "New Irish" nobility, especially the Earl of Cork, whom Strafford regarded as a notorious offender in illegally seizing Church lands.[5]
Discipline of judges and juries
Castle Chamber dealt with a number of cases of judicial corruption: William Saxey, Chief Justice of Munster, was severely reprimanded for corrupt practices in 1597,[6] and Patrick Segrave, Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland), was removed from office for corruption in 1602.[7]
The control of
In 1586 a County Kildare jury was convicted of perjury, on the ground that having taken an oath to deliver a true verdict they had in breach of their oath and in flagrant disregard of the evidence acquitted two men who, according to the Castle Chamber, were obviously guilty of murder. For their "dangerous example" to other juries, the jurors were convicted and fined, although "in consideration of their poverty" the fines imposed on them were small.[8]
More severe penalties were imposed on the
This severe treatment reflects the Crown's consistent attitude to such trials. In England at this time, and for many years afterwards, the jury in a treason trial was expected to convict as a matter of course: as J.P. Kenyon remarks, treason was regarded as a crime so heinous that no person charged with it could be permitted to escape punishment.[11] Irish juries, however, were less easily coerced: Fynes Moryson, secretary to the Lord Deputy, remarked sourly and with the wisdom of hindsight of the Meade case that: "no man that knows Ireland did imagine that an Irish jury would condemn him".[12]
In civil cases also Castle Chamber would on occasion penalize a jury for giving the "wrong" verdict if the case was one in which the Crown had an interest. In 1635 a Galway jury was fined by Castle Chamber after it infuriated the Earl of Strafford, the Lord Lieutenant, by giving a verdict that certain lands belonged not to the Crown but to Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricarde, thus threatening Strafford's wider policy of reclaiming much of the province of Connacht as Crown land.[13]
Of several accusations of corruption made against the Lord Chancellor, Adam Loftus, in the late 1630s, at least one, the petition of John Fitzgerald, was heard in Castle Chamber, apparently because Strafford, the Lord Deputy, wished to assert his power to override the ordinary judicial process.[14]
Business of the court
As already noted, much of the business of Castle Chamber consisted of private litigation, despite lingering doubts about its jurisdiction in such cases; in 1608 the Court complained that a single private case, Digby v Kildare, had taken up two entire law terms. As a court of equity it was open to women, and quite a large number of cases brought before it involved women as plaintiffs, defendants or both: Jenet Sarsfield sued Margaret Howth for abduction and other offences, and in the long-running case of Digby v Kildare Lettice Digby sued her grandmother, the Dowager Countess of Kildare, for forgery.[15]
Castle Chamber became a popular forum for the aristocracy to air their complaints against one another, but could also be used to discipline nobles like
Structure of the court
Castle Chamber was set up partly to curb the number of
Castle Chamber was intended to be the judicial wing of the Irish Privy Council, but the two bodies were never fully distinct, especially under the personal rule of the Earl of Strafford, who tended to deal with judicial business informally. Its membership was identical to that of the council, but the
Legal procedure
Our knowledge of the procedures followed in Castle Chamber is hampered by the court's notoriously poor record-keeping: during the last twenty years of its operation, no proper entry book of the cases it heard was kept. It seems to have followed the Star Chamber procedure: the
In case of serious offences, such as riot and unlawful assembly, the Chamber gave a ruling in the case of Richard Talbot v Nicholas Nugent (1576) that two eyewitnesses to the offence were required; since both parties to that action were High Court judges, the court's reluctance to convict the defendant is understandable.[17]
Penalties
Star Chamber became notorious in the latter part of its existence for imposing savage penalties,[18] and Castle Chamber acquired the same reputation. In the case of the Irish Court, this was probably undeserved, since Castle Chamber had a reputation for being largely ineffective in enforcing its judgements. The normal penalty was a fine, but the process of collecting fines seems to have given little satisfaction to plaintiffs: fines were often remitted, reduced or simply not collected. Sir Thomas Crooke, having with difficulty obtained a verdict of riot against Sir Walter Coppinger, complained that no action was taken on foot of it, and tried without success to get the English Council to intervene. Robert Travers, Vicar General of the Diocese of Meath, was so notorious for corruption that in 1621 he was prosecuted in Castle Chamber for extortion and taking bribes. He was found guilty, fined £300 and ordered to be imprisoned at the Deputy's pleasure. Since Travers later became a judge, a knight and a member of the Irish House of Commons, it is unlikely that any part of the sentence was carried out.[19]
More severe penalties like the
History of Castle Chamber
Early history
The beginnings of the Court have been described as slow and tentative.
Under the second Deputyship of Sir
Under Sir
Stuart era
Under Sir
Even at the height of the anti-Catholic campaign, recusancy cases occupied less than half the Chamber's time. There was a notable increase in private business, including cases which on the face of it were outside the Court's remit. Because a charge of forgery was involved, the Chamber became one of many courts to take up the protracted litigation in Digby v Kildare, a probate case between the heirs of Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare, only for the Chamber to complain that the complexity of the case left it with little time to deal with anything else.[16]
Persecution of
Strafford's administration: the last years of Castle Chamber
The Earl of Strafford (Lord Deputy 1632–41) was determined to impose a strong authoritarian rule in Ireland, and he believed that Castle Chamber was a suitable vehicle for this purpose.[26] He obtained confirmation from King Charles I that the Chamber had the power to hear suits between private parties, even where the Crown had no interest in the outcome of the case; his apparent aim was to encourage ordinary citizens to complain about abuses of authority by the rich and powerful.[26] Under Strafford's regime the Chamber saw a considerable increase in business, sometimes sitting as often as four days a week.[26] However, he was somewhat informal in his approach to judicial business, and some cases where he was alleged by his enemies to have acted in a tyrannical manner were heard by the full Privy Council. On other occasions he would hold private sessions in his own rooms: this practice was not then considered improper, and the Lord Chancellor of Ireland regularly did the same.
Whatever the venue for a judicial hearing, Strafford made full use of his powers against all those men, however powerful, whom he regarded as the King's opponents. Wentworth admitted that he had never enjoyed himself more than when he was "trouncing a Bishop or two in the Castle Chamber".
It has been argued that however unpopular Castle Chamber was with the ruling class, ordinary litigants under the regime of Strafford saw it as a court where they might receive impartial justice against the rich and powerful: Wedgwood points in particular to the case of John Fitzgerald, who successfully petitioned Castle Chamber to release him from custody and to hear his claim for judicial misconduct against Lord Chancellor Loftus.[14]
The end of Castle Chamber
Although it was principally the military disasters in Scotland which caused the downfall of Strafford, his conduct of Irish affairs and, in particular, his administration of justice and his extensive use of Castle Chamber, formed the basis for many of the articles of impeachment brought against him in 1641. Numerous Irish witnesses like Crosby and Esmonde, whom he had prosecuted and humiliated, testified against him.[2] At the same time the Irish Parliament, led by the Catholic lawyer Patrick D'Arcy, drew up a remonstrance to the Irish Privy Council called the Queries; this stopped short of demanding the abolition of Castle Chamber but raised grave questions about the legality of its proceedings. The Councillors, most of whom had been supporters of Strafford, found themselves unable to answer the Queries.
In 1641, the year of Strafford's execution and the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion, Castle Chamber simply ceased to operate, and although it still existed after the
Despite the unpopularity of Castle Chamber in its last years, the court soon vanished from public memory; perhaps because it was so easily confused with Star Chamber, its separate existence was quickly forgotten. While the term Star Chamber has the same pejorative meaning in Ireland as it does elsewhere, it is rarely recalled that an entirely separate Castle Chamber once existed in Ireland.[28]
References
- ^ a b Ball, F. Elrington The Judges in Ireland 1221–1921 John Murray London 1926 Vol.1 p.255
- ^ a b Wedgwood, C. V. Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford 1593-1641- a revaluation Phoenix Press reissue 2000 pp. 342–5
- ^ a b Crawford, Jon G. (2005). A Star Chamber Court in Ireland-the Court of Castle Chamber 1571–1641. Dublin: Four Courts Press. p. 196.
- ^ Crawford (2005), p. 243
- ^ Wedgwood pp.180-184
- ^ Crawford pp.55-6
- ^ Ball p.226
- ^ Crawford p.460
- ^ Calendar of State Papers (Ireland) 1603-1606
- ^ a b c d Crawford pp.283–91
- ^ Kenyon, J. P. (2000). The Popish Plot. Phoenix Press. p. 132.
- ^ Pawlisch, Hans ed. Sir John Davies and the Conquest of Ireland Cambridge University Press 1985 p.104
- ^ Wedgwood pp.172-3
- ^ a b Wedgwood, C. V. The King's Peace Fontana edition 1966 p.193
- ^ Crawford p.148
- ^ a b c Crawford pp.302-310
- ^ Crawford (2005), p. 214
- ^ Kenyon, J.P. The Stuart Constitution 2nd Edition Cambridge University Press 1986 p. 105
- ^ Crawford pp.558-9
- ^ Crawford p.354
- ^ In England, a suspect was threatened with the rack as late as 1679 - Kenyon, J.P. The Popish Plot Phoenix Press reissue 2000 p.153
- ^ Crawford p.241
- ^ Crawford p.109
- ^ Kenyon (1986) pp.104–6
- ^ Wegdwood p.130
- ^ a b c Wedgwood pp.143–4
- ^ Trevor-Roper, Hugh Archbishop Laud Phoenix Press 1962 p.241
- ^ Crawford pp.419–20