In the court of Star-Chamber, as already remarked, Sir Giles Mompesson
found an instrument in every way fitted to his purposes; and he worked
it with terrible effect, as will be shown hereafter. With him it was at
once a weapon to destroy, and a shield to protect. This court claimed "a
superlative power not only to take causes from other courts and punish
them there, but also to punish offences secondarily, when other courts
have punished them." Taking advantage of this privilege, when a suit
was commenced against him elsewhere, Sir Giles contrived to remove it to
the Star-Chamber, where, being omnipotent with clerks and counsel, he
was sure of success,--the complaints being so warily contrived, the
examinations so adroitly framed, and the interrogatories so numerous and
perplexing, that the defendant, or delinquent, as he was indifferently
styled, was certain to be baffled and defeated. "The sentences of this
court," it has been said by one intimately acquainted with its practice,
and very favourably inclined to it, "strike to the root of men's
reputations, and many times of their estates;" and, again, it was a rule
with it, that the prosecutor "was ever intended to be favoured." Knowing
this as well as the high legal authority from whom we have quoted, Sir
Giles ever placed himself in the favoured position, and, with the aid of
this iniquitous tribunal, blasted many a fair reputation, and consigned
many a victim of its injustice to the Fleet, there to rot till he paid
him the utmost of his demands, or paid the debt of nature.

In an age less corrupt and venal than that under consideration, such a
career could not have long continued without check. But in the time of
James the First, from the neediness of the monarch himself, and the
rapacity of his minions and courtiers and their satellites,--each
striving to enrich himself, no matter how--a thousand abuses, both of
right and justice, were tolerated or connived at, crime stalking abroad