were, they were less ready and less efficient instruments of
arbitrary power than a class of courts, the memory of which is
still, after the lapse of more than two centuries, held in deep
abhorrence by the nation. Foremost among these courts in power
and in infamy were the Star Chamber and the High Commission, the
former a political, the latter a religious inquisition. Neither
was a part of the old constitution of England. The Star Chamber
had been remodelled, and the High Commission created, by the
Tudors. The power which these boards had possessed before the
accession of Charles had been extensive and formidable, but had
been small indeed when compared with that which they now usurped.
Guided chiefly by the violent spirit of the primate, and free
from the control of Parliament, they displayed a rapacity, a
violence, a malignant energy, which had been unknown to any
former age. The government was able through their
instrumentality, to fine, imprison, pillory, and mutilate without
restraint. A separate council which sate at York, under the
presidency of Wentworth, was armed, in defiance of law, by a pure
act of prerogative, with almost boundless power over the northern
counties. All these tribunals insulted and defied the authority
of Westminster Hall, and daily committed excesses which the most
distinguished Royalists have warmly condemned. We are informed by
Clarendon that there was hardly a man of note in the realm who
had not personal experience of the harshness and greediness of
the Star Chamber, that the High Commission had so conducted
itself that it had scarce a friend left in the kingdom, and that
the tyranny of the Council of York had made the Great Charter a
dead letter on the north of the Trent.

The government of England was now, in all points but one, as