[55] Hudson's "Treatise of the Court of Star-chamber," p. 51. This valuable work, written about the end of James's reign, is published in _Collectanea Juridica_, vol. ii. There is more than one manuscript of it in the British Museum. In another treatise, written by a clerk of the council about 1590 (Hargrave MSS. ccxvi. 195), the author says: "There was a time when there grew a controversy between the star-chamber and the King's Bench for their jurisdiction in a cause of perjury concerning tithes, Sir Nicholas Bacon, that most grave and worthy counsellor, then being lord-keeper of the great seal, and Sir Robert Catlyn, knight, then lord chief justice of the bench. To the deciding thereof were called by the plaintiff and defendant a great number of the learned counsellors of the law: they were called into the inner star-chamber after dinner, where before the lords of the council they argued the cause on both sides, but could not find the court of greater antiquity by all their books than Henry VII. and Richard III. On this I fell in cogitation how to find some further knowledge thereof." He proceeds to inform us, that by search into records he traced its jurisdiction much higher. This shows, however, the doubts entertained of its jurisdiction in the queen's time. This writer, extolling the court highly, admits that "some of late have deemed it to be new, and put the same in print, to the blemish of its beautiful antiquity." He then discusses the question (for such it seems it was), whether any peer, though not of the council, might sit in the star-chamber; and decides in the negative. "Ao. 5to. of her majesty," he says, in the case of the Earl of Hertford, "there were assembled a great number of the noble barons of this realm, not being of the council, who offered there to sit; but at that time it was declared unto them by the lord-keeper that they were to give place; and so they did, and divers of them tarried the hearing of the cause at the bar." This note ought to have been inserted in Chapter I., where the antiquity of the star-chamber is mentioned, but was accidentally overlooked. [56] P. 56. [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.