In Camera Stella [manuscript].
1619
Items
Details
Title
In Camera Stella [manuscript].
Created/published
[London], circa 1619 - 20.
Description
1 item ; 4to
Note
This is a PRELIMINARY RECORD. It may contain incorrect information. The "FAST ACC" number is a temporary call number. Please email catalog@folger.edu for assistance.
Genre/form
Manuscripts (documents)
Item Details
Call number
FAST ACC 271392 (quarto)
Folger-specific note
Purchase by made possible through the generosity of Nicole Winard. From dealer's description: Bound with "Small 4to., 8 1/2 pages, (approx. 1600 words), written in a neat Jacobean hand, preserved in a modern quarter calf binding labelled "In Camera Stellata". A contemporaneous manuscript copy of the proceedings of the Star Chamber on the 13th February 1619/20 when King James I passed sentence on his Secretary of State, Thomas Lake, along with his wife, daughter (Lady Roos), and other parties - all of whom were judged by the King to be guilty of slander against Lady Exeter, the wife of Lady Roos' father-in-law, with a fabricated charge of [an illegal personal relationship] between her and Lake's daughter's husband, William Cecil. It was a dispute which scandalised Jacobean Society and which so angered the King that he took the unprecedented step of personally presiding over both the Trial and the Sentences. The first portion of the manuscript, which is under the heading "In Camera Stellata", details the heavy fines and punishments administered to members of the Lake family for their parts in what was by all accounts a bitter dispute, with a conspiring chamber-maid by the name of Sarah Wharton cited to be "whipped and branded" for providing what the King himself demonstrated to be counterfeit testimony. Various names of Star Chamber attendees are included here, the most prominent being 'Sr Fulke Greville Chancellor of the Exchequer'. The second part is headed " The Kings Speech after" and contains what might well be a full transcript version of the King's summary. For more comprehensive details of the trial see Collins's Peerage of England Vol. 6 (1812) by Egerton Brydges, pp. 433-436, and The Court of King James the First Vol. 1 (1839) by Godfrey Goodman, Chp XI pp. 192-193. Consultation of "Early English Books on Line" indicates that this account of the sentencing does not appear to have been published." Ordered from A. R. Heath Rare Books D9219, 2018-07-09 ; email quote.
Folger accession
271392