throughout the large suburban
districts in which the prohibition had been disregarded was only saved
from demolition by the payment of three years' rental to the Crown. The
Treasury gained a hundred thousand pounds by this clever stroke, and
Charles gained the bitter enmity of the great city whose strength and
resources were fatal to him in the coming war. Though the Catholics were
no longer troubled by any active persecution, and the Lord Treasurer was
in heart a Papist, the penury of the Exchequer forced the Crown to
maintain the old system of fines for "recusancy."

[Sidenote: Fines and monopolies.]

Vexatious measures of extortion such as these were far less hurtful to
the state than the conversion of justice into a means of supplying the
royal necessities by means of the Star Chamber. The jurisdiction of the
King's Council had been revived by Wolsey as a check on the nobles; and
it had received great developement, especially on the side of criminal
law, during the Tudor reigns. Forgery, perjury, riot, maintenance,
fraud, libel, and conspiracy, were the chief offences cognizable in this
court, but its scope extended to every misdemeanour, and especially to
charges where, from the imperfection of the common law, or the power of
offenders, justice was baffled in the lower courts. Its process
resembled that of Chancery: it usually acted on an information laid
before it by the King's Attorney. Both witnesses and accused were
examined on oath by special interrogatories, and the Court was at
liberty to adjudge any punishment short of death. The possession of such
a weapon would have been fatal to liberty under a great tyrant; under
Charles it was turned simply to the profit of the Exchequer. Large
numbers of cases which would ordinarily have come before the Courts of
Common Law were called before the Star Chamber, simply for the purpose
of levying fines for the Crown. The same motive accounts for the
enormous penalties which were exacted for offences of a trivial
character. The marriage of a gentleman with his niece was punished by
the forfeiture of twelve thousand pounds, and fines of four and five
thousand pounds were awarded for brawls between lords of the Court.
Fines such as these however affected a smaller range of sufferers than
the financial expedient to which Weston had recourse in the renewal of
monopolies. Monopolies, abandoned by Elizabeth, extinguished by Act of
Parliament under James, and denounced with th