The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER I.

The Three Cranes in the Vin­try.

Ad­join­ing the Vin­try Wharf, and at the cor­ner of a nar­row lane com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Thames Street, there stood, in the ear­ly part of the Sev­en­teenth Cen­tu­ry, a tav­ern called the Three Cranes. This old and renowned place of en­ter­tain­ment had then been in ex­is­tence more than two hun­dred years, though un­der oth­er des­ig­na­tions. In the reign of Richard II., when it was first es­tab­lished, it was styled the Paint­ed Tav­ern, from the cir­cum­stance of its out­er walls be­ing fan­ci­ful­ly coloured and adorned with Bac­cha­na­lian de­vices. But these dec­ora­tions went out of fash­ion in time, and the tav­ern, some­what chang­ing its ex­ter­nal fea­tures, though pre­serv­ing all its in­ter­nal com­forts and ac­com­mo­da­tion, as­sumed the name of the Three Crowns, un­der which ti­tle it con­tin­ued un­til the ac­ces­sion of Eliz­abeth, when it be­came (by a slight mod­ifi­ca­tion) the Three Cranes; and so re­mained in the days of her suc­ces­sor, and, in­deed, long af­ter­wards.

Not that the last-​adopt­ed de­nom­ina­tion had any ref­er­ence, as might be sup­posed, to the three huge wood­en in­stru­ments on the wharf, em­ployed with ropes and pul­leys to un­load the lighters and oth­er ves­sels that brought up butts and hogsheads of wine from the larg­er craft be­low Bridge, and con­stant­ly thronged the banks; though, no doubt, they in­di­rect­ly sug­gest­ed it. The Three Cranes de­pict­ed on the large sign­board, sus­pend­ed in front of the tav­ern, were long-​necked, long-​beaked birds, each with a gold­en fish in its bill.

But un­der what­ev­er des­ig­na­tion it might be known--Crown or Crane--the tav­ern had al­ways main­tained a high rep­uta­tion for ex­cel­lence of wine: and this is the less sur­pris­ing when we take in­to ac­count its close prox­im­ity to the vast vaults and cel­lars of the Vin­try, where the choic­est pro­duce of Gas­cony, Bor­deaux, and oth­er wine-​grow­ing dis­tricts, was de­posit­ed; some of which we may rea­son­ably con­clude would find its way to its ta­bles. Good wine, it may be in­ci­den­tal­ly re­marked, was cheap enough when the Three Cranes was first opened, the del­icate juice of the Gas­coign grape be­ing then vend­ed, at fourpence the gal­lon, and Rhen­ish at six­pence! Prices, how­ev­er, had risen con­sid­er­ably at the pe­ri­od of which we pro­pose to treat; but the tav­ern was as well-​re­put­ed and well-​fre­quent­ed as ev­er: even more so, for it had con­sid­er­ably ad­vanced in es­ti­ma­tion since it came in­to the hands of a cer­tain en­ter­pris­ing French skip­per, Pros­per Bonaven­ture by name, who in­trust­ed its man­age­ment to his ac­tive and pret­ty lit­tle wife Dameris, while he him­self pros­ecut­ed his trad­ing voy­ages be­tween the Garonne and the Thames. And very well Madame Bonaven­ture ful­filled the du­ties of host­ess, as will be seen.

Now, as the skip­per was a very sharp fel­low, and per­fect­ly un­der­stood his busi­ness-​prac­ti­cal­ly an­tic­ipat­ing the Transat­lantic ax­iom of buy­ing at the cheap­est mar­ket and gelling at the dear­est-​he soon con­trived to grow rich. He did more: he pleased his cus­tomers at the Three Cranes. Tak­ing care to se­lect his wines ju­di­cious­ly, and hav­ing good op­por­tu­ni­ties, he man­aged to ob­tain pos­ses­sion of some de­li­cious vin­tages, which, could not be matched else­where; and, with this nec­tar at his com­mand, the for­tune of his house was made. All the town gal­lants flocked to the Three Cranes to dine at the ad­mirable French or­di­nary new­ly es­tab­lished there, and crush a flask or so of the exquisite Bor­deaux, about which, and its del­icate flavour and bou­quet, all the con­nois­seurs in claret were rav­ing. From, mid-​day, there­fore, till late in the af­ter­noon, there were near­ly as many gay barges and wher­ries as lighters ly­ing off the Vin­try Wharf; and some­times, when ac­com­mo­da­tion was want­ing, the lit­tle craft were moored along the shore all the way from Queen­hithe to the Steel­yard; at which lat­ter place the Cather­ine Wheel was al­most as much not­ed for racy Rhen­ish and high-​dried neat's tongues, as our tav­ern was for fine Bor­deaux and well-​sea­soned pâtés.

Not the least, how­ev­er, of the at­trac­tions of the Three Cranes, was the host­ess her­self. A live­ly lit­tle brunette was Madame Bonaven­ture, still young, or, at all events, very far from be­ing old; with ex­treme­ly fine teeth, which she was fond of dis­play­ing, and a re­mark­ably neat an­cle, which she felt no in­cli­na­tion to hide be­neath the sweep of her round cir­cling far­thin­gale. Her fig­ure was quite that of a minia­ture Venus; and as, like most of her coun­try-​wom­en, she un­der­stood the art of dress to ad­mi­ra­tion, she set off her per­son to the best ad­van­tage; al­ways at­tir­ing her­self in a style, and in colours, that suit­ed her, and nev­er in­dulging in an un­war­rantable ex­trav­agance of ruff, or ab­surd and un­be­com­ing length of peaked bod­dice. As to the stuffs she wore, they were cer­tain­ly above her sta­tion, for no Court dame could boast of rich­er silks than those in which the pret­ty Dameris ap­peared on fête days; and this was ac­count­ed for by rea­son that the good skip­per sel­dom re­turned from a trip to France with­out bring­ing his wife a piece of silk, bro­cade, or vel­vet from Lyons; or some lit­tle mat­ter from Paris, such as a ruff, cuff, part­let, ban­dlet, or fil­let. Thus the last French mode might be seen at the Three Crowns, dis­played by the host­ess, as well as the last French _en­tremet_ at its ta­ble; since, among oth­er im­por­tant ac­ces­sories to the well-​do­ing of the house, Madame Bonaven­ture kept a _chef de cui­sine_--one of her com­pa­tri­ots--of such su­perla­tive skill, that in lat­er times he must in­fal­li­bly have been dis­tin­guished as a _cor­don bleu_.

But not hav­ing yet com­plet­ed our de­scrip­tion of the charm­ing Bor­de­laise we must add that she pos­sessed a rich south­ern com­plex­ion, fine sparkling black eyes, shad­ed by long dark eye-​lash­es, and over-​arched by jet­ty brows, and that her raven hair was combed back and gath­ered in a large roll over her smooth fore­head, which had the five points of beau­ty com­plete. Over this she wore a pret­ti­ly-​con­ceived coif, with a front­let. A well-​starched, well-​plait­ed ruff en­com­possed her throat. Her up­per lip was dark­ened, but in the slight­est de­gree, by down like the soft­est silk; and this pe­cu­liar­ity (a pe­cu­liar­ity it would be in an En­glish­wom­an, though fre­quent­ly ob­serv­able in the beau­ties of the South of France) lent ad­di­tion­al pi­quan­cy and zest to her charms in the eyes of her nu­mer­ous ador­ers. Her an­kles we have said were trim; and it may be added that they were of­ten­er dis­played in an em­broi­dered French vel­vet shoe than in one of Span­ish leather; while in walk­ing out she in­creased her stature “by the al­ti­tude of a chopine.”

Cap­tain Bonaven­ture was by no means jeal­ous; and even if he had been, it would have mat­tered lit­tle, since he was so con­stant­ly away. Fan­cy­ing, there­fore, she had some of the priv­ileges of a wid­ow, our live­ly Dameris flirt­ed a good deal with the gayest and hand­somest of the gal­liards fre­quent­ing her house. But she knew where to stop; no li­cence or in­deco­rum was ev­er per­mit­ted at the Three Cranes; and that is say­ing a great deal in favour of the host­ess, when the dis­so­lute char­ac­ter of the age is tak­en in­to con­sid­er­ation. Be­sides this, Cy­prien, a stout well-​favoured young Gas­con, who filled the posts of draw­er and cham­ber­lain, to­geth­er with two or three oth­er trencher-​scrap­ers, who served at ta­ble, and wait­ed on the guests, were gen­er­al­ly suf­fi­cient to clear the house of any trou­ble­some roys­ter­ers. Thus the rep­uta­tion of the Three Cranes was un­blem­ished, in spite of the live­li­ness and co­quetry of its mis­tress; and in spite, al­so, of the ma­li­cious tongues of ri­val tav­ern-​keep­ers, which were loud against it. A pret­ty wom­an is sure to have en­emies and ca­lum­ni­ators, and Madame Bonaven­ture had more than enow; but she thought very lit­tle about them.

There was one point, how­ev­er, on which it be­hoved her to be care­ful: and ex­treme­ly care­ful she was,--not leav­ing a sin­gle loop-​hole for cen­sure or at­tack. This was the ques­tion of re­li­gion. On first tak­ing the house, Madame Bonaven­ture gave it out that she and the skip­per were Huguenots, de­scend­ed from fam­ilies who had suf­fered much per­se­cu­tion dur­ing the time of the League, for staunch ad­her­ence to their faith; and the state­ment was gen­er­al­ly cred­it­ed, though there were some who pro­fessed to doubt it. Cer­tain it was, our host­ess did not wear any cross, beads, or oth­er out­ward sym­bol of Pa­pa­cy. And though this might count for lit­tle, it was nev­er dis­cov­ered that she at­tend­ed mass in se­cret. Her move­ments were watched, but with­out any­thing com­ing to light that had ref­er­ence to re­li­gious ob­ser­vances of any kind. Those who tried to trace her, found that her vis­its were most­ly paid to Paris Gar­den, the Rose, and the Globe (where our im­mor­tal bard's plays were then be­ing per­formed), or some oth­er place of amuse­ment; and if she did go on the riv­er at times, it was mere­ly up­on a par­ty of plea­sure, ac­com­pa­nied by gay gal­lants in vel­vet cloaks and silken dou­blets, and by light-​heart­ed dames like her­self, and not by no­to­ri­ous plot­ters or sour priests. Still, as many Bor­deaux mer­chants fre­quent­ed the house, as well as traders from the Hanse towns, and oth­er for­eign­ers, it was looked up­on by the sus­pi­cious as a hotbed of Romish heresy and trea­son. More­over, these ma­lign­ers af­firmed that En­glish re­cu­sants, as well as sem­inary priests from abroad, had been har­boured there, and clan­des­tine­ly spir­it­ed away from the pur­suit of jus­tice by the skip­per; but the charges were nev­er sub­stan­ti­at­ed, and could, there­fore, on­ly pro­ceed from en­vy and mal­ice. What­ev­er Madame Bonaven­ture's re­li­gious opin­ions might be, she kept her own coun­cil so well that no one ev­er found them out.

But evil days were at hand. Hith­er­to, all had been smil­ing and pros­per­ous. The prospect now be­gan to dark­en.

With­in the last twelve months a strange and un­looked for in­ter­fer­ence had tak­en place with our host­ess's prof­its, which she had viewed, at first, with­out much anx­iety, be­cause she did not clear­ly com­pre­hend its scope; but lat­ter­ly, as its formidable char­ac­ter be­came re­vealed, it be­gan to fill her with un­easi­ness. The calami­ty, as she nat­ural­ly enough re­gard­ed it, arose in the fol­low­ing man­ner. The present was an age of mo­nop­olies and patents, grant­ed by a crown ev­er ea­ger to ob­tain mon­ey un­der any pre­text, how­ev­er un­jus­ti­fi­able and in­iq­ui­tous, pro­vid­ed it was plau­si­bly coloured; and these vex­atious priv­ileges were pur­chased by greedy and un­scrupu­lous per­sons for the pur­pose of turn­ing them in­to in­stru­ments of ex­tor­tion and wrong. Though var­ious branch­es of trade and in­dus­try groaned un­der the op­pres­sion in­flict­ed up­on them, there were no means of re­dress. The paten­tees en­joyed per­fect im­mu­ni­ty, grind­ing them down as they pleased, farm­ing out whole dis­tricts, and di­vid­ing the spoil. Their mis­er­able vic­tims dared scarce­ly mur­mur; hav­ing ev­er the ter­ri­ble court of Star-​Cham­ber be­fore them, which their per­se­cu­tors could com­mand, and which pun­ished li­bellers--as they would be ac­count­ed, if they gave ut­ter­ance to their wrongs, and charged their op­pres­sors with mis-​do­ing,--with fine, brand­ing, and the pil­lo­ry. Many were han­dled in this sort, and held up _in ter­rorem_ to the oth­ers. Hence it came to pass, that the Star-​Cham­ber, from the fear­ful na­ture of its ma­chin­ery; its ex­traor­di­nary pow­ers; the no­to­ri­ous cor­rup­tion and ve­nal­ity of its of­fi­cers; the pe­cu­liar­ity of its prac­tice, which al­ways favoured the plain­tiff; and the sever­ity with which it pun­ished any li­belling or slan­der­ous words ut­tered against the king's rep­re­sen­ta­tive (as the paten­tees were con­sid­ered), or any con­spir­acy or false ac­cu­sa­tion brought against them; it came to pass, we say, that this ter­ri­ble court be­came as much dread­ed in Protes­tant Eng­land as the In­qui­si­tion in Catholic Spain. The pun­ish­ments in­flict­ed by the Star-​Cham­ber were, as we learn from a le­gal au­thor­ity, and a coun­sel in the court, “fine, im­pris­on­ment, loss of ears, or nail­ing to the pil­lo­ry, slit­ting the nose, brand­ing the fore­head, whip­ping of late days, wear­ing of pa­pers in pub­lic places, or any pun­ish­ment but death.” And John Cham­ber­lain, Esq., writ­ing to Sir Dud­ley Carl­ton, about the same pe­ri­od, ob­serves, that “The world is now much ter­ri­fied with the Star-​Cham­ber, there be­ing not so lit­tle an of­fence against any procla­ma­tion, but is li­able and sub­ject to the cen­sure of that court. And for procla­ma­tions and patents, they are be­come so or­di­nary that there is no end; ev­ery day bring­ing forth some new project or oth­er. As, with­in these two days, here is one come forth for to­bac­co, whol­ly en­grossed by Sir Thomas Roe and his part­ners, which, if they can keep and main­tain against the gen­er­al clam­our, will be a great com­mod­ity; un­less, per­ad­ven­ture, in­dig­na­tion, rather than all oth­er rea­sons, may bring that filthy weed out of use.” [What, would be the ef­fect of such a patent now-​a-​days? Would it, at all, re­strict the use of the “filthy weed?”] “In truth,” pro­ceeds Cham­ber­lain, “the world doth even groan un­der the bur­then of these per­pet­ual patents, which are be­come so fre­quent, that where­as at the king's com­ing in there were com­plaints of some eight or nine mo­nop­olies then in be­ing, they are now said to be mul­ti­plied to as many scores.”

From the fore­go­ing ci­ta­tion, from a pri­vate let­ter of the time, the state of pub­lic feel­ing may be gath­ered, and the alarm oc­ca­sioned in all class­es by these op­pres­sions per­fect­ly un­der­stood.

Amongst those who had ob­tained the largest share of spoil were two per­sons des­tined to oc­cu­py a promi­nent po­si­tion in our his­to­ry. They were Sir Giles Mom­pes­son and Sir Fran­cis Mitchell,--both names held in gen­er­al dread and de­tes­ta­tion, though no man ven­tured to speak ill of them open­ly, since they were as im­pla­ca­ble in their an­imosi­ties, as usu­ri­ous and grip­ing in their de­mands; and many an ear had been lost, many a nose slit, many a back scourged at the cart's tail, be­cause the un­for­tu­nate own­ers had stig­ma­tized them ac­cord­ing to their deserts. Thus they en­joyed a com­plete im­mu­ni­ty of wrong; and, with the ter­ri­ble court of Star-​Cham­ber to de­fend them and to pun­ish their en­emies, they set all op­po­si­tion at de­fi­ance.

In­sa­tiable as un­scrupu­lous, this avari­cious pair were ev­er on the alert to de­vise new means of ex­ac­tion and plun­der, and amongst the lat­est and most pro­duc­tive of their in­ven­tions were three patents, which they had ob­tained through the in­stru­men­tal­ity of Sir Ed­ward Vil­liers (half-​broth­er of the rul­ing favourite, the Mar­quess of Buck­ing­ham)--and for due con­sid­er­ation-​mon­ey, of course,--for the li­cens­ing of ale-​hous­es the in­spec­tion of inns and hostel­ries, and the ex­clu­sive man­ufac­ture of gold and sil­ver thread. It is with the two for­mer of these that we have now to deal; inas­much as it was their mis­chievous op­er­ation that af­fect­ed Madame Bonaven­ture so prej­udi­cial­ly; and this we shall more ful­ly ex­plain, as it will serve to show the work­ing of a fright­ful sys­tem of ex­tor­tion and in­jus­tice hap­pi­ly no longer in ex­is­tence.

By the sweep­ing pow­ers con­ferred up­on them by their patents, the whole of the inns of the metropo­lis were brought un­der the con­trol of the two ex­tor­tion­ers, who levied such im­posts as they pleased. The with­draw­al of a li­cense, or the to­tal sup­pres­sion of a tav­ern, on the plea of its be­ing a ri­otous and dis­or­der­ly house, im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lowed the re­fusal of any de­mand, how­ev­er ex­ces­sive; and most per­sons pre­ferred the re­mote pos­si­bil­ity of ru­in, with the chance of avert­ing it by ready sub­mis­sion, to the pos­itive cer­tain­ty of los­ing both sub­stance and lib­er­ty by re­sis­tance.

Fear­ful was the hav­oc oc­ca­sioned by these li­censed depreda­tors, yet no one dared to check them--no one ven­tured to re­pine. They had the name of law to jus­ti­fy their pro­ceed­ings, and all its au­thor­ity to up­hold them. Com­pro­mis­es were at­tempt­ed in some in­stances, but they were found un­avail­ing. Eas­ily evad­ed by per­sons who nev­er in­tend­ed to be bound by them, they on­ly added keen­ness to the orig­inal provo­ca­tion, with­out of­fer­ing a rem­edy for it. The two blood­suck­ers, it was clear, would not de­sist from drain­ing the life-​cur­rent from the veins of their vic­tims while a drop re­mained. And they were well served in their in­iq­ui­tous task,--for the plain rea­son that they paid their agents, well. Part­ners they had none; none, at least, who cared to ac­knowl­edge them­selves as such. But the sub­or­di­nate of­fi­cers of the law (and in­deed some high in of­fice, it was hint­ed), the sher­iff's fol­low­ers, bailiffs, tip­staves, and oth­ers, were all in their pay; be­sides a host of myr­mi­dons,--base, sor­did knaves, who scru­pled not at false-​swear­ing, coz­enage, or any sort of ras­cal­ity, even forgery of le­gal doc­uments, if re­quired.

No won­der poor Madame Bonaven­ture, find­ing she had got in­to the clutch­es of these harpies, be­gan to trem­ble for the re­sult.