Catalogue description Court of Star Chamber: Proceedings, Philip and Mary

This series contains documents submitted or generated in the course of judicial proceedings, mostly in equity, heard before the king's Council at Westminster, and known as the Court of Star Chamber.

The series is incomplete, and although nominally of the reign of Philip and Mary only, also includes proceedings from the reign of Elizabeth (otherwise in STAC 5), as well as proceedings heard and determined before the Court of Requests (otherwise in REQ 3).

The records in this series comprise more than 750 suits, an average of about 147 suits a year, a level of business on a par with that attained during the reign of Edward VI. Under Mary, as under Edward, the balance of disputes heard in Star Chamber tended towards civil rather than criminal business, in which questions of title were predominant. The type of cases heard were generally similar to the jurisdiction of the court under Henry VIII and Edward VI.