Details
HUDSON, William (c.1577-1635). Manuscript on paper, Treatise on the Star Chamber, an early 17th-century copy, in a neat, fluent secretary hand, 254 leaves, folio, some pencil markings to ff.1-152, 18th-century speckled calf (upper cover and two front free endpapers detached). Provenance: William Milbourne (19th-century signature to f.1); William A. Cragg (armorial bookplate and signature, dated 1908, to inside upper cover); G.R. Elton, bequeathed to the Royal Historical Society, 1995 (ex-libris to front free endpaper).
William Hudson was the pre-eminent Star Chamber jurist of the last decades of its existence. His treatise on the court may be dated to the replacement as Lord Chancellor of Francis Bacon (whom he detested) by John Williams, bishop of Lincoln, in 1621: 'Hudson meant to instruct Bacon's successor, John Williams ... in Star Chamber's procedural and substantive law. His didactic end was to urge Williams to return to the sound practices of the court under Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere, in 1596-1617' (ODNB). Hudson's antagonism to Bacon is evident throughout, and he obliquely accuses him of a number of offences including favouritism, prolixity and inefficiency; the primary surviving copy is at the British Library, Harley MS 1226, although dozens of contemporary copies are known, all presumably preceding the dissolution of the Star Chamber in 1641. The treatise was however not printed until 1792, in Collectanea Juridica, ii, pp.1-240.
William Hudson was the pre-eminent Star Chamber jurist of the last decades of its existence. His treatise on the court may be dated to the replacement as Lord Chancellor of Francis Bacon (whom he detested) by John Williams, bishop of Lincoln, in 1621: 'Hudson meant to instruct Bacon's successor, John Williams ... in Star Chamber's procedural and substantive law. His didactic end was to urge Williams to return to the sound practices of the court under Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere, in 1596-1617' (ODNB). Hudson's antagonism to Bacon is evident throughout, and he obliquely accuses him of a number of offences including favouritism, prolixity and inefficiency; the primary surviving copy is at the British Library, Harley MS 1226, although dozens of contemporary copies are known, all presumably preceding the dissolution of the Star Chamber in 1641. The treatise was however not printed until 1792, in Collectanea Juridica, ii, pp.1-240.
Special notice
No VAT on hammer price or buyer's premium.