( 8 )

on behalf of the people, to control the course of legislation
 and the system of judicial administration. The
struggles between the Crown and the people, which
continued for several centuries, were marked at various
stages by the preponderance of the authority of the
Crown, and at such times the authority of the Privy
Council was greatly extended, and encroached upon
the rights and privileges of the larger council of the
nation. The growth of Parliament, of the Court of
Chancery, and of the common law courts, tended to
restrict the authority of the Privy Council to the discharge
 of purely executive functions; the popular
assemblies and courts tending to assume the right to
frame and administer the laws. The period of civil
war, known as the War of the Roses, and the period
of the Tudor dynasty, were marked by the most
enormous usurpation of authority by the Crown and
Privy Council. Under the name of the Star Chamber,
the Council assumed the power of adjudicating in all
causes that might, in example, or consequence, concern
the state of the common-wealth. The erection of this
chamber was a re-actionary movement against the
more feudal principle, which regarded the assembly
of nobles, or House of Lords, as the supreme
judicial tribunal. It was at this time, namely, under
the Tudor Princes, that the Council drew into
its own hands, and never afterwards lost the exclusive
 jurisdiction over appeals from foreign and
colonial dependencies of the Crown. In the reign
of Charles I., however, the civil and criminal judicial