ABSTRACT
We now turn from literary representations of the features of fraudulent conveyancing law – from figures of speech, ethical dilemmas, the carrying away of women, and the protection of property – to the actual development of the law, not in Parliament, or in public opinion, but in court. Despite Glenn’s assumption that Star Chamber heard Twyne’s Case because of the political importance of the issue, its court was not yet the place of Stuart unpopularity. It issued fines, not indictments for felonies or treason; it used Chancery procedure; and it allowed the examination of witnesses at trial.1 It was an arm of the Privy Council, part of the Queen’s penal jurisdiction, but also a poor man’s court and, although not a criminal court, it was charged with keeping the peace. As Shallow says in first words of The Merry Wives, after his keeper is beaten by Falstaff’s men, his deer killed, and his lodge broken open, “Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star Chamber matter of it” (I. i. 1).
