The power of the High Commission Court,…

The power of the High Commission Court, or Star Chamber, has grown considerably under the House of Stewart, and by the time of King Charles I, it has become synonymous with misuse and abuse of power by the King and his circle.

King James I and his son Charles have used the court to examine cases of sedition, which means that the court could be used to suppress opposition to royal policies.

It comes to be used to try nobles too powerful to be brought to trial in the lower court.

Charles uses the Court of Star Chamber as Parliamentary substitute during the eleven years of Personal Rule, when he rules without a Parliament, making extensive use of the Court of Star Chamber to prosecute dissenters, including the Puritans who are fleeing to New England.

Dr. Alexander Leighton, a Scottish medical doctor and puritan preacher and pamphleteer, had in 1628 published his controversial Zion's Plea Against Prelacy: An Appeal to Parliament, an attack on Anglican bishops, in Holland.

In this publication, he had criticized the church, and in particular the Bishops who rule the Church of Scotland, condemning them as "antiChristian and satanic".

Once the warrant for his arrest is issued by the High Commission Court, Leighton is taken to the house of William Laud, Bishop or London, and then to Newgate prison without any trial.

He is put in irons in solitary confinement in an unheated and uncovered cell for fifteen weeks, in which the rain and snow could beat in upon him.

None of his friends nor even his wife are permitted to see him during this time.

According to four doctors, Leighton is so sick that he is unable to attend his supposed sentencing.

Will Durant notes that Leighton also "was tied to a stake and received thirty-six stripes with a heavy cord upon his naked back; he was placed in the pillory for two hours in November's frost and snow; he was branded in the face with the letters 'SS' (for 'Sower of Sedition'), had his nose split and his ears cut off, and was condemned to life imprisonment" (Age of Reason Begins, pp. 189–190).

Medical records say that, "since he had been censured by the Star Chamber on religious grounds (& had had his ears cropped)", that he should now be 'infamis' in his profession, and he was permanently banned from further practice.