“Court of Star-Chamber (_camera stellata_), a famous, or rather infamous English tribunal, said to have been so called, either from a Saxon word, signifying to _steer_ or govern; or for its punishing the _crimen stellionatus_, or cosenage; or because the room wherein it sat――the old council-chamber of the palace of Westminster (Lamb. 148), which is now converted into the lottery-office, and forms the eastern side of the new palace-yard――was full of windows; or (to which Sir Edward Coke, 4 Inst. 66, accedes), because _haply_ the roof thereof was at the first garnished with gilded _stars_. As all these are merely conjectures (for no stars are now in the roof, nor are any said to have remained there so late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth), it may be allowable to propose another conjectural etymology, as plausible, perhaps, as any of them. It is well known that, before the banishment of the Jews under Edward I., their contracts and obligations were denominated in our ancient records _starra_, or _starrs_, from a corruption of the Hebrew word _shetar_, a covenant. These _starrs_, by an ordinance of Richard the First, preserved by Hoveden, were commanded to be enrolled and deposited in chests, under three keys, in certain places; one, and the most considerable, of which was in the king’s exchequer at Westminster; and no starr was allowed to be valid, unless it were found in some of the said repositories. The room at the exchequer, where the chests containing these starrs were kept, was probably called the _star-chamber_, and when the Jews were expelled the kingdom, was applied to the use of the king’s council, sitting in their judicial capacity. To confirm this, the first time the star-chamber is mentioned in any record, it is said to have been situated near the receipt of the exchequer at Westminster (the king’s council, his chancellor, treasurer, justices, and other sages, were assembled _en la chaumber des esteilles presta resceipt at Westminster, Clause 41, Edw. III. m. 13_). For in process of time, when the meaning of the Jewish _starrs_ were forgotten, the word _star-chamber_ was naturally rendered in law French, _la chaumbre des esteilles_, and in law Latin, _camera stellata_, which continued to be the style in Latin till the dissolution of that court.”――_Encyclopædia Britannica._ LECTURE IV. MY lecture this evening commences with the history of the Jews in this country, during the reign of King John――the reign of one who has acquired an unenviable notoriety in the political history of this country――one who is well known as a disobedient son, an unnatural brother, and a savage monarch――one who disregarded the rights of all men――one, in short, who trampled under foot all laws, both Divine and human.