Students of history will be familiar with the Court of Star Chamber, which used to sit in the Camera Stellata of the Palace of Westminster, a room the ceiling of which was decorated with stars, which gave its name to the court.

The Court was a prerogative court, a committee of the Privy Council, acting under the King's personal authority, and was designed to try people who were too powerful for the ordinary courts to touch. Thus it ensured justice for the weak and that the royal writ would run everywhere (the two were often the same), despite the power of overmighty subjects.