f the Stannaries.
Special Stannary Courts for the administration of justice amongst those
connected with the mines are held in the two counties, and are each
presided over by a warden and a vice-warden. Up to 1752 representative
assemblies of the miners, called Stannary Parliaments, were held. Appeals
from the Stannary Courts may be made now to the higher courts of England.

STAR-CHAMBER, a court which originated in the reign of Edward III.,
and consisted practically of the king's ordinary council, meeting in the
Starred Chamber, and dealing with such cases as fell outside the
jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery; was revived and remodelled by
Henry VII., and in an age when the ordinary courts were often intimidated
by powerful offenders, rendered excellent service to the cause of
justice; was further developed and strengthened during the chancellorship
of Wolsey, and in the reign of James I. had acquired jurisdiction as a
criminal court over a great variety of misdemeanours--perjury, riots,
conspiracy, high-treason, &c. Already tending to an exercise of
unconstitutional powers, it in the reign of Charles I. became an
instrument of the grossest tyranny, supporting the king in his absolutist
claims, and in 1641 was among the first of the many abuses swept away by
the Long Parliament.

STARS, THE, are mostly suns, but being, the nearest of them, at a
distance from us more than 500,000 times our distance from the sun, are
of a size we cannot estimate, but are believed to be 300 times larger
than the earth; they are of unequal brightness, and are, according to
this standard, classified as of the first, second, down to the sixteenth
magnitude; those visible to the naked eye include stars from the first to
the sixth magnitude, and number 3000, while 20,000,000 are visible by the
telescope; of these in the MILKY WAY (q. v.) alone there are
18,000,000; they are distinguished by their colours as well as their
brightness, being white, orange, red, green, and blue according to their
temperature and composition; they have from ancient date been grouped
into constellations of the northern and the southern hemispheres and of
the ZODIAC (q. v.), the stars in each of which being noted by
the Greek letters, as [Greek: alpha], [Greek: beta], according to their
brightness; they all move more or less, and some go round each other, and
are called double according as there are two or more of them so
revolving; besides stars singly visi