The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

presses. In the 1600s, King James developed the idea of seditious libel, expanding
the ancient law of Scandalum Magnatum, which outlawed discussion about the king
or government. James and his son King Charles expanded the prosecution of
political dissenters by using this medieval law. In a Star Chamber case in 1606,
James eradicated the possibility of truth as a defense and made any printer of such
sedition liable in addition to the author. 21 In alliance with the king, and later with
Parliament, the stationers kept printing located only in London, under the watchful
eye of the government. There were no newspapers in the provinces. Parliament
passed an official Printing Act (or Licensing Act) in 1662 to place into written law
what had already been the practice. Printed matter needed a license, and printing
took place only in London. 22 Such heavy restrictions on printing were becoming
much too bulky and commercial interests required less burden if they were to
compete with freer presses on the European continent. The Printing Act was
allowed to expire by 1695, but that was not a clear move toward freedom of the
press. 23 There was an increase in the number of provincial presses and newspapers
throughout England after 1695, but convictions for seditious libel and breach of
privilege continued the tradition of government control. Punishment after the
fact—and the chilling effect of the possibility of such punishment—replaced the
prior restraint of censorship and licensing. In addition, the government often
subsidized newspapers, individual journalists, and even bought off critics in efforts
21 Copeland, Idea of a Free Press, 38.
22 Harold Innis, Empire and Communications (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972),
150.
23 English press controls contrasted with France where censorship often meant reading the
specific item before it could be printed. See Henry L. Snyder, “Newsletters in England, 1689-
1715: With Special Reference to John Dyer—A Byway in the History of England,” in Bond,
Newsletters to Newspapers, 3-19, Hannah Barker, in Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695-
1855 (Harlow, England: Longman, 2000), 1-4, and Jack Censer, The French Press in the Age of
Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 1994.) However, according to Copeland, Idea of a Free Press,
48-49 and 60-69, both religious officials and government-appointed censors read and actively
censored material at various times in seventeenth-century England.
21