All publications were required, to
be registered in the register of the company. No persons could set
up a press without a licence, or print anything which had not been
previously approved by some official censor. The court, which had
come to be known as the court of Star-chamber, exercised criminal
jurisdiction over offenders, and even issued its own decrees for the
regulation of printing. The arbitrary action of this court had no
small share in bringing about the resistance to Charles I. But the
fall of the royal authority did not mean the emancipation of the
press. The Parliament had no intention of letting go the control which
the monarchy had exercised; the incidence of the coercion was to be
shifted from themselves upon their opponents. The Star-chamber was
abolished, but its powers of search and seizure were transferred to
the Company of Stationers. Licensing was to go on as before, but to be
exercised by special commissioners, instead of by the Archbishop and
the Bishop of London. Only whereas, before, contraband had consisted
of Presbyterian books, henceforward it was Catholic and Anglican books
which would be suppressed.
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