Licensing Order of 1643

Parliament, by the Habeas Corpus Act 1640, abolished the Star Chamber in July 1641, which led to the de facto cessation of censorship.

[1] The Licensing Order reintroduced almost all of the stringent censorship machinery of the 1637 Star Chamber Decree, including: The Stationers' Company was given the responsibility of acting as censor, in return for a monopoly of the printing trade.

Radical Puritans and sectarian groups, finding their voices stifled by the strict censorship, turned to clandestine presses to disseminate their ideas.

This resistance highlighted the inherent tension between the desire for control and the urge for free expression, even amidst the turmoil of the English Civil Wars.

The Licensing Order was allowed to lapse on 17 April 1695, when the House of Commons declined to renew it and stated its reasons, beginning with "Because it revives, and re-enacts, a Law which in no-wise answered the End for which it was made".