The star chamber, while that court subsisted, put effectual restraints upon printing.
On the suppression of that tribunal in 1641, the long parliament, after their rupture with the king, assumed the same power with regard to the licensing of books; and this authority was continued during all the period of the republic and protectorship.[*] * Scobell i.

44, 134; ii.

88, 230.
Two years after the restoration, an act was passed reviving the republican ordinances.

This act expired in 1679; but was revived in the first of King James.

The liberty of the press did not even commence with the revolution.