After Leveson: Stephen Sedley on press regulation – London Review of Books
“The Privy Council, which will now be responsible for issuing a royal charter setting up a panel to vet the independence of a new press regulator, started licensing books in 1538. In 1557 a royal charter gave the members of the Stationers’ Company a monopoly of printing. In 1588 the anti-episcopal Marprelate Tracts (one of whose authors, John Penry, was executed for publishing them) provoked a system of press licensing which survived in one form or another, though with diminishing effect, until the last decade of the 17th century.”
London Review of Books, 11th April 2013
Source: www.lrb.co.uk
