laws as were applicable to Protestant Dissenters. A few years later the policy of according perfect religious liberty to the Roman Catholics was consummated by the repeal of almost all the enactments against them which (though for the most part obsolete) still remained on the Statute book.2 of civil en Dissenters. A few supplementary measures were still required to Completion complete the civil enfranchisement of Dissenters. In 1833, franchiseMr. Pease, the first Quaker who had been elected to the ment of House of Commons for one hundred and forty years, was allowed to take his seat on making an affirmation instead of an oath. In the same year Quakers, Moravians, and Separatists, were enabled by statute to substitute an affirmation, in all cases, for an oath.3 disabilities. The Jews, banished from England under Edward I., had Jewish been suffered to return by Cromwell, but were not formally authorised to settle in England until after the Restoration.* An Act of James I.5 passed in 1610, and directed against the Roman Catholics, had the collateral effect of debarring the Jews from the benefits of naturalisation, by making the reception of the sacrament a necessary preliminary to naturalisation in all cases. In the interest of trade and colonisation, this requirement was partially relaxed by two subsequent statutes, which (1663) dispensed with the sacramental test in favour of all foreigners who had been engaged in the hemp and flax manufacture, and (1739) of all Jews and Protestant foreigners who had resided seven years continuously in the American plantations. Notwithstanding the political disabilities attaching to them in England, the number of foreign Jewish settlers continued to increase with the expansion of English commerce; and at length, in 1753, an attempt 5 Supra, p. 674, n. 6 15 Car. II. and 13 Geo. II. c. 7; Cobbett's Parl. Hist. xiv. 1373; Lecky, Hist. of Eng. i. 262. Admission of Jews to Parliament, 1858. Civil Regis- births, mar- was made to extend to all Jews applying for Parliamentary naturalisation the exemption from the sacramental test, already conceded to those who had resided in the colonies, or been engaged in the manufacture of hemp or flax. But the celebrated Jew Bill,1 by which this very moderate measure of toleration was effected, proved to be in advance of the opinion of the age. 'No Jews! No Jews! No Wooden Shoes!' became the popular cry; and although the Bill, after a fierce opposition in the House of Commons, obtained a fleeting place upon the Statute-book, it raised such a storm of opposition throughout the country, as to necessitate its repeal in the following session. Jews were occasionally admitted to municipal offices, together with Protestant Nonconformists, under cover of the Annual Indemnity Acts; but the declaration 'on the true faith of a Christian,' imposed by the Act 9 Geo. IV. c. 17, while relieving Dissenters from the requirements of the Test and Corporation Acts, had forged new fetters for the Jew. These were removed, so far as regards corporations, in 1845; and after a lengthened struggle, the only legal obstacle to the admission of Jews to Parliament was also removed, in 1858, by an Act which empowered either House of Parliament, by resolution, to omit the words 'upon the true faith of a Christian' from the oath of abjuration.* 3 In 1836 a civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths was established; and by another Act, Dissenters were permitted to solemnise marriages in their own chapels, registered for that purpose. The grievance complained of by Dissenters with regard to burials (though destined, 38 & 9 Vict. c. 52. 4 21 & 22 Vict. c. 49; 23 & 24 Vict. c. 63. By the 29 & 30 Vict. c. 19, all distinctions between Jewish and other members were removed by the enactment of a new form of oath from which the words 'on the true faith of a Christian' were omitted. [The first Jewish peer,-i.e., the first person of the Hebrew race raised to the peerage while continuing to profess the Jewish religion,-is Lord Rothschild, cr. 1885.-Ed.] 5 6 & 7 Will. IV. cc. 85, 86. doubtless, soon to disappear) still continues in the country Dissenters' Marriage districts of England, mitigated, however, by the practice Bill, 1836. of some incumbents who allow Dissenting ministers to perform their own burial service in the parish churchyard; and in populous towns the Dissenters have generally provided themselves with separate burying-grounds and unconsecrated parts of cemeteries. Lastly, in 1871, one Universities of the few remaining disabilities of Dissenters was re- 1871. dressed by the Universities Tests Act, which opened all lay academical degrees and all lay academical and collegiate offices in the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham to persons of any religious belief. V. Liberty of the Press. Tests Act, Of the political privileges of the people acquired or (V.) Liberty enlarged since the Revolution, we have still to consider of the Press. the liberty of the Press,' the guardian and guide of all other liberties,'1—and the last to be recognised by the State. We have seen how freedom of opinion in religious matters was early restrained by the action of the Church against the Lollard teachers and writers; and soon after the invention of printing in the fifteenth century the press was placed under a rigorous censorship, not only in England but throughout Europe. After the Reforma- The Censortion in England, the censorship of the press passed with ship. the ecclesiastical supremacy to the Crown. It became a part of the Royal prerogative to appoint a Licenser, without whose imprimatur no writings could be lawfully published; and the printing of unlicensed works was visited with the severest punishments. Printing was further restrained by patents and monopolies. The privilege was confined, in the first instance, under regulations established by the Star Chamber in Queen Mary's reign, to members of the Stationers' Company, and the number of presses, and of 1 Earl Russell, Eng. Con. p. 339. 2 Supra, pp. 412, 415. The Press under men to be employed on them, was strictly limited. Under Elizabeth, the censorship was enforced by more rigorous penalties. All printing was interdicted elsewhere than in London, Oxford, and Cambridge; and nothing whatever was allowed to be published until it had first been 'seen, perused, and allowed' by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London, except only publications by the Queen's printer, to be appointed for some special service, or by law-printers, for whom the license of the Chief Justices was sufficient.1 Mutilation or death was the penalty of those who dared to print anything which the Judges might choose to construe as seditious or slanderous of the government in Church or State.2 Under James I. and Charles I., political and religious James I. and discussion was repressed by the Star Chamber with the Charles I. greatest severity. By an ordinance of the Star Chamber, issued in July, 1637, the number of master printers was limited to twenty, who were to give sureties for good behaviour, and were to have not more than two presses and two apprentices each (unless they were present or past Masters of the Stationers' Company, when they were allowed three presses and three apprentices) and the number of letter-founders was limited to four. The penalty for practising the arts of printing, book-binding, letter-founding, or making any part of a press, or other printing materials, by persons disqualified, or not apprenticed thereto, was whipping, the pillory, and imprisonment. Even books which had been once examined and allowed were not to be reprinted without a fresh license; and books brought from abroad were to be landed in London only, and carefully examined by licensers appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, who were empowered to seize and destroy all such as 1 Ordinances of the Star Chamber for the regulation of the Press in 1585, supra, p. 472. 2 St. 23 Eliz. c. 2. See the cases of Stubbe, Udal, Barrow, Greenwood and Penry, supra, pp. 461, 465. 3 Supra, pp. 563-565. 1623. monwealth. were seditious, schismatical, or offensive.' Periodical searches, both of booksellers' shops and private houses, were also enjoined and authorised. Yet it was during The first this inauspicious period that the first newspaper, the newspaper, the Weekly Weekly Newes, made its appearance, late in the reign of Newes. James I.; and after the abolition of the Star Chamber (Feb. 1640-1) tracts and newspapers issued forth in shoals during the contest between the Crown and the Parliament.2 The Long Parliament, however, while abolishing the Star The Censorship conChamber, continued the censorship of the press; and tinued under endeavoured to silence all Royalist and prelatical writers the Comby most tyrannical ordinances, 'to repress disorders in printing,' by which the messengers of the government were empowered to break open doors and locks, by day or by night, in order to discover unlicensed printing-presses, and to apprehend authors, printers, and others. These proceedings called forth the 'Areopagitica' of Milton, in Milton's Areopagiwhich he branded the suppression of Truth by the licenser tica. as the slaying of 'an immortality rather than a life,' maintained that 'she needs no policies, no stratagems, no licensings, to make her victorious,' and nobly, but ineffectually, pleaded for the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely, according to conscience, above all [other] liberties.' 3 After the Restoration, the entire control of printing Licensing was placed in the hands of the Government by the Act, 1662. Licensing Act of 1662, which, though originally passed only for three years, was continued by subsequent renewals until 1679. Printing was strictly confined to London, York, and the two Universities; the number of master printers was limited, as in the ordinances of the Star Chamber, in 1637, to twenty; and no private person was to publish any book or pamphlet unless it were first 1 The Weekly Newes,' May 23rd, 1623, printed for Nicholas Bourne and Thomas Archer.-May, Const. Hist. ii. 240. 2 More than 30,000 political pamphlets aud newspapers were issued from the press during the 20 years from 1640 to the Restoration. They may be seen at the British Museum bound up in 2,000 volumes.-Ibid. ii. 241. 3 Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech for liberty of Unlicensed Printing, pp. 73, 74. [Arber's Reprints.] |