The death throes of the Licensing Act and the ‘funeral pomp’ of Queen Mary II, 1695

A few weeks before the Licensing Act finally lapsed in May 1695, the Court of Chivalry heard three cases relating to the publication of ‘unauthorised’ prints of the ‘funeral pomp’ of Mary II. In one of these, a leading London publisher of prints, John Overton, was ordered to deliver up the plates from which his print of the queen's lying in state had been made, along with all copies of the print, despite the fact that the Licensing Act did not apply to prints sold separately and the Court of Chivalry had in any case no jurisdiction to enforce press control. Brief records of the cases survive in the College of Arms. This paper sets out to explain and interpret these fragments against the background of the last days of pre-publication censorship in England. Press licensing is first examined with reference to the press coverage following the death of the queen.