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

Review of periodical literature published in 2005

“…Stoicism and discreet withdrawal were the normal royal responses, but the deaths of two non‐royal favourites (Leicester and Buckingham) provoked the most public displays of royal grief. Royal grief had one, longer‐term consequence, explained by Dawson. The funeral of Queen Mary II in 1695 was the last occasion on which the crown censored the press directly, to suppress prints of the queen lying in state.…”