information:extraction
History

The crime of scandalum magnatum (insulting the peers of the realm through slander or libel) was established by the Statute of Westminster 1275, c. 34, but the first instance of criminal libel is generally agreed to be the De Libellis Famosis case, tried in the Star Chamber in the reign of James I by Edward Coke who, in his judgement on the case, said that a person's "good name... ought to be more precious to him than his life". The case centred around an "infamous" libel about John Whitgift, the late Archbishop of Canterbury. It was held that libel against a private person could be considered a crime if it could provoke revenge that would threaten a breach of the peace, that libel against the monarch or government could be illegal, even if true, because "it concerns not only the breach of the peace, but also the scandal of government", and that a libel against a public figure was a more serious offence than one against a private person. This set a precedent in common law that judges decided all factors except that of publication; therefore, a guilty verdict from a jury in a libel trial resolved only that the material had been published while the judge decided whether a libel had been committed.