ECCLESIASTICAL POLICE AND POLICE UNDER JAMES I
The accession of Queen Elizabeth inaugurated a period of great activity
for the police departments. Her rule was masterful and her control
maternal. Magistrates and constables were kept busy in administering
the statutes dealing with apprentices, wages, disputes in service,
hours of labour, the regulation of industrial trades, laws for the
suppression of rogues and vagabonds, and other enactments too numerous
to mention, which followed each other in quick succession. Of the
many statutes, public and private, passed in this reign, having for
their object the enforcement of government by police, amongst the
most important were those which referred to the City and Borough
of Westminster, "for the suppressing and rooting out of vice there
used." The police administration of the city had from time immemorial
rested with the ecclesiastical authorities, and in 1559 the Queen
gave a charter to the Dean and Chapter, carrying the same privileges,
immunities and powers, that the Abbot and Convent used to enjoy. The
Dean and Chapter delegated their authority to a functionary called
the High Steward, and made him responsible for the preservation of the
peace, but they conferred upon him no power of levying money on the
inhabitants for that purpose, and made no provision for the appointing
of assistants to help him in his duties. The result of this policy was
continued disorder, and after twenty-five years of failure, a change
of system was decided upon. In 1584[98] Westminster was divided into
twelve wards, each under a Burgess, who was nominated by the Dean or
High Steward, and these twelve Burgesses, as well as the superior
officers, were authorized to punish "incontinences, common scolds,
inmates, and common annoyances" in accordance with the laws and the
customs of London. They had the power, also, to commit to prison
peace-breakers, but they were bound to give notice of such committals
to a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex within twenty-four hours. It
was hereby further enacted that "if any person or persons, after he or
they shall happen to be punished and banished from this city for any
incontinency of life or such like, and shall return again to the city
or borough, to the intent there to inhabit and dwell, that then every
such person and persons shall be whipped naked at the cart's tayle
throughout the said city, for every time so offending, contrary to this
order."[98]
Lord Burleigh was the first High Steward appointed under this Act, and
on his initiative certain ordinances[99] for the better government
of the people of Westminster were added in the course of the same
year. These regulations were as minute as they were varied. Not more
than one hundred ale-houses were allowed, which taverns were bound to
display a lantern with candle complete at their street-doors "every
night, nightly (except those nights as the moon shall then and at that
time shine and give light) upon paine to forfeit and pay for every
time offending herein fourpence." Fourpence was in like manner the
fine imposed on those burgesses and their assistants who failed to
attend Divine Service at the Abbey on Sunday, but the owner of any hogs
found wandering in Tuthill were mulcted in the sum of twelve pence.
It would be interesting to learn the basis of these computations, and
why a wandering hog cost the owner as much as three absences from
morning prayer. More valuable, however, were the regulations introduced
with the object of preventing the sale of bad and unwholesome food.
Special officers, called Searchers, "discreet men having a knowledge
of the trade," were appointed to look after the butchers, poulterers,
and provision purveyors, with power to seize and burn bad meat,
and to commit the owners (or their agents exposing food unfit for
consumption), to prison, for a period of twenty-four hours. The
licensing of ale-houses still rested with Justices of the Peace, and
constables who neglected to apprehend "sturdy beggars" were liable to a
fine of six shillings and eightpence.
In addition to the extra work thrown on their shoulders in connection
with the Acts above mentioned, the jurisdiction of the Justice of the
Peace was extended so as to encroach upon territory that had hitherto
been the province of the Justice of Assize. Courts Leet, moreover,
having by this time become quite unimportant, the appointment and
control of the constabulary was centred almost entirely in the hands of
the county magistrates. They held office under the Crown direct, and on
their Commission took an oath to do equal right between rich and poor,
to accept nothing beyond the customary fees for the performance of
their duties, and to pay all fines inflicted by them into the Queen's
Exchequer without embezzlement or delay. "The Justices of the Peace,"
writes Sir Thomas Smith, "be those in whom, at this time, for the
repressing of robbers, thieves, and vagabonds, of privy complots and
conspiracies, of riots and violences and all other misdemeanours in the
commonwealth, the prince putteth his special trust ... and generally,
as I have said, for the good government of the shire, the prince
putteth his confidence in them."[100]
Amongst the duties laid upon the rural police for the control of
agriculture, we find that before a labourer "retained in husbandry"
could leave his parish or township, he had to obtain a testimonial
from the constable, and to get two householders to declare his lawful
departure.[101] This system of passports for the suppression of
vagrancy never worked smoothly, and its development in later times as
enforced against beggars by parish constables, led to serious abuses
that will demand our attention further on.[102] The 15th section of
the same Act empowered Justices and constables, upon request being made
during harvest time, to compel labourers to work on farms where labour
was scarce, and to put those who obstinately refused in the stocks for
two days and one night.
The treatment served out to rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars was
more severe. Persons taken begging or "misordering themselves" were
to be committed to the common gaol, and if convicted of the offence
at the next sessions of the peace or gaol-delivery--"grievously
whipped, and burnt through the gristle of the right ear with a hot
iron of the compass of an inch about."[103] The burning was repealed,
and open whipping "until his or her body be bloody" was afterwards
substituted.[104] Although the severity of the punishment was thus
mitigated, it was now apparently inflicted in a more summary fashion,
for offenders were no longer to be committed to gaol, but were to be
whipped on apprehension, probably by the constables at the instance of
a Justice.
Up to this point the history of the constable is one long record of
new duties undertaken, and fresh responsibilities incurred (though
perhaps unwillingly), by that officer. This tendency, as we shall see,
becomes more pronounced as time goes on, though in one particular, the
contrary may be noticed. In 1601, the famous Poor Law of Elizabeth[105]
sensibly relieved the parish officer of much irksome responsibility by
associating with him churchwardens to help in assessing the poor-rate,
and to assist in the general duty of supervising the needy. From this
date until 1849 (when the Essex Rural Constabulary were first employed
as assistant relieving officers for casuals) the care of the impotent
poor was entrusted to overseers specially appointed for the purpose,
with the result that constables had more leisure to make things
unpleasant for the vagrant man and the sturdy beggar.
Hue and Cry remained the only practical agency for the pursuit and
capture of delinquents. The method of its application, by whom it was
to be made, and the penalties that followed upon its neglect, are fully
dealt with in an Act passed during the 27th year of this reign,[106]
which declares that Hue and Cry is to be deemed lawful only when
made by Horsemen and Footmen, "any usage or custom to the contrary
notwithstanding." It is not clear what is meant by this restriction,
but it is probable that the prohibition of man-hunting with the aid of
dogs was intended. In cases where the fugitive was not apprehended, and
where the inhabitants responsible for the capture refused to pay the
amercement, the constables and headboroughs were authorised to distrain
upon the goods and chattels of the obstinate parishioners, and to hand
over the money realized by the sale thereof to the Justices.[106]
The system pressed hardly on certain Hundreds, which owing to their
situation and local circumstances, were unable to apprehend all the
peace-breakers of the neighbourhood, and which were often so poor that
a heavy fine meant ruin to one or more families in the group. We find
in consequence that petitions against amercements were not uncommon:
in 1597, for instance, the poor inhabitants of Benhurst in Berkshire
had to appeal to the clemency of the Queen on account of the constant
penalties imposed on them, some at least of which they thought should
be borne by the neighbouring town of Maidenhead. The language in
which this appeal is couched is so quaint and pitiful that their own
words are given. "That whereas the said Hundred doth consist only of
five small villages and three small Quillets or Hamlets, and hath
lying through it two great highways: the one leading from London to
Henley-on-Thames and the other from London to Reading: and either of
them at the least three miles in length within the Great Woody Ground
called the 'Thicket'--and no-one of the same villages standeth upon
or adjoining to either of the said ways, but lie dispersedly far from
the same: neither have the inhabitants of the same Hundred any open or
common fields, either arable or other, adjoining or lying near to such
parts of the same ways (within the said Thicket) as are most apt for
robberies to be done, whereby they may have their servants or workmen
labouring within the view of the said ways, to take notice of the
robberies done: and therefore the said inhabitants cannot well have
any speedy notice or intelligence of any robbery which shall be there
committed unless the Party or Parties robbed should give the same
unto them."[107] It is to the Queen's credit that the inhabitants of
Benhurst in Berkshire did not appeal in vain to the royal clemency.
When in 1595 the civil arm was found insufficient to put down the
riotous proceedings that disturbed the peace of the Home Counties,
its shortcomings were made good by the supplemental employment of the
military power. Elizabeth has been accused of proclaiming Martial
Law when its application was not warranted by the exigencies of the
case.[108] It is difficult for us at the present day to determine how
grave were the disturbances that induced the Proclamation in question,
or how far the ordinary methods of control had been tried and found
wanting; but it is certain that no adequate police existed to quell
anything in the nature of a serious riot. It was no doubt discreditable
to the Government that such should be the case, but it was a discredit
that it shared with all preceding Governments, and one that attached
with a greater degree of culpableness to all subsequent Governments
down to the year 1829. Given an unlawful and violent assembly of
riotous persons, and the lack of any civil force strong enough to
disperse them, it is difficult to see the practicability of any
alternative measure to that of calling out the troops. The Commission
given to Sir Thomas Willford in 1595 did not amount to Martial Law
in the usual acceptation of the term, that is to say, the ordinary
Law was not to be entirely superseded, the Provost Marshal was only
to "speedily execute" those offenders whom the Justices of the Peace
signified as deserving of death, and such sentence was to be carried
out in the presence of the Justices who had had judicial cognisance of
the offence. The only additional powers granted to Sir Thomas Willford
were those by which he was authorized to "repair with a convenient
company," and "calling to your assistance some convenient number of our
justices and constables abiding about the said places, to apprehend
all such vagrant and suspected persons, and them to deliver to the
said justices, by them to be committed,"[109] etc., etc. The powers,
in fact, given to the soldiers on this occasion were solely executive;
no one was to be tried by Court-Martial; the verdict lay with the
civil power; and only the carrying out of the sentence rested with the
military authorities.
At no time of our history have the duties of the Justice and the
tasks of the constable been more varied and onerous than they were at
the period we are considering. The jurisdiction and control of these
officers reached to the furthest corners of the social edifice; they
had to see that the labourers rose betimes and did not take too long
over their meals, nor might the country parson marry without "the
advice and allowance"[110] of two Justices of the shire. All these
multifarious duties they performed for the most part without pecuniary
reward, the only fee to which they were entitled being the sum of
five shillings for each day they sat in the execution of the Statute
of Labourers. On the whole it must be allowed that they carried out
the duties entrusted to them both with credit to themselves, and
to the public advantage; for whilst Sheriffs, Under-Sheriffs, and
Bailiffs were for ever giving cause for complaint on account of their
"misdemeanour and evil behaviour," it was a rare occurrence for a
Justice to be accused of extortion or injustice, and crime was far less
common at this time than it afterwards became. Contemporary writers,
however, criticise the county magistracy with some severity. Freak, the
Bishop of Worcester, for example, writes to the Lord Treasurer in 1587,
giving his opinion of the Justices of the Peace: "I do observe some
weakness in that number: divers of them being but superficial, either
for advice or for execution of any weighty affaires of the county,"
whilst Shakespeare is very hard upon all police functionaries as he
knew them. Mr Justice Shallow, representing the Bench, Dogberry and
Verges of the Watch, as well as Elbow and Dull of the Constabulary, are
all treated with good-humoured contempt. The dramatist's account of the
interview between Escalus and Elbow is of particular interest because
it illustrates the evils of the system of deputy which clung to the
office of parish-constable until forty or fifty years ago.[111]
The sort of difficulties that magistrates had to contend with, owing
to the slackness of the constabulary, are graphically described in
a letter dated 1596 in the course of which, Mr Hext, then a Justice
of the Peace for Somersetshire, complains officially to the Lord
Treasurer that thieves and robbers had grown so cunning, through
having often been in gaol, that these old hands could seldom be laid
hold of. "Others," he writes, "are delivered to simple constables and
tything-men, that sometimes wilfully, and other times negligently
suffer them to escape." After suggesting that steps should be taken
to punish all keepers of ale-houses who harbour suspicious persons,
and all constables and tything-men who suffer them to be at large,
he goes on to explain how difficult it is to get the country people
to prosecute in cases of theft, "for most commonly the most simple
country man and woman, looking no further than to the loss of their
own goods, are of opinion, that they would not procure any man's death
for all the goods in the world." This same reluctance to prosecute,
as we shall see, hindered the administration of justice for many
generations, and the question of how best to remove it, is to this
day a police problem, that has only been partially solved by the
comparatively recent institution of the office of Public Prosecutor.
Mr Hext was either very credulous, or thieves' appetites must have
been prodigious in the sixteenth century, for in the same letter he
describes how "within this three months I took a thief, that was
executed this last assizes, that confessed unto me, that he and two
more lay in an ale-house three weeks: in which time they eat twenty fat
sheep: whereof they stole every night one." Finally he gives a woeful
account of the Egyptians (_i.e._ Gypsies) that infested his county.
"The inhabitants," declares the magistrate, "being wonderfully grieved
by their rapines, made complaint at our Easter Sessions, after my Lord
Chief Justice's departure: precepts were made to the tythings adjoining
for the apprehending of them. They made answer, but (the Gypsies) were
so strong that they durst not adventure of them: whereupon precepts
were made to the constables of the shire: but not apprehended, for they
have intelligence of all things intended against them.... And they
grow the more dangerous in that they find they have bred that fear in
Justices, and other inferior officers, that no man dares call them in
question."[112]
From all this it is clear that the police organization left much to
be desired. The country, in fact, was not yet ripe for a good police.
With the central government corrupt, the superior courts venal, the
upper classes of society prone to violence, and the masses for the most
part unacquainted with justice, the sixteenth century would have found
a good police force according to our standard, about as useful and as
easy of comprehension as they would an Edison's phonograph or a modern
treatise on the Spectrum Analysis.
The police administration of the seventeenth century differed but
little from that which had gone before, no real advance being
discoverable either in the theory or practice of peace-maintenance.
Certain changes were indeed taking place from year to year, as old
customs fell into disuse and as ancient words acquired new meanings;
but, on the whole, growth and decay were almost evenly balanced. If it
is admitted that the duties of a constable, and the matters that fell
within his province, were now more clearly defined than heretofore, it
must also be confessed that he was permitted to shirk his work more
than ever. This slackness of performance may be clearly demonstrated
by a comparison between the oaths taken by High and Petty Constables
respectively, on their appointment, and the copious evidences of
neglect that are everywhere apparent. Before his admission to office an
oath was administered to the High-Constable-elect in these words:--"You
shall swear, That you shall well and truly serve our Sovereign Lord the
King in the Office of Constable. You shall see and cause His Majestie's
Peace to be well and truly kept and preserved according to your power.
You shall arrest all such persons as in your sight and presence shall
ride or go armed offensively, or shall commit or make any Riot,
Affray, or other Breach of His Majestie's Peace. You shall do your
best endeavour (upon complaint to you made) to apprehend all Felons,
Barretors, and Rioters, or persons riotously assembled: and if any such
offenders shall make resistance (with force) you shall levy Hue and
Cry, and shall pursue them until they be taken. You shall do your best
endeavour that the watch in and about your Hundred be duly kept, for
the Apprehending of Rogues, Vagabonds, night-walkers, Evesdroppers,
Scouts, and other suspected persons, and of such as go armed, and the
like: and that Hue and Cry be duly raised and pursued according to the
Statute of Winchester, against Murderers, Thieves, and other felons:
and that the Statutes made for the punishment of Rogues and Vagabonds,
and such other idle persons as come within your bounds and limits be
duly put in execution. You shall have a watchful eye to such persons as
shall maintain or keep any common house or place, where any unlawful
game is or shall be used: as also to such as shall frequent or use such
places, or shall use or exercise any unlawful games there or elsewhere,
contrary to the Statutes.
"At your Assizes, Sessions of the Peace, or Leet, you shall present all
and every the offences done contrary to the Statutes made 1 Jacobi,
4 Jacobi, and 21 Jacobi Regis, to restrain the inordinate haunting
and tippling in Inns, Alehouses, and other Victually Houses, and for
repressing of drunkeness: you shall there likewise true presentment
make of all Bloudsheddings, affrays, outcries, Rescous, and other
offences committed or done against the King's Majestie's Peace within
your limits: You shall once every year during your office present at
the Quarter Sessions all Popish Recusants within your liberty, and
their Children above 9, and their servants, (_scil_ their monthly
absence from the Church).[113] You shall well and duly execute all
precepts and Warrants to you directed, from the Justices of the
Peace of the County or higher Officers: you shall be aiding to your
neighbours against unlawful purveyances: in time of Hay or Corn
Harvest, upon request, you shall cause all persons meet to serve by
the day for the mowing, reaping, or getting in of Corn or Hay: You
shall in Easter week cause your Parishioners to chuse Surveyors for
the mending of the Highways in your parish or Liberty; and you shall
well and duly, according to your Knowledge, Power, and Ability, do and
execute all other things belonging to the Office of Constable, so long
as you continue in the said Office. So help you God."
If the obligations here enumerated had been effectually carried out,
the King's Peace might have been a reality instead of the meaningless
formula it had become; but High Constables were not professional
police-officers like our Chief Constables, nor were they county
magnates like the High Constables who once had superintended the
police of the shire. The status of the office had steadily declined:
instead of the great noblemen who, as we have seen, occupied similar
posts under the Plantagenet Kings, and instead of the "Yeomen of the
better class" spoken of by Lord Bacon, we find ale-house keepers and
petty tradesmen, hardly less ignorant than the petty constables they
were supposed to instruct, undertaking the office for the sake of
profit, without any special aptitude, knowledge, or experience of their
important duties, and without any serious intention of learning their
work; for as no inducement or encouragement was held out to tempt
or stimulate them to exertion, they were as inefficient when they
relinquished their task as they were when they undertook it.
The form of oath required of petty constables, or Tything men, as they
were still called, was as follows--"You shall swear that you shall
well and truly execute the office of a Tythingman of the Tything of H.
(or headborough, etc.). His Majestie's Peace in your own person you
shall keep, and see it kept in all others, as much as in you lieth. In
the presence of the High Constable you shall be aiding and assisting
unto him: and in his absence you shall execute his office, and do all
other things belonging to your office, according to your knowledge and
Power, untill another be chosen in your room, or you shall be legally
discharged thereof.--So help you God."
It is immaterial whether these police officers deliberately took the
required oath, meaning not to be bound by it, or whether they were
so ignorant as not to understand the nature of a solemn affirmation;
but be this as it may, High Constables neglected their oath and their
office, and petty constables followed suit, rarely acting at all except
under compulsion, or unless an opportunity offered for some petty
tyranny or extortion, whilst anything like professional activity was
quite unknown. Nor was the prevailing stagnation the worst feature
of the times. The moral character, as well as the social position
of peace officers, Justice and constable alike, deteriorated under
Stuart misgovernment. The King of course remained _ex officio_ the
"highest maintainer of the peace," and his weaknesses, illegalities,
and extortions were not only repeated but multiplied in the descending
links of the chain of responsibility.
It was in the reign of James I. that corrupt magistrates first earned
for themselves the nickname of "Basket Justices," as the predecessors
of the "Trading Justices" of later days were called; and even the
higher judges were not altogether above suspicion. With such a
degenerate personnel to carry out its provisions, small wonder that
the law frequently became a dead letter. Let one instance suffice.
During this reign the right of sanctuary was abolished by law; but
custom, which was far more powerful than the police, having decided
that sanctuaries should continue, not only was no attempt made to
deprive these asylums of their ancient privileges, but certain of them,
notably Whitefriars, secured for themselves additional immunities. The
country, in fact, too often had to witness the ridiculous spectacle
of a Legislature solemnly filling the Statute Book with elaborate
enactments, whilst the constables whose duty it was to see the law
enforced, were quietly going about their own business, following the
plough, or minding the shop. English police was in truth at a low ebb,
and the inevitable consequences of such a feeble executive quickly
followed; bullies and blackguards of every kind overran the realm, and
the weak had no rights except such as the strong chose to leave them.
"Private quarrels were nourished" (writes the historian of the period)
" ... and duels in every street maintained: divers sects and peculiar
titles passed unpunished and unregarded, as the sect of the Roaring
Boys, Bonaventors, Bravadors, Quarterors, and such like, being persons
prodigal, and of great expense, who, having run themselves into debt,
were constrained to run next into factions, to defend themselves from
danger of the law. These received countenance from divers of nobility:
and the citizens, through lasciviousness consuming their estates, it
was like that the number (of these desperadoes) would rather increase
than diminish: and under these pretences, they entered into many
desperate enterprises, and scarce any durst walk in the Street after
nine at night.... Alehouses, dicing houses, taverns and places of
iniquity, beyond manner abounding in most places."[114]
Slack as the police were in other directions, the campaign against
vagrants continued to be conducted with vigour. All men, whatever
their station, were ordered to apprehend such rogues or vagabonds as
they might see begging, and to convey them to the nearest constable
or tythingman, at whose hands they were liable to be branded with the
letter "R," should they be found incorrigible.[115] Nor was this all.
Justices of the Peace were instructed to summon the constables together
some four or five days before the half-yearly sessions, and to command
them "to make a general privy search one night for the finding out of
such rogues and idle persons, and such as they find they shall bring
to the Justices, and if for punishment (cause them to be) conveyed
to the house of correction, there to be set to labour."[116] In
order, moreover, that this privy search might be the more effectual,
constables were empowered to claim the assistance of as many neighbours
as they might find sufficient for their purpose.
Such persistent persecution of the vagrant class does not argue that
the police were efficient, for if the vagrants had been organized or
able to stand up for themselves, there is little doubt that they would
have been left alone just as the Roaring Boys and the Bonaventors were.
This is also true, to some extent, of those unfortunate persons who
were suspected of being afflicted with the plague, and who were, in
consequence, treated with as little consideration as are pariah dogs in
an Indian cantonment. Fear of the plague aroused an unwonted display
of energy amongst police officers, and caused extraordinary powers to
be given to the Justices, who were authorised to appoint Searchers,
Watchmen, Examiners, and others to see that no person suspected of
being infected left their houses. If any such person, having been
duly warned, "contemptuously went abroad," the Watchmen might, with
violence, enforce him to keep his house, but if he was caught in the
public streets having any infectious sore upon him uncured, he was
adjudged "_ipso facto_" guilty of felony, and might be sentenced to
death. Furthermore, if any man was discovered abroad "conversing with
company" after being cautioned to keep house, even if there was no
sore found about him, it was ordained that he should be punished as a
vagabond, and be subject to all penalties for vagabondage (including
whipping) besides being bound to his good behaviour for the space
of one year.[117] In remote country districts similar powers were
conferred, not only on Justices of the Peace, but also on constables
and headboroughs.[118]
The following police regulations, which were in force during an
outbreak of the plague in the City of Oxford, are from a Proclamation
by Charles I. in the year 1644, and are far milder and more reasonable
than those considered necessary in the previous reign, as a few
extracts will shew. It is ordained--"That a Watchman (be) set at the
Fore door of the house, to keep in the persons within the house, and
also to fetch them such necessaries as they want, to be delivered to
them so discretely and warily as may not endanger themselves, or those
to whom they may resort.
"That when a house shall be known to be infected with the plague,
forthwith a Red Crosse be set on the outward doore of the house, with
an inscription in Capital Letters, with these words LORD HAVE MERCY
UPON US.
"That every such Watchman, when he sitteth or goeth in the streets,
carry a white stick in his hand, so that others may be admonished not
to presse too neare into his company.
"That all burialls of persons dying of the plague be in the night-time,
after tenne of the clock at the soonest, and without concourse of
people, and that the Corpse be laid at least foure foot deep under the
ground.
"That all Dogs and Cats in the Towne be forthwith sent away out of the
Towne, or such as are found in the Streets, or Courts of the Colledges,
to be knockt on the head, and their carcasses carryed away and buried
without the Works at a convenient distance."[119]
It is not to be wondered at if during the troubles which befell the
nation in King Charles' reign, police suffered in common with all other
institutions. Internal peace was not likely to thrive during those
eleven years whilst no Parliament was summoned, whilst Wentworth was
devoting his energies towards the creation of a standing army that was
to make the Crown absolute, whilst soldiers were billeted broadcast on
unwilling inhabitants, and as long as in many districts martial law
continued to supersede the ancient judicial system.
The keynote of Charles' policy was, from the first, a determination to
raise money by hook or by crook, wherever the cost might fall, and to
this end, one field of trickery after another was exploited. One device
(1626) was to make Sheriffs of those of his opponents whom the King
feared, so as to secure their detention in their own counties; another
was an attempt (1640) to reintroduce the forest laws, by determining
afresh the boundaries of the royal forests,[120] and re-insisting
on their old-time privileges for the sake of the revenues accruing
therefrom. Amercements were collected with an energy that was not
content until the uttermost farthing had been gleaned: offences against
the licensing laws were usually punished by fines, and the income
arising from this source was not small, so it was enacted,[121] that
if offenders did not pay up within six days, they were to be delivered
to the constable to be whipped, and if the constable failed to execute
his warrant, he was to be committed to prison by the Justice until he
should induce someone else to do it for him.
Before approaching the subject of the Civil War and its
after-consequences, it will, perhaps, not be out of place to pause for
a moment, and looking back on the history of the past, to enquire,
how much of the ancient police system of England survived at this
period, how much of it was dormant, and what portions had altogether
disappeared.
The Tything could no longer be said to exist: the increase of
population, the growth of trade, and the improved facilities for moving
from one part of the country to another, having rendered the retention
of such a small sub-division impracticable. The parish took the place
of the tything, and the parish-constable filled, to some extent, the
position once held by the tythingman. We have seen how the office of
constable, which theoretically ought to fall to all the inhabitants
in rotation ("Religious Persons, Knights, Clerkes and Women" only
excepted) came to be generally executed by paid, and practically
permanent substitutes; but it must not be forgotten that the liability
of the principal was not at an end, nor the appointment of the
substitute valid, unless the transfer was approved by the inhabitants,
and until it was duly confirmed by the proper authority.
The decay of frank-pledge, as a practical system, had long been
complete, but the general principle remained, and now and again we come
across attempts at revival and other indications, which prove that the
Saxon régime was not entirely forgotten. In his "Customs of the City
of London," published in 1642, Sir Henry Colthrop quotes from Liber
Albus: "A large Charter is granted for the liberties of Southwark, and
for correction of offences there, with a view of Franck-pledge with
arrests, and to bring the offenders to Newgate."[122]
Writing in the first half of the seventeenth century, Minsheu says that
"Inlaugh signifieth him that is in some Franke-pledge," and goes on to
remark that "Decennier is not now used for the Chiefe man of a Dozen,
but for him that is sworn to the King's Peace ... and that no man
ordinarily giveth other securities for the keeping of the King's Peace,
but his owne oath, and that therefore none answereth for another's
transgression, but every man for himself--and for the generall ground
this may suffice."[123] The exceptions here implied, refer no doubt to
the custom of binding over an offender to keep the peace. "Inlaugh" is
obviously the antithesis of the more familiar "Outlaw," whilst "Dozen"
is used in its original sense of "Ten," and has nothing to do with the
number "Twelve."
The liability of the Hundred to compensate the sufferers for the
damages done therein still held good,[124] and constables had never
been relieved, by Statute or otherwise, of their constitutional duty
of presenting offences at the court of the Hundred or Leet. The High
Constable was the chief executive officer of the Hundred, but as the
scope of his office has been fully set forth in the form of oath
already quoted, his exact position need not be further enlarged on,
except to say that his disciplinary powers over the petty-constables
seem to have been very limited. The Justices decided what the
petty-constables were to do, and how they were to do it, despite the
fact that the High Constable was the man who was responsible for the
due conservation of the peace in his district: he had, in short, most
of the responsibilities of a modern Chief Constable, with no power of
appointing, dismissing, or controlling his assistants.
The obligation of all to bear arms had been re-enforced by Statute as
recently as the year 1557,[125] and this liability remained the law of
the land, at least nominally so, until the eighteenth century.
The Statute of Winchester defined the law as to Watch and Ward as
heretofore, and although of course its precise regulations were no
longer adhered to in detail, but modified continually with the changing
circumstances of the times, no fresh authoritative declaration was
issued on the subject.
Hue and Cry, also, had undergone little change and in 1626 is thus
defined by Minsheu: "Hue and Cry--This signifieth a pursuit of one
having committed felonie by the highway, for if the partie robbed, or
any in the companie of one murdered or robbed, come to the Constable of
the Next Towne, and will him to raise Hiew & Crie, or to make pursuit
after the offendour, describing the partie, and shewing, as neere as he
can, which way hee is gone: the Constable ought forthwith to call upon
the Parish, for aid in seeking the felon: and if he be not found there,
then to giue the next constable warning, and he the next, untill the
offender be apprehended, or at the least untill he be thus pursued to
the sea-side."
This brief survey of the police system of the early Stuart period
not only shews how little progress had been made during the last
five hundred years, but partly explains the rash haste with which
all classes decided to appeal to the sword for the settlement of the
differences that divided Crown and Commons. For some time back, in the
absence of that restraining influence which an efficient police force
might have afforded, people had readily run into factions; and, with
arms in their hands, had supported their particular opinions by force,
in defiance of all authority, and with a degree of violence that would
never have been tolerated for a moment in any community where the value
of peace-maintenance was duly appraised and properly insisted upon.