MILITARY POLICE AND POLICE UNDER CHARLES II
If the feebleness of the police was in some degree responsible
for the ready appeal to arms in 1642, the lawlessness that was so
widespread at the close of the century, was largely the outcome of the
disorganization of the national police system, which was the natural
accompaniment of the Revolution. Civil War is invariably attended by
an outbreak of crime that has no connection with the main quarrel, but
which arises in the day of trouble because the powerlessness of the
executive is the opportunity of the criminal. No longer is any one
power supreme (crimes committed in one camp being generally condoned
in the other), and a mania of insubordination drives ordinarily
well-disposed persons to throw off the old restraints to which they
instinctively submit in times of peace. When Civil War begins, the
"King's Peace" is at an end, the Law is forgotten or despised, the
whole body politic is in a state of fever, and the usual functions of
orderly government are suspended.
If the Revolution in England produced less serious consequences than
might have been expected, this result was due to the puritan zeal
of the Parliamentary Army, which had no sympathy with any acts of
violence that were not directed against those whom it held to be the
enemies of liberty and religion, and which at least permitted no
riotous licence amongst its adherents. Yet in spite of this desire of
the popular party to maintain order, the whole civil machinery of the
country was dislocated and out of gear as long as the war lasted; even
the circuit of the Justice of Assize was discontinued; and marriages,
no longer solemnised with the customary religious ceremony, were
performed by Justices of the Peace, and in such a casual manner that
few records were kept.
As soon as Cromwell's victory was complete he at once set to work to
establish an orderly government, only to find that the old implements
that had served his predecessors were now broken and well-nigh
useless. In London, the Parliamentary stronghold, the re-establishment
of order presented no insuperable difficulties, but in the rural
districts the case was different. There the gentry, to which class
both Justices of the Peace and grand jury-men belonged, were in the
main royalists--whilst constables, tythingmen and petty jurymen were
usually Roundheads. The resulting friction hampered the Protector's
administration from the first; so that, much as he would have preferred
to have made use of the constitutional machinery for peace-maintenance,
he was often compelled to resort to novel expedients to police the
new commonwealth. If it was denied to Oliver Cromwell to govern on
constitutional lines, he held, nevertheless, the supreme command of a
large and powerful army, such as no sovereign in England had previously
had the control of, and inevitably therefore, he fell back upon the
military forces that had served him so well in the past, hoping by
their aid to restore, if not to improve upon, the state of security
that had been wrecked by the war.
An attempt to reform the county magistracy by the creation of a new
commission of the peace in the year 1651 having ended in failure, the
Protector had no choice but to hand over to the Army those police
functions which no alternative organization was competent to undertake,
and so for the first time in English history, the civil power was
subordinated to a military dictatorship, and for a while the sword
supplanted the baton.
In the course of the year 1655 the whole of England and Wales was
divided for administrative purposes into twelve police districts,
viz.:--
i. Kent and Surrey.
ii. Sussex, Hants, and Berks.
iii. Gloucester, Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.
iv. Oxford, Bucks, Herts, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambs.
v. London.
vi. Westminster and Middlesex.
vii. Lincoln, Notts, Derby, Warwick and Leicester.
viii. Northants, Beds, Rutland and Hunts.
ix. Herefordshire, Salop and N. Wales.
x. Cheshire, Lancashire and Staffordshire.
xi. Yorkshire, Durham, Cumberland, Westmoreland
and Northumberland.
xii. Monmouth and S. Wales.
To each of these districts a military officer was assigned, and largely
endowed with inquisitorial and penal powers. Though holding for the
most part no higher army rank than that of colonel or major, these
functionaries (who were appointed by Cromwell himself, and who remained
under his personal supervision) were styled Major-Generals,[126] and
under this title exercised an office which for the moment overawed
the constitutional ministers of the peace. At first it was not
intended that the ordinary magistrates should be superseded, for the
Major-Generals were instructed to co-operate with "the other Justices
of the Peace," and if in practice this co-operation degenerated into
flat coercion, such a result must be attributed to the exigencies
of the occasion, or to the misinterpretation of their orders by the
Protector's agents, rather than to the deliberate design of Cromwell
himself.
The programme in front of the military reformers was a sufficiently
extensive one, comprising, as it did, measures "for the security of the
peace of the nation, the suppressing of vice, and the encouragement of
virtue."[127] To enable them to grapple with their herculean task, they
were assisted by a special force of militia, 6420 strong, all but two
hundred of whom were mounted, and the expense of the new administration
was met by the imposition of a tax of ten per cent. on the estates
of Royalists, on the old English principle that those responsible
for disturbances should pay for the re-establishment of order. As
was only to be expected, political considerations suggested many of
the police regulations now enforced--travellers from foreign parts
were not free to remain on English soil till they had communicated to
the Major-General of the district, their names, their destination,
and their business, nor were they allowed to move from shire to
shire without previously advising the Justices; whilst ex-cavaliers
and other persons of known royalist sympathies were bound to notify
every change of address to the soldier-magistrates, who were also
empowered to disarm rebels and to distribute the confiscated weapons
amongst supporters of the parliamentary cause. For the guidance of
the Major-Generals a document was circulated, containing twenty-one
headings, under which was set out a scheme for the better government
of the people--horse-racing, cock-fighting, and bear-baiting were
forbidden, drunkenness, blasphemy and sabbath-breaking were to be
severely punished, and alehouses, not absolutely necessary for the
refreshment of travellers, were to be suppressed.[128] The vigour
with which this crusade against popular sports was pushed is well
illustrated by the activity displayed by Colonel Barkstead, who with
his own hand killed all the bears in Westminster, and ordered his men
to wring the neck of every game-cock that they could find.
Under the military régime espionage was encouraged, and the new
functionaries received special instructions to watch carefully such
persons as appeared to live beyond their means. At the same time
better protection for the public highways was provided, sheriffs being
ordered to apprehend vagrants, robbers and highwaymen throughout
their respective districts, with the assistance, if necessary, of the
military police; in this way the vagrant nuisance was considerably
abated, if not for long, and in one neighbourhood at least complete
success would seem to have been attained, for Whalley was able to
boast, "This I may truly say, you may ride all over Nottinghamshire,
and not see a beggar or a wandering rogue."
Although the meshes of what the Protector called his "little poor
invention" were calculated to entangle petty sinners amongst his
opponents whilst admitting of the escape of more dangerous offenders
amongst his adherents, it would be unjust to suppose that Cromwell's
police system was only a pretext for the exercise of political tyranny.
Many of the pains suffered by royalists were directly attributable
to their own faults, and, without deserting their cause, they might
with ordinary care have avoided many of the penalties they incurred.
Generally speaking, the code was especially severe against moral as
contrasted with criminal offences; gambling and profane swearing being
punishable by heavy fines and imprisonment, whilst dissolute living
rendered the offender liable "to be sent out of the Commonwealth,"
as transportation to Barbadoes was euphemistically termed. In
addition to their already too numerous duties, the Major-Generals
were expected to exercise a general supervision over the religious
habits of the people, the regulations of weights and measures and the
control of certain trades also falling to their lot. In London and
Westminster, where the Puritans had a preponderating majority, and
where Major-General Skippon and Colonel Barkstead respectively held
command, the police control grew particularly irksome and irritating,
puritan zeal being carried to such a pitch that fiddlers found
themselves in the stocks for no worse offence than playing a jig, and
even the ordinary Christmas festivities were sternly repressed. Search
was frequently made in the taverns and alehouses, and any servant
or apprentice found there after 8 P.M. was seized and taken before
a Justice of the Peace for punishment. The Commissioners of Customs
also were instructed to cause their officers to make similar visits in
order to prevent tippling amongst watermen,[129] whilst stage-plays and
places of public amusement were vigorously proceeded against.[130]
The régime associated with the Major-Generals was short; these
functionaries were practically extinct before the end of 1657, and all
traces of their rule were quickly obliterated after the restoration of
the Monarchy. But the episode is none the less interesting as being
the only example in England of an almost unqualified military police
ascendancy, such as has been common elsewhere.
In estimating the results produced by this system, it must be borne in
mind that the circumstances under which it was instituted were quite
exceptional. The army which undertook the policing of the country was
composed neither of foreigners nor of mercenaries; on the contrary,
its members were the pick of the middle classes of England, and their
object was the maintenance of liberty and religion, as they understood
those terms, not conquest, nor oppression for oppression's sake.
Cromwell's lieutenants did their work with honesty and diligence,
and, according to their lights, they held the balance of justice
level between man and man. If their discretion had equalled their
impartiality, posterity would be able to look upon their administration
with unqualified approval, but the admonishing, meddling, and
eavesdropping tactics that they saw fit to pursue only invited the
reaction that so quickly followed on the heels of their employment.
As long as a strict military discipline remained in force, disorders
were kept in check, but as soon as it was relaxed, the havoc caused by
the war soon became apparent, and at no time in our history has there
been such a need of a strong and capable police force as there was
at the time of the Restoration. The country was overrun by vagrants
and disbanded soldiery, numbers of people had suddenly been reduced
to poverty, and numbers had as suddenly been raised to affluence; the
revulsion of feeling that followed upon the downfall of the puritan
party led to excesses of every kind, and licence and violence thrived
in the general confusion; nor was it till Charles II. had been king for
several years that any attempt was made to grapple with the state of
chaos to which the internal security of the kingdom had been reduced,
and even then the matter was not faced with any resolution.
London was in a disgraceful condition. Few towns in Europe were at once
so inadequately policed, so badly lighted, and in such an insanitary
state as the capital city of England; proof of the lack of proper
sanitation, and its unfailing result, was brought home to people in
convincing form at the time when the nightly procession of dead-carts,
filled with victims of the plague, was the only traffic to be seen
in the streets; but although the great fire of 1666 improved out of
existence some of the most pestilential quarters, London remained a
city of squalor and darkness. Most of the thoroughfares were without
pavements of any kind, and such as existed were so sunken and broken
that they were a source of danger to those who stumbled along them;
rubbish was shot out of upper windows into the street beneath, and
the public squares were used as receptacles for all the filth of the
neighbourhood. After nightfall the certainty of having to encounter
drunken bullies and highway robbers confined to their houses those
citizens whom urgent business did not compel to walk abroad; even
in daylight there were districts where the peace officers dared not
venture, and Macaulay tells us that within the sanctuary of Whitefriars
"even the warrant of the Chief Justice of England could not be executed
without the help of a company of musketeers."[131]
All this time the legislature was mute: throughout the reign of
Charles II. hardly a single Act of Parliament was passed dealing with
the policing of the twin cities that make up the metropolis. The
municipal authorities did what they could, and by an Act of Common
Council provided a force of about one thousand Bellmen, afterwards
called Charlies, in memory of the monarch in whose reign they were
first instituted. Unfortunately these watchmen were allowed to shirk
their duties and were well known to be altogether inefficient, so
much so, that when rowdy apprentices and other unruly assemblages
gave trouble, as they too often did, no one thought of looking
to such weak-kneed officials for the safety of the town. On such
occasions companies of soldiers were requisitioned to protect the main
thoroughfares, and, as a further precaution, chains were stretched from
one side of the street to the other to prevent the free movement of the
riotous bands.
Before the end of the reign, however, some advance was made towards
rendering London a fit place to live in. Several squares were
enclosed and planted; new and wider streets were built; but the
greatest improvements of the time were due, not to the efforts of
municipal authorities, but to the recently-formed Royal Society,
which investigated the question of sanitary police, and offered
suggestions that to some extent were acted upon, with the result that
England has since been free from the plague, so fatal in former years.
Commissioners of Sewers were appointed, and the duties of scavengers
and rakers, with regard to the cleansing of the metropolis, were
formulated.
In other departments also, progress was manifest, especially in the
lighting arrangements. By an act passed in 1672[132] it had been
ordered that a certain number of candles should be displayed every
night between Michaelmas and Lady Day; but in 1685 private enterprise
was responsible for placing a light before every tenth door from dusk
till midnight. The effect cannot have been dazzling, but even this
moderate amount of illumination was more effectual in preventing crime
than any number of the watchmen of the period were likely to be. About
the same time regulations for the control of hackney carriages plying
for hire were first published.[133]
In the rural districts peace-maintenance was, if possible, at a lower
ebb than in London--the roads were almost impassable throughout the
winter months, and highwaymen were as frequent as mile-stones. Peace
officers were practically non-existent: Justices were careless and
apathetic, and Lords of the Manor had neglected to hold Courts-Leet for
the annual election of Constables. A statute of 1673[134] complains of
the lack of constables, and authorises two Justices of the Peace in
each district to fill up the vacancies immediately. This was the first
occasion on which the power of appointing petty constables had been by
Act of Parliament conferred on the magistrates, and official sanction
extended to what had for years been the almost invariable custom. For
the better policing of highways, turnpikes were established,[135]
and those who used the roads made to subscribe towards the necessary
repairs, instead of the whole burden being thrown on the rural
population, which, partly by forced labour exacted by law (the _Corvée_
of Feudal times), and partly by a parochial rate, had been compelled to
mend the roads that traversed their neighbourhood. It is to be feared
that this long-delayed act of justice was attributable rather to the
vile condition of the highways than to any tender consideration for the
rural population.
The system of passports, which had been introduced some centuries
before for the purpose of checking vagrancy, continued to find favour,
and was believed in as a panacea for the prevention of all kinds of
crime. It was thought, not without reason, that a thief could not
long pursue his vocation undetected amongst neighbours, who were
acquainted with his circumstances, and who saw how he occupied his
time and how he spent his money, whilst a stranger who came to-day
and was gone to-morrow, might rob from one end of England to the
other with impunity. The police were therefore instructed to enforce
the regulations against vagrants with increased vigour, and in the
following manner. After a vagrant beggar had been whipped he was
entitled to a testimonial signed by the minister of the parish and
countersigned by the constable or tythingman, setting forth the
date and place of his punishment, something after this form. "W. W.,
a sturdy vagrant beggar (aged about forty years) tall of stature,
red-haired, and long lean-visaged, and squint-eyed, was this 24th day
of A in the 22nd year of the reign of Our Gracious Sovereign Lord
King Charles the Second, etc., openly whipped at T in the County of
G; according to the law, for a wandering rogue; and is assigned to
pass forthwith from parish to parish by the officers thereof the next
streight way to W in the county of B, where he confesseth he was
born: and he is limited to be at W aforesaid within twelve days now
next ensuing at his peril. Given under the hands and seals of C. W.
minister of T. aforesaid, and of J. G. constable there, the day and
year aforesaid."[136] Any vagrant found by a constable, and unable
to produce such a testimonial, was straightway to be arrested, and
became liable to more whipping, or if found incorrigible[137] to
transportation "to any of the English plantations beyond the sea" by
the order of a majority of Justices at Quarter Sessions. Although we no
longer look upon vagrancy as "The Mother and Root of all Evil" as our
forefathers did, and have relaxed the stringency of the laws against
vagabondage, the tramp is still an object of legitimate suspicion,
and a watchful eye is kept by the Convict Supervision Office over all
convicts at large, who are bound to produce their licenses when called
upon by a police officer to do so, and are only allowed to travel from
district to district under certain restrictions.
Among the many difficulties that those responsible for the preservation
of the peace had to contend with, one of the most complicated was how
best to deal with the lawless aggression of the Lowland Scots without
involving the two nationalities in actual war. Henry VIII. endeavoured
to solve the problem by the creation of a special local authority
called "The Council of the North," but this was only a temporary
measure, and not very successful, nor were the expedients adopted by
Elizabeth any more effectual. Throughout the whole of the seventeenth
century, the northern counties were continually overrun by predatory
bands, called Moss-troopers, who taking advantage of the almost
perennial hostility existing between the English and the Scots, harried
the country-side, murdering, marauding, and lifting cattle: in case of
pursuit, or after an unusually successful expedition, they had only
to cross the border to avoid capture. According to Fuller,[138] their
numbers amounted at one time to some thousands of men, who scoured the
country in troops and exacted an annual tribute from the inhabitants of
the valleys between the Solent and the North Sea. Although Fuller's was
assuredly an exaggerated estimate, these enterprising freebooters were
without question a most formidable fraternity. The Union of the Crowns
of England and Scotland deprived them, it is true, of the international
pretext they had traded upon in the past, but their depredations
continued just the same as before. With the hope of putting an end to
these raids, a local police force was established in 1672,[139] and
afterwards kept alive by successive Acts of Parliament. The Justices
of the Peace for the northern counties were empowered by virtue of
this Statute to make a charge of £500 against Northumberland, and of
£200 against Cumberland, for the payment and support of a body of men,
forty-two strong (viz., thirty Northumbrians and twelve Cumbrians),
whose duty it was to "search out, discover, pursue, apprehend, and
bring to trial by law,"--the raiders. In strict justice, the task of
suppressing the Moss-troopers should not have been left to a local
force, but the political relations between the two countries were
already strained almost to breaking point, and the employment of troops
on the borderland might, and probably would, have induced a rupture.
Under the circumstances, therefore, the government of the day was
probably justified in the course pursued, but on no account should the
whole expense have been borne by the very counties which had already
principally suffered through the inroads of the raiders.
Contemporary literature shews how lamentably insecure life and property
had become in the days of the later Stuarts, and during the early
Georgian period. Luttrell's diary is one long catalogue of crimes of
violence, and he remarks, from his own experience, that "footpads are
very troublesome in the evening on all the roads leading to the city,
which renders them very unsafe." In his history of England, Smollet
declares that "thieves and robbers are now become more desperate and
savage than they had ever appeared since mankind was civilized."
No thoroughfare was free from the tyranny of the fraternity of
highwaymen, who were allowed to terrorize whole districts, and who
enjoyed an almost unlimited freedom from interference. As their
depredations grew more extensive, their insolence increased. Evelyn
describes how a gang of robbers succeeded in appropriating the
taxes that had been collected in the northern counties, as the bags
containing the money were being escorted through Hertfordshire, on
their way to London: the highwaymen first stopped and secured all
travellers in the immediate neighbourhood, placed them under guard in
a field, and after killing the horses of their captives to prevent
pursuit, attacked the escort, put them to flight, and captured the
treasure. The authors of this outrage were never caught.
Troops were sometimes made use of in a half-hearted sort of way
to patrol the most infested localities, but the simple remedy of
maintaining a properly paid and equipped police was never tried:
the only expedient that the wisdom of the age could suggest was the
offering of rewards to all and sundry to encourage the apprehending
of highwaymen. This disastrous policy was inaugurated in 1692.[140]
"Whereas the highways and roads," runs the preamble of the statute
in question, "within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales
have been of late times more infested with thieves and robbers than
formerly, for want of due and sufficient encouragement given, and means
used, for the discovery of such offenders," provision is accordingly
made, that in the event of any person being killed in the act of taking
a highwayman, his executors shall have the reward, and a free pardon
is promised to accomplices and other criminals who shall cause such
offenders to be brought to justice. The conditions under which this
pardon was granted were as follows: "If any person or persons, being
out of prison from and after the said five-and-twentieth day of March,
commit any robbery and afterwards discover two or more persons, who
already hath or hereafter shall commit any robbery, so as two or more
of the persons discovered shall be convicted of such robbery--any such
discoverer shall himself have, and be entitled to, the gracious pardon
of their Majesties."
The provisions of this Act were afterwards extended to robberies in
London,[141] and first and last were responsible for an appalling sum
of wickedness. The bait of blood-money and the lack of a salaried or
professional class of detectives were answerable for the appearance of
amateur thief-takers; these men were mostly ex-thieves, who had given
up their old vocation for the safer, more lucrative, but infinitely
baser role of fattening on the conviction of the innocent, and on the
execution of those whom they had themselves corrupted. The best known
and most energetic member of this horde of vampires was the notorious
Jonathan Wild, who flourished at the beginning of the eighteenth
century, and whose _modus operandi_ is fully set forth for us by Henry
Fielding in his satirical history of "Jonathan Wild the Great."
This arch-ruffian had a most complete knowledge of all the thieves in
England, and at one time practically monopolised in his own person the
trades of receiver of stolen property and trafficker in blood money. He
established warehouses all over the country, and even bought himself a
ship to export what he could not dispose of at home. To those thieves
who submitted to his authority, and who brought him the proceeds of
their robberies, he extended a protection that must have been dependent
to a certain degree on the connivance of some person or persons in
authority. Grandmaster of espionage, and holding in his talons the
threads of all villainy, Wild could manufacture whatever evidence he
chose, could ruthlessly destroy any who opposed him, and deliver up
to justice those thieves who were bold enough to take their spoils
elsewhere for disposal. When this supply of victims ran short, or
when it suited his purpose to shield the real culprit, he was content
to take the reward offered for the conviction of the innocent. It is
comforting to know that his carcass, the foulest fruit the fatal tree
ever bore, eventually swung at Tyburn, at the same spot where so many
of his victims had preceded him.
The iniquitous system of paying blood-money for the conviction of
certain classes of offenders continued for generations, but is now
happily extinct. At the present day rewards are not offered by
Government except under very exceptional circumstances, and then
only in cases where the identity of the criminal is clear, whilst
rewards offered by private persons are placed under restrictions that
prevent any revival of the abominable traffic that continued even
into the nineteenth century. As late as 1816 George Vaughan, and
others associated with him, were convicted at the Middlesex Sessions
of conspiring to induce three brothers named Hurley, and a lad named
Wood, only thirteen years of age, to commit a burglary at Hoxton, and
by having them convicted of the fact, to procure for themselves the
rewards given by Parliament for the conviction of housebreakers.
One of the chief embarrassments, after the inefficiency of the
constabulary, which hampered the action of the authorities, and made
the suppression of crime more difficult, was the popularity that the
more notorious thieves enjoyed amongst a large section of the people;
the sympathy, felt and expressed, for highwaymen of the Claude Duval
type was widespread, and arose from a variety of sentiments. The mass
of the people, who never suffered in their own pockets, were not
altogether averse to seeing the rich plundered occasionally, especially
as it was the policy of the robbers to be free and open-handed with a
part of their booty. Another class of people who were well-disposed
towards the highwaymen, gave their sympathy as a misdirected kind of
protest against the severity of the law; and the "gentlemen of the
road," as they were called, quick to perceive the advantage that this
popularity, from whatever source arising, gave them--sometimes, but not
often--performed quite gentlemanly actions, in order to enhance and to
advertise their reputation for good deeds.
The Abbé le Blanc, who spent some years in England early in the
eighteenth century, declared that he frequently met Englishmen who
were as proud of the exploits of their highwaymen as they were of the
bravery of their soldiers, and in a letter to de Buffon he writes: "It
is usual, in travelling, to put ten or a dozen guineas in a separate
pocket, as a tribute to the first that comes to demand them," and adds
that, "... about fifteen years ago, these robbers, with a view to
maintaining their rights, fixed up papers at the doors of rich people
about London, expressly forbidding all persons, of whatever quality
or condition, from going out of town without ten guineas and a watch
about them, under pain of death. In bad times, when there is little
or nothing to be got on the roads, these fellows assemble in gangs,
to raise contributions even in London itself; and the watchmen seldom
trouble themselves to interfere with them in their vocation."[142]
Without attaching too much importance to the statements of this foreign
critic, it must be confessed that at no time in our history have the
arrangements for maintaining the peace sunk to so low an ebb as when
thief-takers like Jonathan Wild were officially recognised and allowed
to co-operate with the constitutional police forces, and at no time
has the flood of lawlessness reached such a height as when highwaymen
and footpads dictated their own terms to all who made bold to use the
King's Highway. Yet the Government took no steps towards organizing an
adequate defence, and utterly failed to provide any counterpoise to
the criminal tendencies of the age; it was left to private enterprise
to carry out the duties, or some of them, that Parliament neglected
to perform. In 1696 a "Society for the reformation of manners in
the cities of London and Westminster" was formed, and in 1702 was
instrumental in securing the conviction of 858 "Leud and Scandalous
persons." Two years later, the Governors of the London poor issued
a proclamation, promising the sum of twelve pence to any person who
should apprehend "any rogue, vagabond, or sturdy beggar," and, having
brought him before a Justice of the Peace, cause him to be committed to
the workhouse.
The particular kind of lawlessness, however, that chiefly exercised
men's minds in the days of Queen Anne was the work of young men of the
town, commonly known as "Mohocks," who established a reign of terror
in London, and whose excesses the peace-officers were powerless to
prevent. The worst outbreak occurred in 1712, and the doings of these
young blackguards are minutely described in a pamphlet published
in that year.[143] "The watch in most of the out-parts of the town
stand in awe of them, because they always come in a body, and are too
strong for them, and when any watchman presumes to demand where they
are going, they generally misuse them. Last night they had a general
rendezvous and were bent on mischief; their way is to meet people in
the streets and stop them, and begin to banter them, and if they make
any answer, they lay on them with sticks, and toss them from one to
another in a very rude manner. They attacked the watch in Devereux
Court and Essex Street, made them scower: they also slit two persons'
noses, and cut a woman in the arm with a penknife that she is lam'd.
They likewise rowled a woman in a tub down Snow Hill, that was going to
market, set other women on their heads, misusing them in a barbarous
manner."
In spite of the public indignation that such brutalities aroused, the
feeble and timid watchmen were not superseded, nor was any inquiry
instituted to discover the reasons for their inability to cope with
these scandalous proceedings. It was thought rather a good joke that
watchmen should be knocked down, and constables overturned, whilst
the fact that London was left in complete darkness during the greater
part of the night seems to have occasioned but little concern. There
is a saying to the effect that a good lamp is a good policeman; but
the subjects of Queen Anne, as it seems, expected the peace to be
maintained without the assistance of either the one or the other,--the
lamps were only lighted at six o'clock in the evening, and those that
had not gone out before were extinguished at midnight, and when the
moon was full they were not lighted at all.
The outrages committed by the Mohocks were so serious and persistent
that something had to be done towards putting a stop to them, and
so recourse was had to the objectionable expedient of offering a
government reward for the conviction of the members of the gang. On
the 17th of March 1712, the Queen issued a Royal Proclamation in the
following words--"Anne R. The Queen's Most Excellent Majesty being
watchful for the Public Good of her loving Subjects, and taking notice
of the great and unusual Riots and Barbarities which have lately been
committed in the Night Time, in the open Streets, in several parts of
the Cities of London and Westminster, and Parts adjacent, by numbers
of Evil dispos'd Persons, who have combined together to disturb the
Public Peace, and in an inhuman manner, without any Provocation have
Assaulted and Wounded many of her Majesty's good Subjects, and have had
the Boldness to insult the Constables and Watchmen, in the Execution of
their Office, to the great Terror of her Majesty's said Subjects, and
in Contempt and Defiance of the Laws of this Realm, to the Dishonour
of her Majesty's Government, and the Displeasure of Almighty God, &c.,
&c.... Her Majesty doth hereby promise and declare, That Whosoever
shall before the First Day of May now next ensuing, discover to any of
Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace, any Person who, since the First
Day of February, last past, hath, without any Provocation, Wounded,
Stabb'd, or Maim'd, or who shall before the said First Day of May,
without any Provocation, Wound, Stab, or Maim, any of her Majesty's
Subjects, within the said Cities of London and Westminster, and Parts
Adjacent, so as such Offenders be brought to Justice, shall have and
receive the Reward of One Hundred Pounds, &c., &c."
The continuance of disorders, which Rewards and Royal Proclamations
were unable to check, and the prospect that the Jacobites would not
tamely accept the rule of the House of Hanover, combined to make the
question of peace-maintenance a very difficult problem for Queen Anne's
successor. It is not surprising, therefore, that one of the first
legislative enactments of George the First had for its object the
suppressing of public tumults. The Act referred to is commonly called
"The Riot Act,"[144] and became law in 1715. This Statute introduced
no new principle--similar enactments, or at any rate measures which
had the same object in view, had been frequently brought forward by
Tudor sovereigns and by their predecessors, but in 1715 the offence
of rioting (together with the penalties attaching thereto) was more
clearly defined than had formerly been the case, and extended powers
were conferred on a single Justice of the Peace or other authorized
officer, acting alone, for "preventing tumults and riotous assemblies,
and for the more speedy and effectual punishing the rioters."
After reciting that "the punishments provided by the laws now in being
are not adequate to such heinous offences" the Statute enacts, that
if any persons to the number of twelve or more, being unlawfully,
riotously, and tumultuously assembled together, to the disturbance of
the public peace, at any time after the last day of July 1715, and
after being commanded by any one or more Justice or Justices of the
Peace, or by the sheriff, etc., by proclamation in the Kings name, to
disperse themselves, shall unlawfully continue together for the space
of one hour after such command, then such continuing together to the
number of twelve or more, shall be adjudged felony without benefit of
clergy, "and the offenders therein shall suffer death as in the case of
felony without benefit of clergy."
The method of making the proclamation is as follows:--The Justice of
the Peace or other authorised person "being among the said rioters,
or as near to them as he can safely come" shall command silence, and
after that shall openly and with loud voice make proclamation in
these words:--"Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth
all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and
peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business,
upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King
George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the
King." To constitute a riot it is essential that alarm should be
caused amongst the King's subjects, and if the four last words of the
proclamation are omitted the reading of the Riot Act has no virtue. If
after proclamation has been made the rioters do not disperse within an
hour, any or all of them may be apprehended by force, and if they make
resistance, the persons killing or injuring them are indemnified and
discharged of all liability with respect to any death or lesser injury
they may happen to inflict.
The general tone of public opinion was constantly being lowered by
the degrading spectacles that were everywhere displayed. Government
itself set the example of brutality and violence by countenancing the
procession to Tyburn, the use of the pillory, and the setting up of
whipping-posts in the public streets; with the result that imitators
sprung up in abundance to practice the lessons so sedulously taught
by the authorities. The punishment of the pillory was in itself
sufficiently severe, but the method of its infliction practically
amounted to the official legalising of Lynch Law, because the
populace were permitted to torture the sufferer almost to any extent;
stone-throwing was nominally forbidden, but the prohibition was not
enforced, and, if a victim died of the ill-usage to which he was
subjected, no one was punished.
The police, who were feeble and timid when danger threatened, and who
could never be trusted to quell the most insignificant riot, grew bold
on occasions, when, without risk to themselves, they could pounce upon
some weak or unpopular individual. Although whipping could be legally
inflicted only by order of the magistrate, it was no unusual occurrence
for a constable to take a man to the nearest whipping post, and there
have him thrashed without reference to any superior authority whatever.
For the safeguarding of prisons, banks, and other important places,
military guards were often used to reinforce the ordinary watchmen,
and, when so employed, the soldiers were accompanied by constables,
whose duty it was to question passers-by, to hand suspicious characters
over to the guard, and to bring them before a Justice of the Peace
on the following morning. These duties, simple as they were, seem to
have been negligently performed by the peace-officers, for complaints
of neglect of duty were frequent; when Brigadier Mackintosh and his
companions escaped from Newgate, they were lucky enough to pass the
guard without examination, because the constable was absent from his
post, and, in his absence, the military sergeant in charge had no
authority to detain fugitives.
Further evidence, were any required, of the unsatisfactory condition
of the parochial constabulary in London is abundant--not only was
delinquency on the increase, but internal squabbles were everywhere
rife amongst the local bodies intrusted with the preservation of
the peace. In 1727 the Vestry of St George's, Hanover Square, for
example, established a force of thirty-two watchmen and four bedels
for that parish; several of the inhabitants, however, refused to pay
the Watch-rate, and set up an opposition establishment which they
called "The Inhabitant Watch" consisting of some sixteen persons,
who repudiated the authority of the existing constables, and, on one
occasion, flatly refused to arrest certain offenders even when required
to do so by the High Constable.
An ineffectual attempt to reform the police of London was made in
1736, in which year an Act of Parliament[145] was passed, giving
powers to the Common Council of the City to raise a sum of money
sufficient for all police purposes, to appoint as many peace officers
as they thought proper, and to issue new and improved orders for the
guidance of the nightly watch. By the same statute, Aldermen were made
responsible for their respective wards, constables were empowered to
arrest night-walkers, malefactors, and other suspected persons, and
watchmen, in the absence of the Constable, might perform the duties
of that functionary. Liability to watch and ward extended to all the
inhabitants of London who were not "rated and assessed," by virtue of
the Statute of Winchester.
At about the same time, the police administration of the rural
districts was the subject of legislation, it being enacted[146] that
any constable neglecting to make Hue and Cry shall be fined five
pounds, and the liability of the hundred, in which a felony has been
committed, for the escape of the felon is again insisted upon. By
another Statute,[147] passed four years later, High Constables were
ordered to levy a County Rate in the provinces and to pay the proceeds
over to a treasurer appointed by Quarter Sessions, to be applied by him
to the general police purposes of the County.
It is obvious that the Civil Power ought to be prepared for any
possible emergency, but before 1829 this was far from being the case,
and we find that when any exceptional conditions arose, temporary
expedients had to be hurriedly devised to meet the crisis, affairs
being allowed to slip back into their normal state of unpreparedness
immediately the pressure was relieved. Such was the nature of the
arrangements improvised during the rebellion in favour of the Young
Pretender in 1745, when London prepared to defend itself against the
enemy that marched southwards from Perth as far as Derby, almost
without a check. The trained bands, who a hundred years before had
barred the advance of Charles I. at Turnham Green, were called out,
and, for a period of five months, the City Militia superseded the
normal police establishments.
At this time the trained bands consisted of six regiments, viz., The
Yellow, The White, The Orange, The Blue, The Red, and The Green. Their
numbers amounted to close on ten thousand men, who at the crisis
undertook to protect London, not only against a possible attack of an
enemy from without, but also against the depredations of thieves and
rioters within. The different regiments were told off to come on duty
in rotation, for twenty-four hours at a time, and were disposed for
police purposes in the following manner. Near the Mansion House was
placed the main guard, and here the Commanding Officer was to be found
during his tour of duty; other guards, under subordinate officers,
being stationed at various points in the city.
During the day, only "home-sentinels," as they were called, were
posted, but after sunset both "out-sentinels" and patrols were added;
these patrols, called "petty-rounds," periodically visited the
neighbouring sentries; in the event of any rioting or other disturbance
taking place, they had to return immediately, and inform the officer
in charge. He was then instructed to march out his party to suppress
it, at the same time notifying his commanding officer of the extent
of the disorder, in order that the latter might send the necessary
reinforcements, not only from the Main Guard, but from the other guards
also, in sufficient numbers until peace was restored. Moreover, a
general supervision was maintained by means of "grand rounds," which
starting from the Main Guard patrolled the whole circuit to see that
sentries were alert, that patrols were acquainted with their duties,
that the countersign was correctly given, and to conduct prisoners
to head-quarters for subsequent disposal by the magistrates. At
daybreak reveille was sounded, and all out-sentinels relieved; but the
home-sentinels were continued at their posts throughout the day.
The retreat of the invaders, and their final rout at Culloden, rendered
the further embodiment of the citizen soldiers unnecessary, but during
the period of their employment they performed their police duties with
so much success, that robberies in the streets of London were for the
time almost entirely suppressed, and the King's Peace was maintained in
unexampled tranquillity. It does not appear that the Militia abused the
power placed in their hands in any way, whilst the superiority of their
rule over that of the watchmen was so pronounced, that there was some
talk in after years of permanently handing over the policing of London
to the trained bands; but the national distrust of a too powerful
gendarmerie prevailed, and the old régime was allowed to continue.
If the suggestion had come to anything, it would of course have been
necessary to modify their organization which was of a strictly military
character; but when the proposal was rejected an excellent opportunity
was lost of obtaining the services of a really efficient body of men,
at an expense to the ratepayers far below that of the existing watch,
which then cost about £23 per night for the City proper, besides what
was paid by banks and private individuals for special services.