A History of Police in England

by W. L. Melville Lee

In addition to the ward-watchmen there was a separate force called the "marching watch" (the germ of the patrols of later days), whose duty it was to exercise a general vigilance for the maintenance of peace in the city, and to give their assistance to the stationary watchmen as occasion demanded. Foreigners, who were not freemen of the city, might not be innkeepers, and lepers were forbidden to leave their houses under the severest penalties; regulations were made against the rearing of oxen or swine within the city walls, and against the establishment of schools of arms where fencing with the buckler was taught. By day the gates were open, but even then care was taken to exclude undesirable visitors, for two sergeants "skillful men and fluent of speech" were placed at each gate to scrutinise all those who passed in or out.

One hour after sunset, curfew was rung simultaneously from the Church of St Martin's Le Grand and in the other parishes, the gates were then shut, taverns were closed, and men might not go about the streets armed till the morning, "unless he be a great man, or other lawful person of good repute, or their certain messengers, having their warrants to go from one to another with lanthorn in hand."

The peace officers were authorised to arrest anyone who broke these regulations, and to bring him the following day before the Warden, Mayor, or Aldermen of the city, for punishment; officers were secured against all penalties for acts done in the execution of their office, and no complaints were permitted to be made against them with regard to the imprisonment or punishment of offenders, "unless it be that an officer should do so of open malice, and for his own revenge, or for the revenge of another that maliciously procureth the same, and not for the keeping of the peace."

It will be observed that the intention both of the Statute of Winchester and of these regulations for the government of London is in the main a preventive one, that whilst every care is taken to place obstructions in the way of transgressors, and every caution exercised to render a criminal career difficult, we hear but little of the penalties that follow upon detection. This tendency is in marked contrast to the custom of subsequent legislation, which increasingly insisted on the infliction of punishment as the only effectual means of diminishing crime. The earliest English police known to us, relied almost entirely, as has already been pointed out, on the efficacy of the preventive principle. The system inaugurated by the Statute of Winchester which took the place of the ancient institutions, may be considered as the connecting link between the two extreme conceptions of police functions, between the policy of prevention and the policy of repression. Watch and Ward was the civil equivalent of the sentry who, in time of war is posted outside the camp, and whose functions are purely preventive, whilst Hue and Cry was partly preventive and partly repressive. Although the main object of the latter institution was the apprehension of offenders, quite half its value depended on the effect produced on the minds of intending criminals by the fear that any illegal act on their part might raise the whole county in arms against them, and by the knowledge that escape was well-nigh impossible.

The law against vagrancy was conceived in the same spirit, the Statute in question requiring Bailiffs of towns to make enquiry every week of all persons lodging in the suburbs, in order that neither vagrants, nor "people against the peace" might find shelter, a regulation designed on the lines of the universal police maxim "Allow the thief no rest." The custom was to make the householder responsible for the deeds of those whom he harboured, and to punish the indiscriminate giver of alms.[30]

This method was not only more humane, but it also proved more effectual than the everlasting imprisonment, whipping, and branding of vagrants, that Tudor legislation enjoined.

Neglect of the Hue and Cry, failure to make "fresh and quick pursuit," and sometimes want of success when pursuit was duly made, were visited by the imposition of fines upon the neglectful or unfortunate inhabitants as the case might be: many examples of this are on record, e.g. (Exchequer Rolls, vol. i. sect. 14).

"Item. The citizens of Lincoln fined fifty marks for suffering a robber to escape, etc.: and the men of Colchester for the like.

Item. (Sussex: 16 Edward I.) Homicide committed in a fray: the offender who had stabbed his adversary, a butcher, takes refuge in the Church of Crawley and abjures the realm: townships of Crawley and Hurst amerced because they did not make suit.

Item. A quarrel in an alehouse at Hodley, in which a man is struck on the head and dies four days afterwards. The offender escapes, and all the persons present in the alehouse amerced, because they did not secure him."[31]

When Hue and Cry had been raised against a fugitive, every man had to lay aside his work and join in the pursuit to the best of his ability, anyone failing to do so, or withdrawing himself without permission, was considered to have taken the part of the person who was fleeing from justice, and the two might be hunted down together, and when apprehended, delivered to the Sheriffs, "not to be set at liberty, but by the King, or by his chief justice."[32] Once levied, Hue and Cry recognised no boundaries, the pursuit spread from hundred to hundred, and from county to county, "till they come to the seaside," or until the man surrendered himself. "The life of Hue and Cry," says Coke, "is fresh suit," and in order that valuable time should not be lost in preliminary enquiries, no liability for malfeasance attached to those who followed the chase; if therefore an innocent man was hunted down, he had no remedy against his pursuers, but, to obtain satisfaction, had first to discover the author of the false report. If the fugitive sought refuge in a house, and refused to open the door, the peace officer might break it open, and in the event of a man grievously wounding another, it was held that killing was no murder, provided that Hue and Cry had been duly levied, and provided also, that the offender could not otherwise be taken.[33]