The best, and as a rule, the only practicable chance of escape open to the pursued, lay in the possibility of his reaching a sanctuary before the hunters came up with him. If a man took sanctuary, his life was safe, but he remained a close prisoner within the precincts of the asylum in which he had found refuge until he received the King's pardon, or until he purchased his freedom by "abjuring the realm," an undertaking which entailed upon him perpetual banishment, besides the forfeiture of all his belongings.

These sacred asylums, within whose precincts the law was powerless, were often made use of in a manner never contemplated when the privilege of affording protection to fugitives was first extended to them. If an offender was unpopular his chance of reaching sanctuary was very remote, it was easy enough to head him off, or to surround the place in such a manner that approach meant certain capture; on the other hand, if the country folk were disposed to favour the escape of the hunted man, there was little difficulty in managing the pursuit in such a way that he should reach his goal in safety. Hue and Cry was therefore not as effectual as it ought to have been, especially against men who for one reason or another enjoyed the goodwill of their neighbours, and its efficacy was still further reduced by the freedom with which Charters of Pardon were granted by the King to powerful nobles and others, who were prepared to pay for the concession.[34]

In addition to the Statute of Winchester upon which his reputation as a police reformer mainly rests, Edward I. was the author of other valuable measures designed to produce and conserve a state of public tranquillity. Under former rulers Sheriffs had been allowed a dangerous amount of freedom, which they had abused for their own advantage, both by improperly admitting to bail offenders who ought not to have been permitted to remain at large, and by exacting bail from others on trivial or trumped-up charges. This practice Edward combated, and forbade sheriffs, under severe penalties, to hold to bail any who were not strictly bailable. Mindful also of the disturbances wrought by idle rumour, he set himself to put a stop to the dissemination of scandal by irresponsible tale-bearers, and decreed that henceforth those "who be so hardy as to tell or publish any false news or tales whereby discord may arise" should be "taken and kept in prison until he is brought into the Court which was the first author of the tale."[35]

Of greater practical value, however, were his enactments dealing with Coroners[36] (so-called because they were principally concerned with pleas of the Crown). With the intention that these most important officers should stand high in the estimation of all men, Edward, in 1275, ordained that no one under the degree of knight should be chosen to the office, and in the year following he defined the powers of Coroners, setting forth what steps they were called upon to take for the better preservation of the peace, and in what manner their functions ought to be carried out. It was enacted[37] that, in the event of any person meeting with an unnatural or violent death, the township concerned had to immediately give notice to the nearest Coroner, who was thereupon bound to issue a precept to the constables of the neighbouring vills, requiring them to cause to appear before him a competent number of good and lawful men in order that the matter might forthwith be investigated at the place where the corpse had been found. If, upon inquiry, and upon the oath of the jurymen, it should appear that foul play had been the cause of death, the Coroner was, by the same statute, further instructed to use his best endeavour to discover the guilty party, and if the murderer was known, the Coroner was authorised to deliver him to the Sheriff and to proceed to his house, and there to cause a valuation of all his belongings to be made, the amount thereof being notified and secured to the township or hundred, which was then answerable to the judges for any amercement that might subsequently be imposed. Nor was the business of holding inquisitions in cases of sudden death the only duty of the Coroner; he was also expected to make enquiry, in like manner, of every reported case of housebreaking, and was required to keep a watchful eye on any of the King's subjects who seemed to live riotously, haunting taverns and the like, and to attach them by four or more pledges on the not unreasonable suspicion that the funds which supported such extravagances proceeded either from some illegal practice, or from a secret store of treasure trove. Though answerable to the King, Coroners were chosen by the county, and sworn by the sheriff; any holder of the office concealing felonies, or failing in his duty through favour to the misdoers, was liable to be fined at the King's pleasure and to be imprisoned for a year.

Much of the good work done for the internal peace of the kingdom by Edward I. was undone by his successor, whose predilection for evil counsellors led to much Baronial resistance, and threw the country back into that state of lawlessness from which it had been delivered by the wise police regulations of the Statute of Winchester.

Organised bands of robbers harried the country, setting at defiance sheriffs, judges, and even the King himself, who was stopped near Norwich by a freebooting knight called Sir Gosseline Denville, and stripped of his money and other valuables. With such an example of reckless disregard of the King's peace before them, it is not wonderful that the lower orders of the people ignored the restrictions that the law imposed; the weak had no protectors, so the hand that was strong enough to take and to hold fast was seldom empty. These predatory rovers waxed so powerful, and grew so numerous as the result of the impunity they enjoyed, that nothing short of a regular military campaign sufficed to free the land from their ravages. The end of this same Denville illustrates the extensive nature of these operations. After years spent in successful plundering, and after an unprecedented reward had been put on his head, he was at length brought to bay by the sheriff of Yorkshire, who, with five hundred men surrounded the inn where the robber slept, and in the course of the desperate fight which followed between the posse comitatus of the peace officer and the banditti, it is said that two hundred men were killed before the knight and his brother were captured.[38]

Indolent and incapable as Edward II. proved, his police administration was not altogether without merit, and an important Statute passed in the eighteenth year of his reign is worthy of more than passing notice. In order that the value of this Act may be fully appreciated a few words of preliminary explanation are necessary. One of the principal functions of the Norman Sheriff at his annual visit of inspection or Tourn, was to inform himself (by making inquiry from the chief frankpledges) as to the nature and extent of the crime existing in his district, and to make a report thereof to the King, if, in his opinion, any particular offence or class of offences was unduly prevalent. The exercise of this function, which was known as "presentment," to some extent secured the trial and punishment of criminals, by bringing their offences to the knowledge of the central authority, and the officer who made the report may, in a sense, be considered to have acted the part of a public prosecutor. When the Court Leet took the place of the Sheriff's Tourn this function was partially lost, and the object of the Statute in question was to increase the value of the Court Leet as a preventive agency, by reaffirming and clearly defining its responsibility with regard to the important duty of presentment, which it had inherited along with the other functions of the Sheriff's Tourn. To this end Courts Leet were now (1325) ordered to certify that all the chief-pledges were present at the sitting of the Court to which they were summoned, and that they duly brought to the notice of the same Court all offences committed within their knowledge. For their guidance a list of the matters which concerned them, arranged under thirty-four headings, was added, of which the most important were the following:—

A glance at the subjects enumerated in this schedule is sufficient to illustrate the comprehensive nature of the part assigned to Courts Leet in the general scheme of peace maintenance, and to show how in addition to their primary duty of bringing to light all breaches of the peace, these local police courts were furthermore charged with the supervision of everything that tends to promote good order and good citizenship, such as, for example, the regulating of weights and measures and the abatement of public nuisances.

This Statute is entitled "A Statute for View of Frankpledge," but it was not put forward with any intention of reverting to the old system of police by decennary societies, nor with any idea of superseding or even modifying the Statute of Winchester, but rather as an auxiliary measure to enlarge the sphere of usefulness of that Statute, and to render its administration more effectual, by ensuring that no violations of its provisions should go undetected and unpunished.