A History of Police in England

by W. L. Melville Lee

Distinct from the official police societies, created by the central government for the general security, there also existed certain private and voluntary associations called peace-guilds, entered into by the inhabitants of London and other towns for their own protection. Each guild consisted of members arranged in ten groups under ten headmen, one of whom acted as chief of the guild and treasurer, the remainder forming a kind of consulting committee to discuss and advise upon the various interests of the associations at their monthly gatherings. The object of these guilds was simply mutual assurance, and each member had to pay fourpence to a common fund, out of which subscribers were compensated for any loss they might sustain through theft, the treasurer being authorised further to contribute a sum not exceeding one shilling towards the apprehension of delinquents.

The military and police systems were closely allied: the national militia was organised in tythings and hundreds, and had a place to fill in the complete design of peace maintenance; its embodiment was not only resorted to in time of war, it was also liable to be called out by "summons of the array" if disturbances were feared, or even for the pursuit of a single fugitive from justice, but its members could not be called upon to serve beyond the limits of their respective shires except to repel invasion. Every free Englishman between the ages of fifteen and sixty (the clergy and infirm only excepted) was liable to be called upon to perform three public services[14] for the peace of the commonwealth; he was bound to assist in repelling invasions, in crushing rebellions, and in suppressing riots. The Sheriffs therefore who were responsible for the conservancy of the peace in the hundreds were enabled to muster the posse comitatus, or whole available police force of the shire, in case of emergency. All men went armed in those days, and since the members of a tything were obliged on the summons of a headborough to join in the pursuit, the cry of "Stop thief" was a formidable weapon in the hands of the local executive.

The Anglo-Saxon conception of police functions is thus clearly intelligible: the internal peace of the country was held by them to be of the first importance, and every free man had to bear his part in maintaining it; theoretically all men were policemen, and it was only for the sake of convenience that the headborough (or tythingman as he came to be more generally called) answered for those of his neighbours, on whom he had to rely in case of necessity. The word "peace" was used in its widest possible meaning, and a breach of the peace was understood to include all crimes, disorders, and even public nuisances. The principle on which the police system was based was primarily preventive. "The conservancy of the peace," says Lambard, "standeth in three things: that is to say, first, in foreseeing that nothing be done that tendeth either directly or by means to the breach of the peace; secondly, in quieting and pacifying those that are occupied in the breach of the peace; and thirdly, in punishing such as have already broken the peace." Our Saxon ancestors did not spend much time in "quieting" or "pacifying"—a lawbreaker was at war with the community and received no quarter—but in other respects Lambard's definition applies.

It was assumed that all but a small minority of the king's subjects were, to use a modern phrase—good citizens—and personally interested in keeping the king's peace inviolate; and that they might therefore safely be trusted to do everything in their power to preserve it, without any necessity arising for the use of coercion. Had all men been equally trustworthy in this respect no police measures would have been required and none devised; but there existed on the fringe of Anglo-Saxon society, as will occur with all societies, a certain number of delinquents perpetually on the look-out for opportunities of preying on their fellows, and the decennary system of police, as it may be called, was an attempt to hold in check this lawless minority without having to raise and permanently support an expensive or elaborate force for its suppression.

The design was to group all honest men into convenient companies, excluding therefrom and from the benefits that civil government could then confer, not only those men who were living in open defiance of the rules laid down by society for its protection, but those men also, whose reputation for honesty and fair dealing did not stand high enough in the estimation of their neighbours to induce a sufficient number to accept a share of responsibility for their defaults. By this means a fence was set up which divided with a fair degree of accuracy the law-breaking section of society from the law-abiding, the problem of peace-maintenance being much simplified thereby; it was not the declared enemy nor the recognised outcast that was feared; the former might be met with superior force, and the latter could be kept down like vermin, it was the danger of the wolf within the fold that alarmed our ancestors. The dread of secret crime is a deeply-seated national characteristic, and accounts for the savage treatment served out to witches and Egyptians (as gypsies used to be called) through the middle ages and almost up to our own times. Alfred the Great reflected this feeling when he drew a distinction between cutting down a neighbour's tree with an axe and burning it with fire, the latter offence being declared the more heinous of the two, not as one might suppose, because of the danger of the fire spreading to other trees, but because of the clandestine character of the deed, it being open to the offender if detected to declare the burning to be accidental, a plea that he could not advance if the axe was used.

A detected criminal was either fined, mutilated, or killed, but punishment, as we now understand the term, was seldom inflicted; that is to say, the dominant idea was neither to reform the culprit nor to deter others from following in his footsteps. If a man was killed it was either to satisfy the blood-feud or to remove him out of the way as a wild beast would be destroyed; if a man was mutilated by having his forefinger cut off, or branded with a red-hot iron on the brow, it was done, not so much to give him pain, as to make him less expert in his trade of thieving, and to put upon him an indelible mark by which all men should know that he was no longer a man to be trusted; if fines were levied, it was more with a view to the satisfaction of the recipients of the money or cattle or what not, than with the intention of causing discomfort or loss to the offender.

The distinction that we now make between remedial and legal justice was theoretically held by the Anglo-Saxons, that is to say, repayment in money or kind for a civil offence, and death or some less punishment for an offence against the criminal code was recognised in their penal administration; but at the same time fines to expiate criminal injuries were also allowed, both in the shape of amercements to the Crown and of compensation to the injured. Homicides rendered themselves liable to a triple penalty, which, it appears, was the same whether the killing was wilful or whether it was accidental—one third part, called "Maegbote," being assigned to the next-of-kin to compensate him for the death of a relative; a second portion, or "Manbote," reconciling the thane to the loss of his vassal; and the remaining share, known as "Wite," passing to the king on account of the violence done to his peace.[15] Only offences of a particularly heinous description were "bootless" (bote-less), as those crimes for which no compensation was permitted were called—of such a nature were murder when committed in a church, and the slaying of a man asleep.

The fines payable by the aggressor in cases where minor personal injuries had been inflicted were carefully graduated; thus, for a cut one inch long on the face, the sum of two shillings had to be paid; if the wound was underneath the hair only half that sum was exacted; but should the victim have suffered the loss of an ear, he was compensated to the extent of thirty shillings, and so on.[16]

It would offend our modern ideas of justice if a murderer were allowed to go free on payment of a sum of money to the relatives of his victim, still more so if a portion of the fine went to the Sovereign; but the practice is common amongst semi-civilised communities, to whom the complex and costly methods we now employ would be at once unintelligible and impracticable.