A History of Police in England

by W. L. Melville Lee

When it came to a question of proof, reliance was placed, in the absence of any surer method of discovering the truth, upon the oath of the interested party or parties; and just as the security of a thane was sufficient, where that of a landless freeman had to be supplemented by the contributions of his neighbours, so would the oath of a man of fortune and position prevail in cases where that of a common man had to be fortified by the corroborating oaths of his fellows.[17]

No matter what his station in life might be a man could always strengthen his case in this way: the more numerous the oath-helpers the greater the value of their evidence, and this held good even if it was clear that none of them were acquainted with the circumstances under consideration, because it was commonly believed that divine interference would prevent any considerable number of persons from perjuring themselves en bloc. The various ordeals, by combat, by fire, by water and many others, were conceived in the same spirit.

The principle of making every man responsible for his own actions, and to some extent answerable for the doings of his neighbour, has much to commend it, and its application would produce an almost ideal state of social security if its practical employment was not marred by two inherent weaknesses; in the first place it can only be applied with success to an agricultural community that is content to live always in the same spot, or whose migratory instincts the authorities are prepared to suppress; and, in the second place, such a system puts a premium both on the concealment of crime, and on the commission of perjury, since a tything had every inducement to forswear itself in order to escape the infliction of a fine or to save one of its members from punishment.

That the system above described was effectual in dealing with any crime that may have existed in England at the time cannot be doubted, and Gneist,[18] in his review of the period, says, "The insular position of the country, and the pre-eminently peaceable character of the later Anglo-Saxon times, developed the maintenance of the peace to such a perfection, that the chroniclers give an almost Arcadian picture of the peacefulness and security of the land in the time of Alfred the Great, and at some subsequent periods." Lord Coke[19] too declares that before the Conquest, whilst this ancient constitution remained entire, a man might ride through England with much money about him and run no risk of molestation, though armed with no other weapon than a white wand.[20]

If it is allowable to estimate the efficiency of a police system by the measure of the security enjoyed by those under its protection (nor is it easy to conceive of a fairer or more comprehensive test), it may then be asserted with confidence that the Anglo-Saxon model, crude as it undoubtedly was in many respects, compares not unfavourably with the various preventive agencies which the wisdom of succeeding generations has been able to produce. This comparative superiority survived, as we shall see, until the advent of the admirable system of police, not yet a century old, under which we have the good fortune to live to-day.

After the Conquest, the national police organisation was retained by the Normans, the headborough becoming the "præpositus," and the joint guarantee being known as "mutual security"; but the old forms which had weighed lightly on the people hitherto, were now harshly administered by the conquerors, whose officials, unaccustomed to the system, and indifferent to the susceptibilities of the native population, arbitrarily exacted the police fines, and did so in a manner that whilst proper investigation was rare, violence was common.

Of these officials the worst offender was the "vicecomes," the successor to the shire-reeve (i.e. sheriff), who under the Anglo-Saxon régime had controlled the police administration of the county.[21] The Vicecomes went on circuit each Michaelmas, to hold an ambulatory police court, called the Court of the Tourn, to deal with petty offences in the provinces, to bring capital crimes to the cognisance of the superior courts, and to make an annual revision of the frankpledge, i.e. an inspection of the police societies, with the object of ensuring that all the tythings were full. The visit of the Norman sheriff generally resolved itself into a demand for the payment of heavy fines, that might, or might not, be legally due, and which too often were heavier than the people could bear, for whereas the English shilling had been worth about fivepence, the Norman shilling was equivalent to twelve pence, and yet amercements were still calculated on the old scale without any allowance being made for the change in the value of the coin. Even in the rare cases where extortion was not practised the local character of the police administration, which had always been one of its most prominent features, was to a certain extent destroyed by the interference of the alien Tourn.

The object of the Vicecomes being to collect as many fines as possible, and to return to the king with some substantial evidence of his zeal, he was not over particular as to details, but fined a whole township or borough, and left the community to settle the incidence of the burden amongst the individuals composing it.

A representative and well-known example of the harsh control that then obtained, may be instanced; an enactment of William the Conqueror ordained that any hundred within whose boundaries a Norman was found murdered, should pay forty-six marks[22] unless the murderer was delivered up within five days; and the sheriffs threw the burden of proof of the victim's nationality on the hundred; in other words, the corpse was assumed to be Norman and had to be paid as such, unless the contrary was proved to their satisfaction; it is almost unnecessary to add that in nine cases out of ten, acceptable proof could not be produced in the specified period of time.