Constables
group · 3 works · 3 mentions · 8 anchored passages
constables · castellans · constable · high and petty constables · modern policeman · officer of the law · peace-officer · the King's High Constable
in the texts
The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625–1660
Local peace officers commanded, in turn, by both the King's proclamation and Parliament's declaration.
We do therefore, by this our Proclamation, expressly charge and command all our sheriffs, and all colonels, lieutenant-colonels, sergeant-majors, captains, officers and soldiers, belonging to the trained bands of this our kingdom, and likewise all high and petty constables, and other our officers and subjects whatsoever, upon their allegiance, and as they tender the peace of this our kingdom, not …
And the Lords and Commons do require and command all constables, petty constables, and all other His Majesty’s officers and subjects whatsoever, to muster, levy, raise, march and exercise, or to summon or warn any, upon warrants from the Lieutenants, Deputy Lieutenants, Captains, or other officers of the trained bands, and all others, according to the said Ordinance of both Houses, and shall not p …
The Law of Torts
Peace officers with statutory and common-law powers of arrest, discussed throughout the false imprisonment material.
With regard to the lawfulness of arrest and imprisonment in particular, there are divers and somewhat minute distinctions between the powers of a peace-officer and those of a private citizen:
and a superior officer who finds a person taken into custody by a constable under his orders, and then continues the custody, is liable to an action if the original arrest was unlawful.
Again, where a man is given into custody on a mistaken charge, and then brought before a magistrate who remands him, damages can be given against the prosecutor in an action for false imprisonment only for the trespass in arresting, not for the remand, which is the act of the magistrate.
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John
Officers commanding royal castles (or, in other senses, the royal household or local watch), whose powers over provisioning and petty justice Magna Carta partly regulated.
” The Articles of 1309 complained that constables of the King’s castles took cognizance of common pleas.
The King’s High Constable, a descendant of the horse–thegn of the Anglo–Saxon kings, was originally the member of the royal household responsible for the King’s stables.
It would appear that at an earlier period the constable of the hundred sometimes acted as deputy–sheriff.