The English Village Constable, 1580-1642: The Nature and Dilemmas of the Office

Abstract

Dogberry: This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the prince's name.Watch: How if a' will not stand?Dogberry: Why, then take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave.(Much Ado About Nothing, Act III, Scene iii)Modern historians who have described the English village constable of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries have largely accepted Shakespeare's Dogberry as an accurate portrayal of this official. They are almost unanimous in regarding the constable as an incompetent agent of royal authority, and like many of his seventeenth-century critics they depict him as uneducated, unprofessional, lazy, and disobedient. A recent study has also revealed that some of the men chosen as constable had “criminal” records. In one Essex village a number of these officials had previously been “in trouble with the courts,” sometimes having broken laws that it would be their duty to enforce when they became constables. Both historians and seventeenth-century commentators frequently attribute such failings to the social unsuitability of the men selected for the office. They claim that the substantial inhabitants of the village sought to avoid such a lowly position, and that it was thus filled by the “meaner sort” of residents who were attracted by its perquisites or were too poor to hire substitutes. Such men, it is contended, were not only ignorant and unable to spare time for their duties but also so lacking in social status that they were easily intimidated and commanded little respect.Several studies of county government do suggest alternative approaches to understanding the constable's alleged incompetence. T.G. Barnes and A. Hassell Smith, for example, attribute the constable's weaknesses not only to the personal and social defects of the men selected for the position; they also suggest that divided allegiances often rendered such officials incapable of action.