The King's Approvers: A Chapter in the History of English Criminal Law

Abstract

THE captured felon who attempts to secure a mitigation of punishment by informing on his accomplices has antecedents dating far back into primitive society. Roman law refused to accept the testimony of such an accuser.1 It remained for English Common law to turn him into an officer of justice, maintained by the Crown, doing the service of the king by securing the conviction of breakers of the king's peace. The King's or State's Evidence of today is the lineal descendant of the King's Approver of the Middle Ages. A man indicted for treason or felony2 was permitted, in a case of Approvement, to confess and appeal his accomplices. If successful in securing the conviction of all of them, he was allowed to abjure the realm in safety. The penalty for failure in even one instance was death by hanging.3 He was called the King's Approver (probator regis), because, maintained by the king and acting in behalf of the Crown,4 he had to prove his accusations against those whom he had appealed: or, as Richard Fitz Neal stated it in 1179, 'the charge of that crime being brought up and proved, he can save his life; and also since whatever seems to promote the peace of the kingdom is to the advantage of the king.'5 Approvement apparently arose sometime during the reign of Henry i. Although the word probator does not appear until 2 Henry ii, the person is suggested in our earliest extant Pipe Roll, that of 31 Henry I (1130).6 Unfortunately this is our