CHAPTER VI.
THE KIND OF MAGISTRACY UNDER THE WIGS OF FORMER DAYS.
Any one observing at that moment the other side of the prison--itsfacade--would have perceived the high street of Southwark, and mighthave remarked, stationed before the monumental and official entrance tothe jail, a travelling carriage, recognized as such by its imperial. Afew idlers surrounded the carriage. On it was a coat of arms, and apersonage had been seen to descend from it and enter the prison."Probably a magistrate," conjectured the crowd. Many of the Englishmagistrates were noble, and almost all had the right of bearing arms. InFrance blazon and robe were almost contradictory terms. The DukeSaint-Simon says, in speaking of magistrates, "people of that class." InEngland a gentleman was not despised for being a judge.
There are travelling magistrates in England; they are called judges ofcircuit, and nothing was easier than to recognize the carriage as thevehicle of a judge on circuit. That which was less comprehensible was,that the supposed magistrate got down, not from the carriage itself, butfrom the box, a place which is not habitually occupied by the owner.Another unusual thing. People travelled at that period in England in twoways--by coach, at the rate of a shilling for five miles; and by post,paying three half-pence per mile, and twopence to the postillion aftereach stage. A private carriage, whose owner desired to travel by relays,paid as many shillings per horse per mile as the horseman paid pence.The carriage drawn up before the jail in Southwark had four horses andtwo postillions, which displayed princely state. Finally, that whichexcited and disconcerted conjectures to the utmost was the circumstancethat the carriage was sedulously shut up. The blinds of the windowswere closed up. The glasses in front were darkened by blinds; everyopening by which the eye might have penetrated was masked. From without,nothing within could be seen, and most likely from within, nothing couldbe seen outside. However, it did not seem probable that there was anyone in the carriage.
Southwark being in Surrey, the prison was within the jurisdiction of thesheriff of the county.
Such distinct jurisdictions were very frequent in England. Thus, forexample, the Tower of London was not supposed to be situated in anycounty; that is to say, that legally it was considered to be in air. TheTower recognized no authority of jurisdiction except in its ownconstable, who was qualified as _custos turris_. The Tower had itsjurisdiction, its church, its court of justice, and its governmentapart. The authority of its _custos_, or constable, extended, beyondLondon, over twenty-one hamlets. As in Great Britain legal singularitiesengraft one upon another the office of the master gunner of England wasderived from the Tower of London. Other legal customs seem still morewhimsical. Thus, the English Court of Admiralty consults and applies thelaws of Rhodes and of Oleron, a French island which was once English.
The sheriff of a county was a person of high consideration. He wasalways an esquire, and sometimes a knight. He was called _spectabilis_in the old deeds, "a man to be looked at"--kind of intermediate titlebetween _illustris_ and _clarissimus_; less than the first, more thanthe second. Long ago the sheriffs of the counties were chosen by thepeople; but Edward II., and after him Henry VI., having claimed theirnomination for the crown, the office of sheriff became a royalemanation.
They all received their commissions from majesty, except the sheriff ofWestmoreland, whose office was hereditary, and the sheriffs of Londonand Middlesex, who were elected by the livery in the common hall.Sheriffs of Wales and Chester possessed certain fiscal prerogatives.These appointments are all still in existence in England, but, subjectedlittle by little to the friction of manners and ideas, they have losttheir old aspects. It was the duty of the sheriff of the county toescort and protect the judges on circuit. As we have two arms, he hadtwo officers; his right arm the under-sheriff, his left arm the justiceof the quorum. The justice of the quorum, assisted by the bailiff of thehundred, termed the wapentake, apprehended, examined, and, under theresponsibility of the sheriff, imprisoned, for trial by the judges ofcircuit, thieves, murderers, rebels, vagabonds, and all sorts of felons.
The shade of difference between the under-sheriff and the justice of thequorum, in their hierarchical service towards the sheriff, was that theunder-sheriff accompanied and the justice of the quorum assisted.
The sheriff held two courts--one fixed and central, the county court;and a movable court, the sheriff's turn. He thus represented both unityand ubiquity. He might as judge be aided and informed on legal questionsby the serjeant of the coif, called _sergens coifae_, who is aserjeant-at-law, and who wears under his black skull-cap a fillet ofwhite Cambray lawn.
The sheriff delivered the jails. When he arrived at a town in hisprovince, he had the right of summary trial of the prisoners, of whichhe might cause either their release or the execution. This was called ajail delivery. The sheriff presented bills of indictment to thetwenty-four members of the grand jury. If they approved, they wroteabove, _billa vera_; if the contrary, they wrote _ignoramus_. In thelatter case the accusation was annulled, and the sheriff had theprivilege of tearing up the bill. If during the deliberation a jurordied, this legally acquitted the prisoner and made him innocent, and thesheriff, who had the privilege of arresting the accused, had also thatof setting him at liberty.
That which made the sheriff singularly feared and respected was that hehad the charge of executing all the orders of her Majesty--a fearfullatitude. An arbitrary power lodges in such commissions.
The officers termed vergers, the coroners making part of the sheriff's_cortege_, and the clerks of the market as escort, with gentlemen onhorseback and their servants in livery, made a handsome suite. Thesheriff, says Chamberlayne, is the "life of justice, of law, and of thecountry."
In England an insensible demolition constantly pulverizes and disseverslaws and customs. You must understand in our day that neither thesheriff, the wapentake, nor the justice of the quorum could exercisetheir functions as they did then. There was in the England of the past acertain confusion of powers, whose ill-defined attributes resulted intheir overstepping their real bounds at times--a thing which would beimpossible in the present day. The usurpation of power by police andjustices has ceased. We believe that even the word "wapentake" haschanged its meaning. It implied a magisterial function; now it signifiesa territorial division: it specified the centurion; it now specifies thehundred (_centum_).
Moreover, in those days the sheriff of the county combined withsomething more and something less, and condensed in his own authority,which was at once royal and municipal, the two magistrates formerlycalled in France the civil lieutenant of Paris and the lieutenant ofpolice. The civil lieutenant of Paris, Monsieur, is pretty welldescribed in an old police note: "The civil lieutenant has no dislike todomestic quarrels, because he always has the pickings" (22nd July 1704).As to the lieutenant of police, he was a redoubtable person, multipleand vague. The best personification of him was Rene d'Argenson, who, aswas said by Saint-Simon, displayed in his face the three judges of hellunited.
The three judges of hell sat, as has already been seen, at Bishopsgate,London.