I shall next conſider ſome officers of lower rank than thoſe which have gone before, and of more confined juriſdiction; but ſtill ſuch as are univerſally in uſe through every part of the kingdom.
IV. Fourthly, then, of the conſtable. The word conſtable is frequently ſaid to be derived from the Saxon, koning-ſtaple, and to ſignify the ſupport of the king. But, as we borrowed the name as well as the office of conſtable from the French, I am rather inclined to deduce it, with ſir Henry Spelman and Dr Cowel, from that language, wherein it is plainly derived from the Latin comes ſtabuli, an officer well known in the empire; ſo called becauſe, like the great conſtable of France, as well as the lord high conſtable of England, he was to regulate all matters of chivalry, tilts, turnaments, and ſeats of arms, which were performed on horſeback. This great office of lord high conſtable hath been diſuſed in England, except only upon great and ſolemn occasions, as the king's coronation and the like, ever ſince the attainder of Stafford duke of Buckingham under king Henry VIII; as in France it was ſuppreſſed about a century after by an edict of Louis XIII[1]: but from his office, ſays Lambard[2], this lower conſtableſhip was at firſt drawn and fetched, and is as it were a very finger of that hand. For the ſtatute of Wincheſter[3], which firſt appoints them, directs that, for the better keeping of the peace, two conſtables in every hundred and franchiſe ſhall inſpect all matters relating to arms and armour.
Constables are of two ſorts, high conſtables, and petty conſtables. The former were firſt ordained by the ſtatute of Wincheſter, as before-mentioned; and are appointed at the court leets of the franchiſe or hundred over which they preſide, or, in default of that, by the juſtices at their quarter ſeſſions; and are removeable by the ſame authority that appoints them[4]. The petty
