rt be people of the same country, or at least, if the offenders
be of another country, the receivers be of places near," enacts that hue
and cry shall be made upon the commission of a robbery, and that the
hundred shall remain answerable for the damage unless the felons be
brought to justice. It may be inferred from this provision that the
ancient law of frank-pledge, though retained longer in form, had lost
its efficiency. By the same act, no stranger or suspicious person was to
lodge even in the suburbs of towns; the gates were to be kept locked
from sunset to sunrising; every host to be answerable for his guest; the
highways to be cleared of trees and underwood for two hundred feet on
each side; and every man to keep arms according to his substance in
readiness to follow the sheriff on hue and cry raised ofter felons.[393]
The last provision indicates that the robbers plundered the country in
formidable bands. One of these, in a subsequent part of Edward's reign,
burned the town of Boston during a fair, and obtained a vast booty,
though their leader had the ill fortune not to escape the gallows.

The preservation of order throughout the country was originally
intrusted not only to the sheriff, coroner, and constables, but to
certain magistrates called conservators of the peace. These, in
conformity to the democratic character of our Saxon government, were
elected by the freeholders in their county court.[394] But Edward I.
issued commissions to carry into effect the statute of Winton; and from
the beginning of Edward III.'s reign the appointment of conservators was
vested in the crown, their authority gradually enlarged by a series of
statutes, and their titles changed to that of justices. They were
empowered to imprison and punish all rioters and other offenders, and
such as they should find by indictment or suspicion to be reputed
thieves or vagabonds, and to take sureties for good behaviour from
persons of evil fame.[395] Such a jurisdiction was hardly more arbitrary
than, in a free and civilized age, it has been thought fit to vest in
magistrates; but it was ill endured by a people who placed their notions
of liberty in personal exemption from restraint rather than any
political theory. An act having been passed (2 R. II. stat. 2, c. 6), in
consequence of unusual riots and outrages, enabling magistrates to
commit the ringleaders of tumultuary assemblies without waiting for
legal process till the next arrival of ju