as constable who wanted to pay for a deputy to take the oath of office along with
his replacement.^86 This did not burden the elected man with the legal conse-
quences ofhis deputy’s actions. But it did mean that he remained responsible
for filling the post if his deputy refused to do the work or left the ward or died. The
aldermen also attempted to assert control by insisting on their right to scrutinize
deputies before they were sworn into office—presumably to ensure that they
were at least minimally respectable inhabitants of the ward. In October 1693
they ordered that ‘for the future noe person chosen Constable within this City
be Admitted to put in a Dep[u]ty without the expresse order of this Court’.^87
With 237 new constables to be appointed within the space of a few weeks in
December and early January every year, that was not an easy order to enforce. By
the end of the decade the aldermen had to remind the man who actually over-
saw the swearing-in of constables, the deputy registrar of the mayor’s court, not
to allow deputies to take the oath of office before he had been given permission
in writing—a sure sign that he was not obeying the new rule in every case.^88
None the less, there is also no doubt that the aldermen made some effort to
make it stick. The names of confirmed deputies began to be entered in the
Repertories of the court in 1693. And as well as chastising the deputy registrar
for disregarding their rules, they also summoned him before them in 1701 to ex-
plain why he had allowed a constable to be sworn before the court had given its
approval. Finally in 1707 they told the town clerk (‘whose immediate servant he
is’) to discharge him for his continued disobedience.^89
One can see the aldermen’s anxiety after the Revolution to impose some con-
trol over the constabulary not only in their scrutiny of deputies but in other
efforts to ensure that constables were respectable and reliable men. After 1689 , for
example, they engaged more fully than they had before, certainly over the pre-
vious several decades, in adjudicating disputes between the wardmote and men
elected as constables about their eligibility to serve. On several occasions the al-
dermen dealt with the cases of individuals trying to avoid service on the grounds
that their work made it impossible for them to serve as constables. They excused
a man who kept a grammar school because of‘his constant duty and attendance
in such his imployment’, and several artisans whose work took them frequently
from home.^90 But the aldermen more often denied claims of immunity and in-
sisted that elected men either serve or pay for a deputy—including, for example,
an ensign in the trained bands, and several officers of the customs and of the two
City compters, all of whom had argued the privilege of office.^91 Other men who
142 Constables and Other Officers
(^86) Rep 95 , fo. 99. (^87) Rep 97 , p. 492.
(^88) Rep 104 , p. 101 ( 1700 ); Rep 105 , p. 100 ( 1701 ); Rep 106 , p. 67 ( 1702 ), and other occasions thereafter.
(^89) Rep 111 , pp. 57 – 8.
(^90) Rep 101 , p. 79 ; Rep 104 , pp. 158 – 9. For categories of men excused from service as constable because
of their status or employment, see Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown, ii. 63 – 4.
(^91) Rep 99 , p. 192 ; Rep 100 , p. 47 ; Rep 103 , pp. 96 – 7 ; Rep 106 , pp. 112 – 13 ; Rep 107 , p. 113.