Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/101

Rh esto. Hoc est esse in captione regis." They took advantage especially of the following prescription, held to form part of the ancient feudal franchises of England: "Sous les viscomtes sont les serjans de l'espée, lesquels doivent justicier vertueusement à l'espée tons ceux qui suient malveses compagnies, gens diffamez d'aucuns crimes, et gens fuites et forbannis et les doivent si vigoureusement et discrètement appréhender, que la bonne gent qui sont paisibles soient gardez paisiblement et que les malfeteurs soient espoantés." To be thus arrested was to be seized "à le glaive de l'espée." The jurisconsults referred besides "in Charta Ludovici Hutuni pro Normannis," chapter Servientes spathæ. The "Servientes spathæ," in the gradual approach of base Latin to our idioms, became "sergentes spadæ."

These silent arrests were the contrary of the Clameur de Haro, and gave warning that it was advisable to hold one's tongue until such time as light should be thrown upon certain matters still shrouded in mystery. They signified questions reserved, and showed in the operation of the police a certain amount of raison d'état. The legal term "private" was applied to arrests of this description. It was thus that Edward III., according to some chroniclers, caused Mortimer to be seized in the bed of his mother, Isabella of France. This again, we may venture to doubt, for Mortimer sustained a siege in his town before being captured. Warwick, the king-maker, delighted in practising this mode of "attaching people." Cromwell practised it, especially in Connaught; and it was with this precaution of silence that Trailie Arcklo, a relation of the Earl of Ormond, was arrested at Kilmacaugh.

These seizures of the body by a mere gesture of authority, represented rather a summons to appear than a