This word, according to Coke, Selden, and several other writers, is derived from the Saxon words koning, king, and stabel or stapel, a stay or support—quasi columnum regis, the stay or support of the king. But as we borrowed the name as well as the office from the French, it is rather to be deduced, according to Spelman, Menage, Du Cange, Vossius, Cowell, and Skinner, from comes stabuli, a term denoting a kind of master of the horse; an officer, as Blackstone observes, "well known in the Empire, and so called because, like the Lord High Constable of England, he was to regulate all matters of chivalry, tilts, tournaments, and feats of arms, which were performed on horseback."

The Constable of France was the first officer of the crown, and had the chief command of the army; and it was his duty also to regulate all matters of chivalry and feats of arms. This office was suppressed by an edict of Louis XIII. in 1607. It was revived by Napoleon; but in 1814, on the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty, it was finally abolished.

The Lord High Constable of England was anciently an officer of the crown of the highest dignity. This office appears to have been first instituted immediately after the Norman Conquest, with duties, powers, and jurisdiction very similar to those of the Constable of France. As judge of the court of chivalry, along with the Earl Marshal, the power of the Lord High Constable was so formidable, and so improperly used, that a statute was passed in the 13th of Richard II., to restrict the jurisdiction of that court to "contracts and deeds of arms and things which touch war, and which cannot be discussed or determined by the common law." This office became hereditary in the family of the Bohuns, earls of Hereford and Essex; and afterwards passed into that of the Stafford's, as their heirs-general: but in 1521 it became forfeited to the crown in the person of Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, who was attainted of high treason. Since that time no Lord High Constables have been appointed, otherwise than pro hac vice—as at coronations, and on other solemn occasions.

The Lord High Constable of Scotland. The office of Lord High Constable of Scotland is also one of great antiquity, since as many as eleven Lord High Constables of Scotland are enumerated in a list of the twelfth century. To him belonged (according to the Leges Male. II.), jointly with the mareschal, the trial of all offences committed within certain limits of the king's court; though, in fact, such offences, it appears, were judged by the lord justiciar—the Constable merely protesting in favour of his right. The extent and nature of this jurisdiction, as defined in the report of the commission of inquiry in the reign of Charles I., were Constable found to apply to all slaughters and riots committed within four miles of the king's person, of the privy-council, or the parliament; which precinct was called the Chalmor of Peace. The office was conferred heritably on Sir Gilbert de Hay by King Robert Bruce in 1314; and it still remains in the noble family of Errol, the office having been expressly reserved by the Treaty of Union.

Inferior Constables. From the great office of high constable is derived that inferior order since called the constables of hundreds and franchises. These were first instituted in the thirteenth year of Edward I. by the statute of Winchester, which, for the conservation of the peace, and view of armour, appointed two constables to be chosen in every hundred and franchise. These are what are now called constabularii capitales, or high constables; because, with the increase of population, it was found necessary to appoint in every town others of like nature but inferior authority, called sub-constabularii, or petty constables. These were first instituted about the reign of Edward III.

In Scotland, constables are the officers of the justices of the peace, intrusted with the execution of their warrants, decrees, and orders. They are appointed by the justices at their quarter-sessions, and in royal burghs by the magistrates. It is the duty of constables, without any special warrant, to apprehend offenders against the peace, vagrants, and such as can give no account of themselves, and to take them to the next justice. It is also their duty to suppress riots, and apprehend the rioters; but after the riot is over, a constable is not authorized to seize brent manu any person concerned in it, unless some one has been dangerously wounded in the affray. See Police.