Three-fourths of all assize indictments and many quarter-sessions
indictments were for various types of theft, including petty
larceny, grand larceny, housebreaking, burglary, sheep stealing,
and robbery. These offenses were mostly opportunistic rather than
planned, except for London's underworld of professional thieves
and the cutpurses of country markets and highway robbers on lonely
roads. There were substantial peaks in theft in periods of harvest
failure and industrial depression, especially by vagrants. But
most of the poor never stole.
The Justices of the Peace usually deferred to the learned Justices
of Assize for cases of felony, murder, rape, highway robbery, and
witchcraft. Most homicides were the result of an impassioned
argument leading to blows inflicted by nearby commonplace items
picked up and used as weapons. Only 18% of homicides were within
the family. Men were still declared outlaw if they failed to come
to court after repeated summons.
The Lord Keeper regularly advised the assize justices, before each
circuit departure, to relieve the poor, supply the markets,
maintain the roads (which were frequently impassable in winter for
wagons or coaches), enforce church attendance, suppress
superfluous and disorderly alehouses, and put down riots,
robberies, and vagrancy, and in times of dearth, to suppress
speculation in foodstuffs, prevent famine, and preserve order.
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