The Collaborative International Dictionary
Headborough \Head"bor*ough\ Headborrow \Head"bor*row\(h[e^]d"b[u^]r*[-o]), n.
The chief of a frankpledge, tithing, or decennary, consisting of ten families; -- called also borsholder, boroughhead, boroughholder, and sometimes tithingman. See Borsholder. [Eng.]
--Blackstone.(Modern Law) A petty constable. [Eng.]
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context obsolete English) The head of a frankpledge or tithing 2 (context obsolete English) A petty constable in a parish
Wikipedia
In English law, the term headborough, head-borough, borough-head, or borrowhead, referred historically to the head of the legal, administrative or territorial unit known as a tithing (and sometimes, particularly in Kent, Surrey and Sussex, as a borgh, borow, or borough). In the Anglo-Saxon system of frankpledge, or frith-borh, the headborough presided over the borhsmen in his jurisdiction, who in turn presided over the local tithingmen. The office was rendered in Latin documents as capitalis plegius or decennarius.
By the early 16th century, the term was also applied to a parochial law-enforcement officer subordinate to constable. In this sense it is found in the induction to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (written c. 1590–92), when the Hostess of an alehouse, arguing with a drunken troublemaker, declares, "I know my remedie, I must go fetch the Headborough" (Induction, i); and again in Much Ado About Nothing (written c. 1598–9), where the dramatis personae describes Verges as a Headborough, subordinate to Constable Dogberry (Act 3, scene 5).
Usage examples of "headborough".
From a child this Frank had been a donought that his father, a headborough, who could ill keep him to school to learn his letters and the use of the globes, matriculated at the university to study the mechanics but he took the bit between his teeth like a raw colt and was more familiar with the justiciary and the parish beadle than with his volumes.
He had been off as many times as a cat has lives and back again with naked pockets as many more to his father the headborough who shed a pint of tears as often as he saw him.
Habergeon: A chain-mail shirt Haut-gousts: Tasty things Headborough: A constable Hiccius Doctius: A nonsense word used by jugglers, conjurers etc.
From a child this Frank had been a donought that his father, a headborough, who could ill keep him to school to learn his letters and the use of the globes, matriculated at the university to study the mechanics but he took the bit between his teeth like a raw colt and was more familiar with the justiciary and the parish beadle than with his volumes.