Chief Watchman (The True and Most Excellent Comedie of Romeo and Juliet)

The Chief Watchman was a character in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.

In Act V Scene III, he discovered the corpses of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet shortly after they both committed suicide in the Capulet tomb of Verona. He called it a "pitiful sight" and noted that Romeo was "slain" while Juliet was "bleeding, warm and newly dead" despite having already laid in the tomb for two days previously. In an alternative version of the play, unknown to the Chief Watchman, the deceased Romeo was actually a Sontaran clone and Juliet a Teselecta, with the real Romeo and Juliet hiding out of sight. Another watchman then arrived with Friar Laurence as his prisoner who explained that he and other members of the watch had taken a mattock and a spade from him as he came across the churchyard. The Chief Watchman proclaimed this was "a great suspicion" and ordered his subordinate to keep the Friar close by. Later, after Romeo and Juliet's fathers, Capulet and Montague respectively, had witnessed the death scene and quickly healed the rift between their feuding families, the Chief Watchman told the other watchmen to "bring forth the party of suspicion and say at once what thou dost know in this". Friar Laurence complied, disclosing that Romeo and Juliet had been secretly married. (PROSE: The True and Most Excellent Comedie of Romeo and Juliet)