Charles Hitchen, also mentioned as Charles Hitchin in other sources, ("c." 1675 – 1727) was a "thief-taker" (private policeman) and under-marshal of the City of London in the early 18th century, also, famously tried for homosexual acts and sodomitical offences. Alongside his former assistant and then a major rival Jonathan Wild, against whom he later published a pamphlet (The Regulator) and contributed to his sentencing to death, Hitchen blackmailed and bribed people and establishments irrespective of their reputation, suspicious or respectable. Despite the disgrace of the people he earned through his abusive exercising of his power, he remained in power and continued fighting against violent crime, especially after the ending of the war of the Spanish Succession and until 1727.