ng stream, so did
the de Gruchys and Malets, the Le Feuvres and de Quettevilles, on either
side the Channel. The danger that was nearest was the most formidable;
and the Channel Islanders were ready to side with England much as the
Saxon Scots of the Lothians came to make common cause with the Celts of
the Highlands.

These explanations may appear tedious: but the reader is implored to
pardon them; for without such he could not realise the passions which
are exemplified in this little story. Long exposed to invasion, the
Jerseymen of the middle ages had handed down to their descendants an
abhorrence of France which was fomented by the stories of persecution
brought to them by Huguenot refugees; and which, indeed, has hardly yet
completely died out among the rural population. Thus sentiment and
interest kept the islanders attached to England by a two-fold cord;
careless whether their immediate leaders were Cavaliers, as in Jersey,
or Parliamentarians, as in the neighbouring island of Guernsey, where
the royal Governor was beleaguered in Castle Cornet.

For reasons arising out of this state of things, Carteret did not leave
the protection of the King to the unaided loyalty of the local militia.
Cooped up in the narrow limits of the Castle rock were no less than
three hundred Englishmen and women attached to the Court, and, in
addition, a strong force of Irish and Cornish soldiers who had been
brought over by Charles on his former visit, as Prince of Wales, after
the battle of Naseby. His Sacred Majesty--_de jure_ of England,
Scotland, and Ireland, King, to say nothing of France, whose lilies were
blazoned on his scutcheon--was _de facto_ monarch of this little island
plot of 45 square miles; and his state was at least equal to his
temporary sway. The accommodation of the Castle was, in truth, but
small; but it was the best that the occasion afforded; the royal palace
consisting of a suite of small apartments vacated for the King's
convenience by the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir G. Carteret, who had removed
to the lower ward. S. Aubin, on the other horn of the bay, was the seat
of the naval power; here lived the families of the officers of the
corsair-squadron then constituting the Royal Navy. The rest of the
King's following was billetted on farm-houses in the parishes nearest to
the town. Yet, as a warning that all was not their own, four frigates
and two line-of-battle ships, with a commission from the rebel
government of