Rambles among the Channel Islands / by a Naturalist.

Date:
[1855?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rambles among the Channel Islands / by a Naturalist. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    51/402 (page 39)
    The current of historical events connected with the Channel Islands runs more smoothly during the reign of Elizabeth than probably at any other period, and indeed this and the follow- ing reign are sometimes called the Golden Age of the Channel Islands. This quietude, however, refers chiefly to external sources of alarm, for internal dissensions were very numerous and harassing. During Elizabeth’s reign Castle Cornet was fortified, and in Jersey the beau- tiful castle at the entrance of the harbour of St. Helier’s, since called Elizabeth Castle, was founded. In order to prevent the capture of Sark by the French, it was made the subject of a royal grant to Philip de Carteret, that he might let it out in forty different tenements, in order that there might be at least as many men to resist any sudden attack. In Guernsey Elizabeth endowed a grammar-school, which formed the origin of the present large institu- tion called Elizabeth College. Events of a more exciting character arose in the reign of the unfortunate Charles I. In the civil war which rent the parent country, and distracted the minds of all classes of persons, Guernsey and Jersey, singularly enough, took opposite sides, Guernsey adhering to the par- liament, and Jersey to the king. War existing between England and France, the king of the