Afterwards, in the reign of Edward II., the island belonged to the Norman family of Vernon, and they made certain grants to a Norman monastery. It was taken by the French in th reign of Edward IV., and recovered in that of Queen Mary; a small gain to be set against the loss of Calais. The account of its re-capture is from Sir Walter Raleigh, who, as Heylin wh retails the story) remarks, had, as governor of Jersey, fair meats of learning the truth. He had fair means, also, of picking " the current legends or traditions about it, whether true or true. However, it runs thus :-The island was in the hands «f the French, and was strong enough to defy the Grand Turs himself. But the following stratagem won it back. The ca tain of a Flemish vessel told the French commander that he h a dead man on board, who had expressed, during his lifetime. a desire to be buried ashore. Would the commander let th land and bury him? "If you bring no arms with you-not so much as a penknife-Yes." So a coffin was landed, taken it: the church, and opened. Instead of a dead body, it was fi with arms. The mourners and attendants provided themselves accordingly; sallied out, fought, and won. Meanwhile, a bu ful of Frenchmen had been carried aboard the ship to recti some presents as a burial fee. They remained there as prisoners "Instead of jewels and rings I wot,

The hammer's bruises were their lot.
Thus Odin's son the hammer got."

So runs the old Norse legend on a like deception and a li disappointment.

After this, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sark was gran in fee to Helier de Carteret, who falsely represented that th island was left uninhabited. He settled on it forty fan from Jersey: so that most of the modern Serkais are, re.. the descendants of a Jersey colony.

At a later period the manorial rights of the island were tra ferred to the Le Pelley family, who held it for many years

1:

has recently come into the possession of the family of Collings, of which the present seigneur is a member.

Since the peace of 1811, the history of the Channel Islanders has been that of a thriving and progressive population, sufficiently isolated to be free from the political storms which visited England, and sufficiently in contact with both England and France to partake of the movement by which the civilization of the present century is distinguished. Its details, however, connect themselves with the history of particular institutions, and the biography of particular individuals, rather than with that of the islands in general. The extent to which improvement has advanced, and the rate at which it has gone on in England, are fair measures of its extent and rate in Jersey and Guernsey; and contrasts between the present generation and the generation of our grandfathers, which are so easily drawn amongst ourselves, are just as easily drawn in the islands. Wealth has increased-commerce has extended-agriculture has improved-knowledge has been diffused, with the same results, and from the same causes, as in England. The peaceful character of the times has precluded the events of war, whilst the peculiar nature of their political relations has forbidden any parallelism to the political movements of other countries. The general view, however, of the islands in their present state is the best commentary on this.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ANTIQUITIES AND ARCHEOLOGY.

ANY doctrine which, either on the strength of their insulation (the word being taken in its strict etymological meaning or with the view of explaining some particular detail invested with more than usual obscurity, separates the archæology and ethu logy of the Channel Islands from that of the nearest portion of the continent of Gaul, carries with it so much undue refinement that, though it may possibly be sound, it should not be hazardou either gratuitously or on light grounds. With the exception of Japan and the Kurile islands, every smaller island on the face of the deep is definitely connected with some portion of the greater islands or continents. With the exception, too, of Iceland al Madagascar, every island is connected with the nearest port of the continent. Add to this that, without any exception whatever, every island of the size of Jersey, or Guernsey, and equa near the main land, is, for all practical purposes, inhabited at is early a period as the corresponding part of the continent. T time, then, when the islands under notice were either w habited or inhabited by a population different from that of t main land, transcends history.

Now, at the beginning of the historical period, the nearest part of Gaul was Keltic.

At the same time, it does not follow that the conditions of C

continent, when a given island derived from it its first inhabitants, were the same as they were when they were first known to the historian. The island may have been peopled; after which the original population of the continent may have changed. This is a fact of no rare occurrence. Still the presumptions are in favour of the nearest congerers of a given island being found on the opposite continent.

In the

On the other hand, however, it is certain that the whole of Gaul was not originally Keltic. The evidence that in the time of Cæsar the southern part was Iberic is conclusive. It is so, to some extent, at the present moment; inasmuch as the language of a part of Gascony is the same as that of Biscay; indeed, word for word, the two names are the same. first century, all Aquitaine was in the same condition as Gascony is now; i.e., it was Basque, Biscayan, or (to use the scientific name) Iberic. The Garonne was the boundary. To the south of it, everything, with the exception of Burdigala, or Bordeaux, was Iberic; to the north, everything Keltic or Gallic.

Since, then, the Iberic frontier has, from the beginning of history, receded, whilst that of the Kelts has advanced; is it not impossible that, at some very early period, like the former, it may have extended so much farther northwards as for Britany and Normandy to have been, more or less, Iberic at the time when they sent forth the first settlers upon Jersey and Guernsey? All that can be said in answer to this is that the possibility of such a state of things should be recognised as an alternative in case certain phenomena require it. However, at the beginning of the historical period, the northern boundary of Iberia was the Garonne.

Of two other populations which the sea may have brought to these parts, and which either commerce or piracy may have taken thus far from their own homes, little need be said except a single word in favour of the high probability of the one and the possibility of the other having been brought thus far west

and thus far south. The first are the Phenicians, of whom few antiquaries fail to say much when they treat of Britain, Spain, and Gaul. The second are the Slavonians of the Baltic and Lower Danube, of whom, as bold sailors and early voyagers, the present writer, on a fitter occasion, would have more to say than many would agree to. To neither were the Channel Islands unknown.

Of anything, however, earlier than either the Kelts or the Iberians in Northern Gaul, there are no definite traces; though, it should be added, that there are not wanting able men who, deducing the majority of the dominant population of modern Europe from Asia, are willing to believe in a primeval race of aborigines, who, spread over the whole continent from the North Cape to the Straits of Gibraltar, from Lapland to Andalusia, are still to be found as actual populations, or else traced in their subterranean remains by means of crania, tumuli, and stone instruments.

At a later period, there was no lack of intrusive settlers from Germany and Scandinavia (and that on both sides of the Channel and all along the coast) from the Orkneys to the Isle of Wight, and from the Scheldt to the Tagus; but, though there is good reason for believing such settlements to have begun at an earlier date than is usually assigned to them, there is nothing which brings them to the south of the Seine during the first or second

centuries.

Concerning the Greeks and Romans, our ordinary histories supply sufficient evidence.

Such are the real, probable, and possible factors in the ethnological and historical archæology of the Channel Islands Anything that is earlier than the Kelts must have its explanation sought for amongst the Iberians. Everything later than the Kelts is Phenician, Slavonic(?), Greek, Roman, German, or Scandinavian. Beyond this field, no antiquary need wander.