Salian Franks, the Danish Codes, and the Norse Codes, and compare them with that of the Goths. The materials for all the collations exist: and to those who can use better than a layman pretends to do, they are recommended.

Nor are they without an important bearing upon the history of both Normandy and England; indeed, it is upon these that they bear so decidedly as almost to necessitate the re-writing of some stereotyped chapter in both French and English history. If the Jutes of Kent be Goths of Gaul; if the Jutes of Hampshire be the same; if Hengist be a Goth; if Neustria became Normandy on the strength of Gothic and Saxon rather than of Norse elements, there is surely much to be corrected in most of the ordinary histories.

As to Rollo himself, the whole of his biography is uncertain. Whoever allows himself to criticize, not only the Norse accounts in general, but the minute details of the narrative of our earliest Norman authority, Dudo de St. Quentin, at the same time laying due stress upon the notices of these Northern Goths or Jutes, along with the Gothic character of all the names of the dukes of Normandy, can scarcely fail in having doubts as to his having been a Dane at all. Even if he do, the question as to the origin of the names of the Norman dynasty remains untouched: inasmuch as Rollo never took the name of duke. His son did but his son, though the successor to his influence and ability, was not the successor to his dukedom. Word for word, Rollo, or Rou, is Rudolf, a Gothic, and not a Scandinavian name-not, at least, either an early or a common one. What, then, was the bold and successful chief who bore it? It is hard to say. Apparently, he was a representative of some powerful Gothic family (perhaps the royal one), who, availing himself of the assistance of the Northern invaders, assimilated himself to their manners and identified himself with their nationality.

If the previous speculations are sound, there must have been a near affinity in blood between the Channel Islanders and the

men of the Isle of Wight. With both the basis was Keltic; with both there was a probable infusion of Saxon blood from the Litus Saxonicum; and with both, which is more interesting, there was, in all probability, a Gothic element as well. At any rate, if we connect the so called Jutes of Hampshire with the Goths whom Theodebert drove to the sea, we may fairly do the same with the Channel Islanders themselves.

[The subjoined illustration represents one of the beautiful bays on the east coast of Jersey, with Archirondelle Tower in the middle distance. It is described in page 99, and is near one of the most interesting of the ancient pagan monuments of the island, the cromlech, behind Anne Port, figured in another chapter. St. Catherine's is one of the harbours by which access from France is most easy.-D. T. A.]

CHAPTER XV.

LATER HISTORY, FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WARS.

FOR the reign of the Conqueror and the three which succeeded it, we may say, in a rough way, that the allegiance of the Islands alternated; being English under William the First, Norman under Rufus, English under Henry the First, and Norman again under Stephen. This was because the conflicts between the duchy and the kingdom still went on. The Norman barons who had failed to find large estates in England, who were not prepared to Anglicize themselves, who possibly may have looked upon England as the English of Henry the Second's time looked upon Ireland (i.e. as a rude country and an uncertain possession), held, that on the demise of the father, the duchy

A A

and the kingdom were separate, and that the former went to the eldest son, the chivalrous but impolitic Robert. Upon this they acted, and, until Robert, after the death of Rufus, was defeated by his surviving brother, Henry I., at Tinchebray, it was with the duchy that the islands went. But the field of Tinchebray, followed by the abandonment on the part of Robert of his rights with his captivity and absolute dependence on the King of England made them English. Then came the reign of Stephen, with his equivocal title: a tit.e which held better in Normandy than in England, and made the islands during his reign, Norman. They could have been no losers by this; inasmuch as Stephen's reign gave us, in England, the maximum of either mis-government or anarchy.

With Henry II., the allegiance reverted to its original courseoriginal, at least, so far as the battle of Hastings was its origin; and the sovereign of the islands was, as the successor of William I. and Henry I., King of England and Duke of Normandy besides. He was also Duke of Guienne, or Aquitania; and this domain, combined with that of Normandy, made him a greater power in France than the French king himself. It also kept up the importance of the Channel Islands, even after the loss of Normandy.

Under a king like Richard I., who, out of his eleven years of rule, passed less than as many months in England, little is to be found in even the chronicles of London and York, much less in those of St. Helier's and St. Peter's Port.

But, with John, an important era begins. The key to John's prominence in island history lies in the chronic state of hostility which lay between him and Philip Augustus. It lies, too, in the fact of its being in his reign that, over and above the division between England and Normandy, Normandy was divided against itself. There was the Normandy of the Seine and there was the Normandy of the open sea. There was the Normandy of Rouen and the Normandy of St. Peter's and St. Helier's. There was the

THE CONSTITUTION OF JOHN.

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agricultural Normandy and there was the maritime Normandy. There was, to use a classical term of distinction, the Normandy of the Peræa and the Normandy of the Islands. There were the relations of the continent to Venice and the relations of Venice to the continent. And the difference was real. In the reign of King John, the history of the two divisions separates itself into two parts, even as, in the seventh century, the history of Venice separates itself from that of the opposite coast of Italy. Continental Normandy was reduced by Philip Augustus. Insular Normandy was retained by John. The former took the first step in the way towards becoming French; the latter, the first towards becoming English. Whatever John did in the way of evil, he, at least (unless we choose to say that the islands held him), held the islands for England.

No one can have attended to the tendencies of the modern school of what is called history-too often the narrative of events which never happened-without having a certain conviction that, before many years are over, some eloquent expositor of some hitherto unknown records will do for John what has been done for Henry VIII. and others; i.e., will (to use a coarse expression) whitewash him. There will be an error of fame; and the barons who won Magna Charta will be the villains of the transaction. John will (after Henry) be the greatest king who has ruled over England; and the facts of his having given a Lord Mayor to London and a constitution to Guernsey will make him the founder of the municipal liberties of Great Britain. Such a history will, doubtless, be written; and it ought to be written in the Islands. To insular Normandy the Constitution of John is simply what the Magna Charta is in England; save and except that, instead of being extorted from the sovereign, it was given by him.

Of this insular Magna Charta, however, there is no original deed. To what there is, there is no seal. It bears the name of John in its heading only. Like Melchisedec, it has neither father