CHARLES II. IN THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 179 



On 1 6th June, in obedience to the expressed desire of his 

 mother, Charles embarked in his own barge for France, and 

 arrived, under convoy of a frigate of six guns, at Cotainville, in 

 Normandy, reaching St. Germains some ten days afterwards. 



It might be interesting to know what sort of looking man the 

 young Prince then was, and the following is a description of 

 him given to a friend by a young French lady the rich heiress 

 of the Duke de Montpensier between whom and her son the 

 Queen-mother was most anxious to effect a marriage : 



" Tall for his age, with a well-formed head adorned with a 

 profusion of dark brown hair, set off to advantage by the dark 

 hue of his complexion and the brilliancy of his expressive eyes. 

 It is true that his mouth was large ; nay, positively ugly ; his 

 figure, however, was good and his carriage graceful, but to 

 counter-balance all he had one terrible one unredeemable 

 defect he could neither understand, nor could he give utter- 

 ance to, one single w r ord of French ! " The accounts of their 

 meetings are entertaining reading enough, but it does not 

 appear that Charles ever made any serious attempt to remedy 

 this defect in her eyes, or to seriously lay siege to the affections 

 of this young mademoiselle, as beautiful as she was rich ; and 

 eventually she, who was put forward as the bride of more than 

 one crowned or to be crowned head in Europe, married a 

 French courtier, who proved to be the death blow to all her 

 ideas or schemes of ambition. 



On 2gth June, 1648, the Prince left Calais en route for the 

 Hague, where he seemed to have lived mostly under the 

 friendship and protection of his cousin, the Prince of Orange. 



News of King Charles I.'s execution reached Jersey on 

 7th February, 1648-9, and on iyth February Prince Charles 

 was proclaimed King by the Vicomte, or Sheriff, of Jersey 

 Laurence Hamptonne read the Proclamation at the Market 

 Cross and repeated it at other stations. 



A copy of this Proclamation is given in Appendix IV. (p. 407) 

 to Dr. Hoskins' work, but in the " Armorial of Jersey" which I 

 have already referred to, at p. 177 appears a well-executed 



