1917.] A FORGOTTEN EPISODE. 39 



she became the bride of Mr. Pierre Henry, owner of La Haye 

 du Puits. He did not bear the best of reputations, having 

 just passed through the ordeal of a citation before the Eccle- 

 siastical Court by Marie, daughter of Guillaume Girard of 

 the Castel, for breach of promise of marriage. However, the 

 Court decided, after mature consideration, that the lady had 

 not brought forward sufficient evidence to prove her case. 

 But Marie Bailleul did not reign as mistress of the Haye du 

 Puits for long, for Pierre Henry soon died, and ou June 3rd, 

 1674, we find that " Mons. Charles Andros, Seigneur d'Anne- 

 ville, and Dame Marie Bailleul," guardians of the children of 

 the late " Sieur Pierre Henry, bailie a, rente a Mons. Josuc 

 Le Marchant de la Paroisse de Sainte Samson, la maison et 

 terre de la Haye du Puits " for " 50 quartiers de froment 

 d'annuelle rente." 



A few months after this, on November 24th, 1674, Pierre 

 Henry's widow married for the third time Mr. Compton de 

 Beauvoir. This, however, was a very short-lived happiness, 

 for, within five months, on April 28th, 1675, we find that she 

 was dead, and Compton de Beauvoir and her various children 

 were dividing her property between them. Mr. de Beauvoir 

 was apparently a Master of Elizabeth College ; for in April, 

 1679, he was summoned before the Ecclesiastical Court by the 

 Town Constables to answer for the disorderly conduct of his 

 pupils in the Town Church. It was ordered that in future he 

 should sit amongst them and keep them in order, for their 

 conduct and uproar had been such that the whole congregation 

 had been scandalized, and had lodged formal complaints. 

 Apparently the close proximity of noisy and unruly little boys 

 was not congenial to him, for he first of all flatly refused to 

 obey, and was thereupon formally admonished by the Dean 

 and officers of the said Ecclesiastical Court. This Court was 

 then held in the Town Church, above the aisle where the 

 organ now stands. 



Anyone going through the Ecclesiastical Registers of 

 Guernsey will be impressed by the severity with which the 

 law of the Church was enforced in the seventeenth century. 

 It was administered, not by admonitions alone, but by corporal 

 punishment, penances, deprivation of both Civil and Religious 

 privileges, and by fines. The Church, run on the harshest 

 and narrowest Calvinistic principles, was indeed a power in 

 those days, and we can well imagine the consternation which 

 must have been caused in the Island when it was realised that 

 James II., the newly-crowned King, intended to re-introduce 

 and maintain Roman Catholic services in the Island. 



