190 EjAftLY CONSTITUTIONAL 1IISTOKY. 



Home and Thomas de Brikeville account for the remainder of 

 the straw from the island of Sark for the previous year, when 

 Sark and all the other lands of Richard de Vernon were in the 

 King's hands, on account of his having- joined Prince John's 

 rebellion. 



Further, in the Great Rolls of 1198 we find Robert de 

 Saint-Mere-Eglise, then vicomte of Guernsey, accounting for 

 the outgoings of the lands of Baldwin Wake, which were in the 

 King's hands by reason of the minority of his heir, (1) showing 

 that at this time the privilege claimed by the people of the 

 island in the reign of Edward I., and recognised by him, 

 that the king had neither ward nor marriage in Guernsey, 

 did not yet exist, so far, at least, as regards ward of his 

 military tenants. Nor for the matter of that did it exist in 

 the reign of King John, or in the early part of that of Henry 

 III., for between the years 1198 and 1253, fief du Comte was 

 three times in the King's hands by reason of the minority of its 

 heir, and the fiefs of Jerbourg and Le Canelly once. (2) 



In conclusion I think the evidence we now possess proves 

 that the administration of Guernsey at the end of the 1 2th 

 century was identical with that of the rest of Normandy. We 

 were a vicomte administered exactly as were any of the 

 others of Normandy, and the jurisdiction of the Vicomte's 

 Court was as restricted, and his administration was subject to 

 the same control by the Itinerant Justices, as were those of 

 the Norman vicomtes. We have proof of two visits of the 

 Itinerant Justices ; one, in the Assize held by Ralph de 

 Valemont, and the other by the fines, in the Great Roll of 

 1180, inflicted on various officials in Guernsey and Jersey, for 

 maladministration of justice. Further we find by the Roll of 

 1195, that any new inquiry, like the one into escheats, Avas 

 extended to our islands. We were therefore part and parcel of 

 the duchy for all administrative purposes, and there is nothing 

 to show that we, as yet, possessed any such important privi- 

 leges as judgment by twelve Jurats elected by the magnates of 

 the people or exemption from the Duke's writs. Of course 

 we already possessed local franchises and liberties with regard 

 to trade, to weights and measures, and to feudal usages and 

 servitudes ; but so did each district and even each fief in 

 Normandy possess rights and customs peculiar to their local 

 circumstances. The only important privileges Ave can posi- 

 tiA^ely claim as existing in Guernsey at the latter end of the 

 twelfth century are those of exemptions from all military 



(1) Stapleton. Mag. Rot. Scacc. Norman. II. 385. 



(2) Only the minor heirs of tenants of military fiefs or of those held by sergeantry 

 were under the Duke's ward. See Tardif. Tres Ancien Coutumier. XL 



