262 SOCIAL LIFE IN GUERNSEY. 



Romish Church " replied " that they would obey and keep the 

 ordinances of the King and Queen (Philip and Mary) and 

 the Commandments of the Church, notwithstanding that they 

 had said and done the contrary in the time of King Edward 

 the 6th in showing obedience to his ordinances and command- 

 ments. *' (,) Yet, by the Dean's orders, their submission was of 

 no avail and they were returned again to prison. Again they 

 were brought before the Dean and his colleagues, and this 

 time they were examined separately as to their beliefs ; after 

 which they were again returned to prison and, on July 14th, 

 1556, the Dean, Jacques Amy, and four Rectors, namely, 

 Jean Alles (Rector of the Forest), Pierre Tardif (Rector of 

 St. Martin's), Gruillaume Paquet (Rector of the Catel), and 

 Jean Navetel (probably Rector of St. Andrew's), wrote a 

 Latin document — recorded at the Greffe @) officially declaring 

 the accused guilty of heresy. Consequently on the following 

 19th of July, Hellier Gosselin, Bailiff, Thomas de Vic, Pierre 

 Martin, Nicolas Carey e, Jean Blondel, Nicolas de Lisle, Jean 

 le Marchant, Jean Le Feyvre, Pierre Bonamy, Nicolas 

 Martin and Jean de la Marche — ten out of the twelve jurats 

 — owing to this letter by which " ils ont estey aprouvez 

 heretiques " condemned the three prisoners to be strangled 

 and burnt that very day, with confiscation of all their goods 

 to the Crown. 



In justice to the Bailiff and Jurats we must remember 

 that, as Sir Frederick Pollock tells us, (3) "according to the 

 law of the Church the man convicted by the Ecclesiastical 

 Authorities as a . . .heretic was to be delivered over to the 

 Secular power, who ... if he neglected to do what was implied 

 to the bishop's sentence was liable to excommunication, while, 

 if he persisted in his contumacy for a year, he himself was 

 accounted a heretic." 



It is difficult now to realise the horrors of an execution 

 in those days — callous as the men of the 16th century were to 

 human suffering. The executioner, or, as he was then styled, 

 " L'Executeur des hautes oeuvres," was always a convicted 

 criminal who had been induced to accept an unpopular office 

 by promise of a free pardon. In 1556 Pierre Queripel was 

 holder of this post " pour ses malfaicts et demerites." The 

 prisoners were shipped from the wretched hole in Castle 

 Cornet which was dignified by the name of a prison, and 

 landed at the " Chaussee" for trial before the Royal Court. Old 

 people have noted that this was the most striking scene in the 



(1) Foxe. 



(2) Livre de Jugements et Records, Vol. I. 



(3) Hist, of English Law, Vol. II., 2nd Ed., p. 551, 



