SOME IMPORTANT EVENTS IN GUERNSEY 

 HISTORY.* 



BY LIEUT.-COLONEL T. W. M. DE GUERIN. 



THE INVASION OP 1295. 



A trivial brawl between some English and Norman seamen 

 at Bayonne, resulting in the death of one of the latter, is said 

 to have been the cause of the war between England and 

 France at the end of the thirteenth century. The story says 

 that in revenge for their comrade's death, the Normans 

 attacked an English ship and hanged the English sailors and 

 dogs from the yard-arms, "and so," says Hemingburgh, "they 

 sailed over the sea, making no difference between a dog and 

 an Englishman." Indignant at this outrage, the English 

 gathered together their ships, while the French did the same, 

 and on the 15th May, 1293, a pitched battle took place off 

 St. Mahe, in Brittany, f resulting in a complete victory for 

 the English, who returned to Portsmouth with much booty. 

 Edward I. strove to keep peace, but Philip le Bel took up his 

 subjects' cause and summoned Edward to answer in January, 

 1294, before the Parliament of Paris, for the misdeeds of his 

 mariners.J After long debates it was arranged that Edward 

 should make a formal surrender of Gascony to the French 

 king, it being proposed that he should marry Philip's sister, 

 Margaret, and that the duchy would be restored to him and 

 settled on the children of the marriage. Philip having 

 obtained possession of the chief strongholds of the duchy 

 repudiated the bargain and in a Parliament held in June, 

 1294, Edward resolved on war. Our islands were in great 

 danger ; the Governor, Otho de Grandison, was in the Holy 

 Land on a pilgrimage, and his lieutenant in the Isles was the 

 Prior of Wenlock, who not being deemed capable of their 



* Lecture delivered in the Ladies' College on March 18th, 1909. 

 t Guillaume Guiart places this battle near Guernsey. 

 " Vers les illes de Guernesie, 

 Que mer profonde ataint et lie, 

 En Tun coste de Normendie." 

 (Dupont. Contentin et ses lies, Vol. II., p. 185. Branches des roy lig, edit. 

 Buchon, t. II., p. 146.) 



t Political Hist, of England, Vol. II., p. 187-8. 



[1909.] 



