GUERNSEY HISTORY. 



105 



subsequent abandonment of all proceedings concerning our 

 liberties. This incident did not prevent the justices from 

 coming to a decision on the principal point of their commission. 

 The communities of Guernsey and Jersey were successively 

 called upon to justify their pretensions regarding their 

 privileges. At Guernsey, the justices adjourned the question 

 to Jersey for decision. The Guernseymen pleaded that a 

 cause commenced in their island could not be adjourned out of 

 it, and refused to appear. The justices declared their 

 customs to be provisionally forfeited by default, and adjourned 

 the question to the King's Bench for settlement, where they 

 had also referred those of Jersey. After many adjournments 

 of the question by the King's Bench, the people of the Isles * 

 petitioned the king in Parliament in 1333, setting forth their 

 grievances, and appending a list of their cherished privileges. 

 This petition is to be found in the Record Office, Coram 

 Rege Rolls, Michaelmas, 1333.f In it the islanders set 

 forth their claim to retain the customs of Normandy as well as 

 certain other privileges which differed from them. They 

 assured the king of their unswerving loyalty in spite of the 

 many perils that surrounded them, for they were in the march 

 of all nations, and never knew when they might be raided and 

 burnt. They ended by requesting that new justices might be 

 sent to the Isles to investigate the question. The king ordered 

 all proceedings against them to be suspended, and referred the 

 matter to his Council. 



It would take too long to go into the points on which 

 we differed from the customs of Normandy, that formed 

 the chief ground of dispute during these twenty-four years. 

 They comprised the right of electing our jurats, the powers 

 of the Royal Court and many other customs very similar 

 to those of the Cinque Ports or the Gascon communes. The 

 answer of the islanders, when asked for proof of their claims, 

 was invariably they had enjoyed them from time imme- 

 morial.:): A very loose expression, one which the justices 

 were well acquainted with, for it was the plea set up by the 

 majority of the defendants at each " Placita de quo 



* Ha vet Les Cours Royales, pp. 13-14. 

 t Havet Les Cours Royales, p 228. 



X In the proceedings in Coram Rege against Drogo de Barentin concerning 

 his rights to the manor of Rozel, Jersey, it is evident that at the assizes of 1323 he 

 had pleaded that he held the manor and its liberties from time immemorial, hxit 

 when the case was adjourned before the King's Bench at Westminster, he produced 

 the charter of Henry III., dated 16 June, 1217, granting them to his grandfather, 

 and explained his former plea by stating that "time immemorial meant forty years 

 according to the customs of the Isles." (a) 



(a) Placitorum in Domo Capitulari Westmonasteriensi Asservatorum Ab- 

 breviatorium. 



Placita coram Rege apud Westmin. ; R. Ed. HI Ed. anno 17 ; Term Pasche. 



