294 



AN EMINENT GUERNSEY MAN. 



willing to undertake . . . [yet] Sr. Peeter Osborne hath 

 beene pleased to returne our offers for the reduction of that 

 Island with insufferable scorn e." Thus from 1643 until 1651 

 the islanders had to experience the miseries of being bom- 

 barded by the guns of Castle Cornet as well as to endure 

 the complete destruction of all their trade and commerce, 

 as of course no vessel dare enter the harbour with the risk 

 of being fired at from the Castle. This must have been 

 almost the darkest period of Guernsey's history, and it is 

 difficult to realize what frightful inconveniences, in addition 

 to their dire poverty, our forefathers must have gone through. 

 For one thing there was no prison, for the cells at Castle 

 Cornet had been used as a prison from time immemorial, 

 and in 1644 it is recorded that a man who was condemned 

 to imprisonment for 24 hours on bread and water had perforce 

 to be incarcerated in the Belfry of the Town Church ! 



Meanwhile Sir Henry De Vic, who had been knighted 

 by Charles I., was British Resident at Brussels, and Evelyn 

 in his Diary notes that on October 8th, 1641, "At near 

 11 o'clock I repaired to His Majesty's Agent Sir Henry 

 de Vic, who very courteously received me and accommodated 

 me with a coach and six horses, which carried me from 

 Bruxelles to Garit." Evelyn carried away a pleasant impres- 

 sion of the life at Brussels then, for he says " in the small 

 Cittye the acquaintance being universal, Ladys and Gentle- 

 men I perceived had great diversions and frequent meetings." 



In 1647 Lady de Vic spent the winter in Jersey with 

 her numerous relations, and shewed especial kindness to 

 Prynne, then an exiled prisoner in Mont Orgueil Castle, from 

 whence he wrote of her as " faire Margaret." 



We next hear of Sir Henry in August, 1649, when we 

 find him writing from Brussels at the instance of the Duke of 

 Lorraine to Sir Edward Hyde (afterwards Lord Claredon), 

 and trying to dissuade the King's brother, the Duke of York, 

 from accompanying Charles II. on his projected visit to 

 Ireland, and recommending him to live under the protection 

 of some neutral power during the King's absence.* The 

 following September Charles, while still a homeless exile at 

 St. Germain, created Sir Henry a Baronet. This title was 

 probably given as a sop to counterbalance long arrears of 

 deferred pay, for in October of the same year Sir Henry says 

 in another letter to Clarendon " Your Lordship sees in what 

 condition His Majesty's affaires are at the present, and I doe 

 conceive you bee not ignorant of mine, or if you bee so the 



* Clarendon MSS. copied by Dr. Hoskins. In Candie Library. 



