Royal Court & States

Obituary of John Guille, June 1843

Just fifty years and one month ago there presided over the Royal Court of Guernsey a gentleman who, throughout his whole life, proved himself to be a thorough Guernseyman, endowed with the highest principles of honour and integrity, but one also possessing a native intensity of purpose and independence of character.

Les Quartiers

Oldest house at Les Quertiers, now lost, from Guernsey Folk Lore in the Library Collection

A newspaper report of a trip by the Société Guernesiaise to the Les Quartiers Estate in the 1920s. The photograph is from MacCulloch's Guernsey Folk Lore.

Elizabeth Le Cocq of Alderney, paillarde, 1736

Elizabeth refused to appear before the Ecclesiastical Court to admit 'paillardise'—licentiousness—having given birth to an illegitimate child. From Peter Mollet's Notebook in the Library.

Nicholas Roussel, Le Rimeur, 1807

Pigs from Bellamy's Guide, 1843, Priaulx Library Collection

From an editorial in the Star of December 12, 1836. The woodcut of a 'frisky' Guernsey pig is from Dr Thomas Bellamy's Pictorial Directory of 1843, in the Library collection. The writer comments on the credulity of those in the country parishes, who continue to venerate such impostors and quacks as Louis D'Orléan, about to face trial for imposition, and in doing so gives us details of the case of Nicolas Roussel which, although having occurred in 1807, 'is not yet forgotten, and just a few particulars respecting it will not, just now, be unacceptable'.

Jacques Le Batard

The cage and pillory from Lukis memoirs in Priaulx Library Collection

The Gazette de L'Isle de Guernesey, of which the Priaulx Library has copies to view, published an unusual announcement in July of 1795. The newspaper reproduced in its entirety the sentence passed in the Royal Court upon a Frenchman from St Germain in Normandy, called Jacques Le Batard. The results of criminal trials were not normally published in the early Gazettes. Why this one? The sketch of the pillory and cage in 1795 are from the Lukis memoirs in Edith Carey's Scrapbooks in the Library.

John Ingrouille, hangman, 1818

And executioners in general. An incomplete list of the Guernsey hangmen employed by the States, (convicts, for whom the office meant freedom and a small stipend), can be found in the Library: Lists of Bailiffs, Jurats &c, Staff. From L'Independance of 24 January 1818.

A fast worker: Ozanne versus Peddle, February 1837

An appeal to the Royal Court. From the Comet, February 16, 1837.

James Ollivier, 1836

'A most audacious fellow.' From the Comet, July 14th 1836.

The Yellow Dress

A surprising dark side to life at the Town Hospital is hinted at in this Royal Court case. Unmarried local girls who became pregnant and who sought help at the Hospital, although treated kindly, were nevertheless put under a great deal of pressure to disclose the name of the father, so that he would be responsible for the child's maintenance and not the parish, but the threat extended to this girl is another thing entirely and seems to have terrified her. It should be noted that the Star newspaper chose not to mention the dress and represented the trial somewhat differently.

Why Katherine Bertrand went though the roof

In her Report to the Folklore section of the Société Guernesiaise in 1928, Edith Carey drew attention to an interesting custom connected with suicides, based on an inquest held in 1580.

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