Tudor

A Herm tragedy: the drowning of the teenaged Walter St John, August 1597

Inscription from memorial at Lydiard Tregoze courtesy of Lydiard Tregoze house

An inquest into the death of the eldest son of Sir John St John, of Lydiard Tregoze, in Wiltshire, and his young tutor, who died trying to rescue his charge. They were swept away by the current, probably off Belvoir Bay, 18 August, 1597. Walter St John was under the protection of the Governor, Sir Thomas Leighton, and living at Castle Cornet. It is extremely unusual for evidence in a case like this to survive; this was retained because Walter's family connections meant an account of the inquest had to be sent to Chancery. The French text is given in the Second Report of the Commissioners into Criminal Law in the Channel Islands of 1848.

Thomas Andros' Commonplace Book

Thomas Andros' Commonplace Book, by the Seigneur of Saumarez Manor, from a family 'whose penmanship was far from good;' a handwritten pamphlet of herbal medicine and fruit-growing, dated 1589, Guernsey, and an exploration of other texts quoted in it.

11 September 1248, rights of islanders in the time of King John

Extracts from the bound collection of transcribed MSS known as the Nicolas Dobrėe MSS. All in beautiful copperplate, they include versions of charters and other Royal Orders and Acts, and various letters patent and so on that were obviously regarded as highly significant by the volume's owner. Followed by a transcription made in 1730 of the Constitutions of King John, from 'an old translation into French from the original in Latin ... copied from the Book of Mr H Mauger, Comptrolleur,' part of a collection of legal documents probably belonging to former Bailiff Peter de Havilland.

Notes from reports of Historical MSS Commission: II. Notes from inquisitions post mortem

Section II from the Notebook (40) XI, Staff, in the Library. MSS transcriptions: inquisitions post mortem. These lists almost certainly predate the publication by the Societe Jersiaise of the islands' royal extentes and rolls etc. in 1902-3. Additions from Edith Carey's Family notes & pedigrees which begins with a transcription of Nicolle's volume.

A Guernseyman is duped, 1590

A cheeky tale, suspiciously similar to Boccaccio's Decameron, from The Stranger's Guide to Guernsey and Jersey, 1833, pp. 128 ff., written by Dr Thomas Bellamy. 'In an old book, now out of print and very scarce, published in 1590, entitled Morgan's Feats of the Cardinals, is the following ludicrous account of the midnight ramble of a gentleman, sent from the island of Guernsey to Naples, in Italy, to buy horses.' The detail is from the frontispiece of the Library's 1566 edition of the Chroniques et Annales de France, Vol. I.

Bread and hot cross buns

From the History of the Guernsey Churches scrapbook.

The French Prayer Book

A letter to the Editor of the Star newspaper from the Guernsey historian Edith Carey, 14 December 1926, concerning the history of the French Prayer Book, published for the islands, the first (unpopular) edition of which exists in only one copy, in the Lambeth Palace Library.

The Ship of Fools

This important book was published in 1494 in Basel.

La Discipline ecclesiastique, 1576 et 1597

Title page of the Discipline Ecclesiastique, Priaulx Library Collection

In 1885 was published the original French text of the Ecclesiastical Discipline for Guernsey, edited by the Reverend G.-E. Lee of the Town Church and published by Thomas Bichard of the Bordage. The Police et discipline ecclesiastique was a set of regulations for the management of the Church and its congregation in the island, established by consensus in 1576 and which, despite the severity of its rules, remained in force until the Restoration in 1660, when Charles II imposed a form of Anglicanism on the island.

Acquisitions: Summer 2012

Jutland letters (Col. Charles Le Mesurier), 1916; Orne Bridgehead; Jersey Evacuees Remember; The Channel Islands, 1370-1640: Between England and Normandy; Sweet water and bitter.

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