1 - Constitution and Government

Summary

BY the early nineteenth century, the Channel Islands had owed political allegiance to the English Crown for six hundred years. Anterior to this, the Islands had shared a history with north-west France. Untouched by the Saxon invasions to which England was subject from the fifth century, the Islands were inhabited during the latter half of the first millennium by a predominantly Gallo-Roman population living in subordination to the Frankish monarchy. At some time during the tenth century, the Islands and adjacent Cotentin peninsula were absorbed into the territory of the Dukes of Normandy. The Dukes’ conquest of England in 1066 did not alter the status of the Islands, which remained part of Normandy on the same basis as the Cotentin. In 1204, however, the destinies of insular and mainland Normandy diverged, when John, King of England and Duke of Normandy, lost the continental portion of his Duchy to the French King Philip Augustus. The Islands assumed new strategic value as stepping-stones between England, Brittany and English monarchs’ remaining continental possessions, and John and his successors contrived by various means to prevent Islanders following mainland kin into the French camp. An important way in which insular sympathy was won and held lay in the decision of post-1204 monarchs to respect the Islands’ law and institutions, and to allow them to govern themselves, albeit under royal supervision.

After a period of instability, the Islands were in 1259 recognised by the Treaty of Paris as part of Henry III of England’s continental territories. Five years previously, Henry had granted them to his son (the future Edward I) ‘in such manner that the said lands … may never be separated from the Crown … but that they should remain to the Kings of England in their entirety for ever’. The Islands henceforth remained possessions of the English Crown, but were never incorporated into the Kingdom of England (or, later, the United Kingdom).

Although Henry III had surrendered the title ‘Duke of Normandy’ by the 1259 Treaty, it was essentially in this capacity – respecting insular usage and law – that he and his heirs continued to rule the Islands. Later monarchs from Edward III to Charles II issued Charters formally guaranteeing Islanders’ customs and privileges, and granting them further privileges.