FORGOTTEN ISLANDS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 103, 25 January 1933, Page 9

FORGOTTEN ISLANDS

Place of Tragic Memories

GUERNSEY’S NEW PARK

The little island of Guernsey, where the people are fervently English, although in the country districts they speak an almost unintelligible French patios, is making a pleasure-ground of one of the saddest spots in Europe. This is tlie Vallee de Misere, where in the bad old days witches and heretics were burned. On the spot where many helpless old women and men were burned workmen are now reclaiming what is called the Cornet Street Plateau for the use of the public. The new park will command a wonderful view of peaceful islands, and a sunlit sea —Herm, Jethou, Jersey, Alderney, Sark—where the Daine de Sark rules under a mediaeval charter —the Casquets, and, on a clear day, the coast of France.

A curious thing about these islands is that, though they came to England with the Conqueror, being part of his estates, they have never been mentioned in any of the treaties between France and England. In the early 13th century the French king recaptured Normandy, and the Channel Islands would normally have been considered part of his capture, being, as they were, part of William’s Norman possessions. But a certain Pierre de Priaulx negotiated the treaty of 1204, when King John of England lost Normandy. De Priaulx happened to be friendly with John, and in negotiating the treaty he was careful not to mention the Channel Islands, though they should have gone to France with Normandy. In this w'ay they remained part of the territory of England. The French king made no protest, perhaps, because, as one chronicler suggests, he had never heard of the Channel Islands. It was Normandy he wanted, and John, on his part, kept quiet about it. He cared nothing for Normandy, in any case, so long as England was safe. Thus it may be said that the islands remained English because they were overlooked! Strange things have happened in the forgotten islands, and some of the strangest and saddest have taken place in the Vallee de Misere. Fox’s Book of Martyrs contains the picture of one notorious burning -of women there. This time they were not accused of withcraft; their crime was that they had dared to worship God in their own way. They were Protestants —a mother and her two daughters. The last burning of sorcerers in Guernsey was in 1747. This was in the Carrefour du Bordage, just below’ the place that is now being made into a pleasure-ground.