LITTLE "FEUDAL STRONGHOLD"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 55, 6 March 1937, Page 26

LITTLE "FEUDAL STRONGHOLD"

An island in "the English Channel, 3£ miles long and 1£ miles wide, which exists completely in a sixteenth-cen-tury feudal state is important enough to be reported on to the National Geographic Society/ and so- Mrs.; Robert Hathaway, who rules over it .as the Dame of Sark, with her, husband,, the Seigneur, has. reported (states the "Christian Science Monitor"). i, Mr. and Mrs. Hathaway—on a temporary holiday from feudalism—have been visiting in the United States, and, due.to newsreels, the radio, and such like, unfeudal contrivances, a good many more persons than formerly now know that there is one little feudal stronghold'left in the world, and that it hasn't any crime. problem or other mark of. civic disorderliness. ••"". "■. Mr. Hathaway is Seigneur of Sark by marriage, as you might say; but that does not mean any less the Seigneur. Simply that Mrs. Hathaway was already the' Dame of Sark when he married her, and so came to have a share in the responsibilities which are hers. The Hathaways were not prepared lo have their status in life produce quite the astonishment it did in some quarters when they arrived in the United States to visit relatives and friends; but they quickly perceived that; after all; perhaps it was a little unusual.

1 And it is because the little state presents such a unique combination of institutions and governmental archaisms that it has interested the National Geographic Society.

; Sark's written record begins in A.D. 565,-but there is evidence that it was occupied in the Stone Age.

At least one interval in its history was.' notable for its possession by pirates—supposedly Scottish pirates, who preyed on channel shipping and required - British expeditions to deal with them..

; Early in the sixteenth century, the French occupied, it for-a while, but Sir •;Walter -Raleigh's records contain the ,tale of: the way in which it was iyrested from them. The details made up -in daring what they lacked in honesty;- ■ • ■ •'.•■

A-vessel flying Flemish colours, arrived off the Sark coast; Sark has some 35 miles of coastline, due to quantities of inlets and coves at the toot of the cliffs that rise , clear around it. Anyhow, the Flemish sailors said that their captain had passed on, and requested leave to bring him ashore for burial services.

When they got to the little old church of St.- Magloire they disclosed their arms and waged a short, sharp, and successful campaign, taking the island.

But evidently they did not want it very'much; at. least not enough to bother to hold it.'"For presently it was just a deserted, place in ,the Channel.

However, not much later, Sir Helier de Carteret, .received from Queen Elizabeth'letters patent granting the right to set -up a constitution of Sark

and, along with the Royal grant, Sir Helier received almost unlimited powers on the one condition that he would colonise the island with 40 famIt may be that it was thus the island got its name, "The Island of, the Forty." Each man was given a musket with which it was required of him that he defend the island in case of necessity. Nowadays, if one of the island farms changes hands, one of the conditions is that a man with a musket handy must live there. Sark passed out of the hands of the De Carteret family in 1732, though the family still owns the Manoir de SamtOven, in Jersey. Thus the- island passed into the hands of Mrs. Hathaway's family in 1852, in the period of her great-grandmother, to be exact. The "Seigneurie," where the Hathaways live, is of. gray granite, situated in a sheltered part of the island. The main section of the house dates from 1565 and probably many of its stones were in the monastery that preceded it on the site.

It is no mere empty formality, this being Seigneur and Dame of Sark. The Seigneurie is the place to which everyone comes with any question to be settled about life on the island. There is a Parliament and it is called Chief Pleas, and the Seigneur and Dame are the presiding officers. Members of the Parliament come to it from each of the 40 farms; and there are 12 Deputies, chosen from the population at large which is now 675. There is no crown taxation and the only laws are the realistic ones needed to make the island a pleasant place in which people can live harmoniously.

' If you try to visit Sark you, land in a small, quite charming harbour,, connected with the island by a road which goes through a 200-foot tunnel. Leaving the tunnel there is a steep roadwhich winds up to the centre, where there are a few little shops, and four inns. The highway meanders along to La Coupee, where the two parts of the island meet, Great Sark and Little Sark, joined by a natural causeway which supports a road that is wide enough for one cart to travel at a time. ' .

The disturbances to living on Sark are all minor ones and easily settled. Existence is complete, in that it is selfcontained on the island, and there is little disturbance to its calm current because there is nothing for people to disagree about. Sark seems to its inhabitants as though it had always been, and so there is no need to change it.

The Hathaways like to come back to the States to visit, but they like Sark to live in, Mr. Hathaway is a graduate of an American University, and never foresaw as an undergraduate that he would become a Seigneur of this little feudal kingdom. But, with one ear cocked to the clamour and restlessness of New York City he will smile-slowly and say, "Sark is a pretty pleasant place in which to live. And —well, restful."