SOME JERSEY CHURCHES.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—A signed article when full of inaccurate historical and local statements, injurious to a loyal people, if published in the Spectator, demands correction.
_Mr. Meiklejohn tells us that "French the Jerseyman is and so is his language and so is his country." And this of islands never under French sovereignty, which have sheltered a con- quering people for a thousand years !
The Islander is bi-lingual : all speak English and most Norman-French. The Jerseyman finds that this protects him (officially) from a horde who -might eat him up. Norman- French is not French ; is the language used in England by the Court, in courts of law and by all freemen for a lengthened period ; it is the language in which King Henry VIII. wrote his love-letters and in which Queen Elizabeth wrote her aphorisms ; the language in which His Majesty in Parliament declares his assent or dissent. It is the language of a con- quering people.
There is not an ancient family in England which" is not of Norse or Norman extraction, unless it be of mixed serf or alien blood, and if Continental Normandy had not been deserted by England she would stilt be English as is the Norman Archipelago.
"We," says Mr. Meiklejohn, "have held these islands for a thousand years, but the flat Britislfoot has left no trace ! " " We ! " The Islands have held to the Crown of England since 1066, when the Islander assisted in the conquest of that glorious heritage. The Islands are the appanage of the Crown of England. William gave us our flag—the flag of Normandy, the flag of England, his England, the flag under which the early making of England and the Empire was achieved.
We are told that there is "nothing the Jerseyman prides himself on more than the Battle of 1781." This fight with the French, one of many through the centuries, was but an episode : the fights the Norman prides himself on are those he fought for Duke and King against the Usurper, when for seven months Jersey resisted Admiral Blake, surrendering only when the King, having escaped from the Island to the French Court, advised agreement and when the "Parliaments of London and Westminster gave thanks unto God for the taking of Jersey -Island."
These are the fundamental errors, but Mr. Meiklejohn also tells us : "In the fine . . . town-church . . . the morning service is always in French." This is not so ; there is no French service! "The potato-planting peasant " : Mr. Meiklejohn may have spoken to a Breton or even a French "harvester," but the Islander is no peasant ! He is a freeman as were his ancestors, is of good blood and gentle.
No Frenchman may own land ; he may lease it. Long- tailed horses are rare (horsehair is worth money) and French drivers are rarer : they are not to be trusted to "keep to the left" or to sell their masters' farm produce.
The cows do not "wear jackets when tethered in exposed positions," but when about to calve, or after calving, and there are no " hedges " of Jersey cabbages !
The de Carterets were Hereditary Baillis and Lieut.- Governors of Jersey, and Sir George de Carteret was Lord High Admiral of England in the time of Sing Charles (fit office for a Frenchman!), the family were grands seigneurs and " noble " ; and the representative of the family still lives in the seigniorial home of his ancestors, St. Ouen, and is Lieut.-
Bailli of Jersey.—I am, Sir, &c., BERTRAM G. FALLE. House of Commons.
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