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ST. GEORGE'S CROSS;

OR,
ENGLAND ABOVE ALL.

An Episode of Channel Island History.

BY

H.G. KEENE

GUERNSEY:
FREDERICK CLARKE, STATES ARCADE.

LONDON:
W.H. ALLEN & CO., 15. WATERLOO PLACE.

1887

CONTENTS.

TO THE READER.

The following little tale is neither pure fiction nor absolute historictruth; being, indeed, little more than an attempt to show a picture ofChannel Island life as it was some two centuries ago. For the backgroundwe have been beholden to Dr. S.E. Hoskins, whose "Charles the Second inthe Channel Islands" may be commended to all who may feel tempted topursue the matter further.

August, 1887.

PROLOGUE.

On a bright day in September of the year 1649 Mr. William Prynne, asuspended Member of Parliament, sat at the window of his lodging in theStrand, London, where the Thames at high water brimmed softly againstthe lawn, bearing barges, wherries, and other small craft, and gleamingvery pleasantly in the slant brightness of an autumn noon.

The unprosperous politician looked upon the fair scene with quiet cheer.He was a man of austere aspect, and looked farther advanced in middlelife than was actually the case. For he was bearing the unjust weight ofa double enmity; and though his after conduct showed that the world'sinjustice by no means threw him off his moral balance, yet it isimpossible for a man to get into a position where every one but himselfseems wrong and not acquire a certain sense of solitude, which, with agrave nature, will make him graver still. By the Cavaliers he had beenpilloried, mutilated, fined and imprisoned: expelled from the Universitywhere he was a Master-of-Arts, driven out of the Inn-of-Court in whichhe had been a Bencher. By the Roundheads, on the other hand, he had beenvisited with a later and more intolerable wrong, exclusion from thatHouse of Commons which was the only surviving seat of sovereignty. Thusexcommunicated on all sides, Prynne still preserved his free and buoyantnature. He had the voice and impulsive manner of a young man; whilethere was a consistent moderation in his opinions which—however itmight weigh against his success as a party-man—yet sprang fromconviction, and was a guard against misanthropy.

In his apparel he was plain but not slovenly. His eyes were eager; hislean face, branded with the first letters of the words "SeditiousLibeller," was shaded by straight falls of lank hair, streaked here andthere with grey, that was combed down on either side of his head to hidethe loss of his ears.

Hearing a step without, Prynne laid down the book he had been reading—apamphlet by John Milton—and advanced, with an air of polite reserve, tomeet the entering visitor. This was a man more than ten years hisjunior, short of stature, with clear-cut features and thoughtful blue