These explanations may appear tedious:  but the reader is implored to pardon them; for without such he could not realise the passions which are exemplified in this little story.  Long exposed to invasion, the Jerseymen of the middle ages had handed down to their descendants an abhorrence of France which was fomented by the stories of persecution brought to them by Huguenot refugees; and which, indeed, has hardly yet completely died out among the rural population.  Thus sentiment and interest kept the islanders attached to England by a two-fold cord; careless whether their immediate leaders were Cavaliers, as in Jersey, or Parliamentarians, as in the neighbouring island of Guernsey, where the royal Governor was beleaguered in Castle Cornet.

For reasons arising out of this state of things, Carteret did not leave the protection of the King to the unaided loyalty of the local militia.  Cooped up in the narrow limits of the Castle rock were no less than three hundred Englishmen and women attached to the Court, and, in addition, a strong force of Irish and Cornish soldiers who had been brought over by Charles on his former visit, as Prince of Wales, after the battle of Naseby.  His Sacred Majesty—­de jure of England, Scotland, and Ireland, King, to say nothing of France, whose lilies were blazoned on his scutcheon—­was de facto monarch of this little island plot of 45 square miles; and his state was at least equal to his temporary sway.  The accommodation of the Castle was, in truth, but small; but it was the best that the occasion afforded; the royal palace consisting of a suite of small apartments vacated for the King’s convenience by the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir G. Carteret, who had removed to the lower ward.  S. Aubin, on the other horn of the bay, was the seat of the naval power; here lived the families of the officers of the corsair-squadron then constituting the Royal Navy.  The rest of the King’s following was billetted on farm-houses in the parishes nearest to the town.  Yet, as a warning that all was not their own, four frigates and two line-of-battle ships, with a commission from the rebel government of London, and flying the broad pennant of Admiral Batten, cruised between Jersey and Guernsey, never far from sight, although giving for the most part a wide berth to both the island castles, whose gunners watched them night and day.

Such was the position of affairs on a Sunday towards the end of September, a few days later than the events related in the Prologue.  The morning had been wet and windy, and the sacredness of the day had joined to keep the men of those simple times from all activity save that connected with the services of religion.  But, in spite of the weather, it had been judged wise and proper that Charles should show himself at Church on this, the first Sunday of his kingship in Jersey:  and he accordingly attended worship at the Town Church of S. Helier’s.  The tide was low, and the royal cortege, muffled in their cloaks, rode or walked