During a dispute over Parliament’s authority to legislate over Guernsey and Jersey, it was once asserted that the islands “had as good, if not a better right, originally to legislate for Great Britatin then, than Great Britain had to legislate for them.” (Hansard’sv:629, 1805, cited in Charles Howard McIlwain, The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation, p. 85.)
As Guernsey is legally continuous with the Duchy of Normandy of which it was once a part, and as the Duchy of Normandy conquered England (not the other way around) in 1066, the Channel Islanders suggested that perhaps they ought to be in charge. In any event, it was found that they are attached directly to the monarch as the heir of the Duke of Normandy, and were never assimilated into the Duke’s new lands on the far side of the Channel. They remain “crown dependencies;” they are among the “other realms and territories” referred to in the royal title:
“Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.”
I think that I once saw a reference to a claim that Islanders referred to the British monarch as Duke or Duchess rather than King or Queen, because it is in his or her role as Duke/Duchess of Normandy that he or she rules them; but I haven’t been able to remember where I saw that, and might have imagined it.
But I’ve always loved the image of the Guernseyan advocate standing in the House of Lords and asserting that Guernsey had better right to rule England than the other way around…
Comments are closed.