![]() 5 5 ‘Dominion’, in this instance, can be defined as ‘signifying political units, distinct in law and administration, ruled together by one monarch’. It is curious, then, that the Channel Islands have consistently been excluded from wider English scholarship, particularly that vein which examines the nature and extent of royal power and also comparative studies of the wider ‘dominions’ of the Plantagenet kings of England. In fact, as the preceding century had demonstrated, the Channel Islands were just as much as part of this realm as the duchy of Aquitaine or the lordship of Ireland. Ormrod (eds), The Plantagenet Empire, 1259–1453: Proceedings of the 2014 Harlaxton Symposium (Donington, 2016). Crooks, ‘State of the union: perspectives on English imperialism in the Late Middle Ages’, Past & Present, 212 (2011), pp. ![]() 4 4 For discussion of the term ‘empire’ see: P. ![]() The petition was an express recognition by the Islanders not only of their own important role in linking the kingdom of England to its more distant continental possessions, but that they were also an intimate part of a wider Plantagenet realm, an entity which has in more recent historiography been categorised as an ‘empire’. ![]() Notwithstanding long-established and enduring ties to Normandy, the Islanders did not consider themselves part of the kingdom of France. Chaplais (ed.), English Medieval Diplomatic Practice (2 vols in 3 parts London, 1975–82), I, I, no. Such concerns would have resonated with those responsible for English strategic planning where fear of French naval superiority in the English Channel, ‘the march between the two kingdoms’, and the necessity of maintaining maritime links between England and Gascony, including the profitable wine trade, were a constant focus in the period of Anglo-French hostility. For a similar petition by the people of Guernsey in 1328, which was probably written in close coordination with the Jersey petition: TNA SC 8/272/13590 Nicolle (ed.), Ancient Petitions, pp. The strategic importance of the Islands formed the kernel of the petition: that the Islands were the only refuge for shipping between England and Gascony and if they were seized the kings of France would be the ‘Lords of the Sea’. As small, isolated ‘English’ outposts off the coast of Normandy, they were under constant threat of attack and occupation by the forces of the king of France. This petition, in which the Islanders urgently requested the strengthening of the defences of the island, after decades of what they considered to be their neglect under the lordship of Otto de Grandison (1275–1328), encapsulated the precarious position of the Channel Islands. Nicolle (ed.), ‘ Ancient Petitions of the Chancery and Exchequer’ Ayant trait aux Iles de la Manche conserves au ‘Public Record Office’ à Londres (St Helier, 1902), pp. The National Archives, SC 8/272/13589 translated into English in E. The distance between Jersey and Guernsey is 20 miles. 1 1 Jersey is 18 miles west of the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy, whereas the second-largest island Guernsey is 36 miles away. In 1328, in the midst of increasing hostilities between the kingdoms of England and France, the people of the island of Jersey petitioned Edward III to warn him of the impending threat of invasion from Normandy, a land so close to them that ‘our enemies in time of war … may twice in a day cross the sea’. Paradoxically, strategic location was the key reason for the rights and privileges granted to the Islands which went well beyond what otherwise insignificant territories could have reasonably achieved but was also the cause of its long-term militarisation and subjection to periodic attacks and counter attacks by the kingdom of France. The second half of the article surveys the position of the Islands in the context of the Anglo-French relations between the Treaty of Paris and the Hundred Years’ War. The first half of this article explores the maintenance of Plantagenet control in the Islands following the loss of Normandy and the significance of their inclusion in Henry III’s 1254 appanage to his eldest son Edward. It is argued here that the Islands, rather than being dismissed as political anomalies, were viewed by the kings of England as an integral entity and make an important contribution to understanding the larger construct of the Plantagenet realm. Notwithstanding a rich volume of accessible record material to consult, the history of the Channel Islands has been omitted from studies of the Plantagenet kings of England and in comparative studies of their wider ‘dominions’ on account of the Islands complex political status and cultural differences. This article examines the relationship between the Plantagenet kings of England and the Channel Islands from 1254–1341.
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