Guarded by those granite cliffs, apart from the world—for in the eighteenth century there was but little communication with either England or France—the simple folk of the island lived. The women were famed for their beauty, blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked, a combination of Saxon fairness and Norman freshness; the men were hardy, bold and daring, as became those who gained their living in such a precarious way as sailors and fishermen and smugglers of the Channel Islands
In addition to the fishermen and the sailors there were the country people who lived on and cultivated their own estates, the largest of which did not exceed seventy-five English acres. Wheat was the principal crop, and dairy products the chief source of profit. Beside the country people there lived in or near St. Peter's Port, the capital, another distinct set of inhabitants, who may be called the upper or governing class. To this class the family of Brock belonged.
Guernsey contains about twenty-five square miles. Its shape is that of a right-angled triangle. The sides face the south, the east, and the north-west, and are respectively about six and one-half, six, and nine miles long. The only town of importance and the seat of government is St. Peter's Port, situated on the slope of a hill about the middle of the more sheltered eastern coast. South of the town rise the cliffs crowned by a strong fortress. At the entrance of the harbour is Castle Cornet, once a detached island fort, dating from Plantaganet days, afterwards the residence of the governors and also a prison.[[1]] The appearance of the town on approaching it by sea is imposing, but the streets are narrow, steep and crooked, and the houses, although substantial, are dusky looking and old. The harbour of St. Peter's Port was begun by order of Edward I., and was in course of construction for two centuries. St. Peter's Church, a fine building of the fourteenth century, was consecrated in 1312. It was not until the sixth century that Christianity was introduced into the island by Sampson, Archbishop of St. David's, whose memory the small town of St. Sampson on the east coast still keeps green. Previous to this Druidism had been the religion, and cromlechs and relics of that old system still remain.
The Channel Islands
The Channel Islands were once included in the "Duchy of Normandie," and are the only parts of that duchy which remain to the English Crown. Again and again Guernsey has been unsuccessfully attacked by the French, who, from the days of Edward I. to those of Edward VI., strove to subdue its Anglo-Norman inhabitants. Through the centuries they retained their northern love of independence, and Guernsey is still governed by its own laws and ancient institutions. It is divided into ten parishes, whose rectors, appointed by the Crown, sit in the elective states. The chief court of justice in the island is the royal court, whose power is very extensive and rather undefined. It consists of the bailiff, appointed by the Crown, who presides, and twelve jurats appointed by the islanders through their delegates to the elective states. There is an appeal in certain cases to the king in council. The French language is used in the courts and on public occasions. The dialect of the people in the eighteenth century was still the pure Norman of many centuries before. Each parish had a school, but the principal one was Elizabeth College, originally a grammar school founded by Queen Elizabeth, where Hebrew, Greek and Latin, French, German, Spanish, Italian, drawing, music, fencing, and drilling were taught for the modest sum of twelve pounds a year.
Although wealth and luxury were almost unknown among them, the governing class in St. Peter's Port formed an extremely aristocratic and exclusive set, vying in dress, manners, and language with society of the same rank in England. Their children were frequently sent there to school, and as their sons grew up, commissions in the English army and navy were eagerly sought, and in many a hard-fought battle on land and sea, the men of Guernsey have won renown. It was not the gentler born alone that were trained to arms. By the law of the island, every male inhabitant between the age of sixteen and thirty-three was bound to render "man service to the Crown," and in the stormy days of the latter half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, they were often called on to take their share in the king's wars.
The Brocks of Guernsey
For generations the Brocks had lived in St. Peter's Port, and as Guernsey chronicles go back to legendary times, the story that they were descended from one Sir Hugh Brock who came there in the fourteenth century is perhaps a true one.
It seems that in the reign of Edward III. an English knight of that name was keeper of the castle of Derval, in Brittany. When the French overran that country this castle was besieged by the Duke of Bourbon, the Earls of Alençon and Perche, and a gallant array of the chivalry of France. Now Sir Hugh Brock's cousin, Sir Robert Knolles, who was governor of the duchy of Brittany, was also at that time besieged in Brest by the famous Bertrand du Guesclin. He succeeded in driving off his assailants, and then marched to the relief of his cousin, Sir Hugh, who was on the point of surrendering when the timely succour arrived. The English were, however, soon after driven out of France by the valiant du Guesclin, and as Guernsey lies directly between the coast of Brittany and England it is not improbable that this same Sir Hugh or some of his family settled there.
Towards the close of the seventeenth century, one William Brock, of St. Peter's Port, had three sons and one daughter. The eldest son, William, married Judith de Beauvoir, also of an ancient Guernsey family. The third son, Henry, married Susan Saumarez, the sister of that valiant sailor, afterwards the celebrated Admiral Lord de Saumarez. The second son, John, born on January 24th, 1729, married in 1758 Elizabeth de Lisle,[[2]] daughter of the bailiff of the island, whose ancestor, Sir John de Lisle, had been governor of Guernsey in the reign of Henry IV. By her he had fourteen children, of whom ten lived to maturity. Isaac was the eighth son, and was born on October 6th, 1769,[[3]] the year that also saw the birth of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1777 the family was deprived of a father's care, for Mr. John Brock, formerly a midshipman in His Majesty's navy, died at Dinan in that year at the early age of forty-eight. His two eldest sons had already entered the army, John as an ensign in the 8th (King's), Ferdinand in the 60th, that famous regiment once known as the Royal Americans, which was raised in the colonies in the time of the struggle with France, and which afterwards did such good service in the American war. These were strenuous times, and England was fighting in all parts of the world.