Legal

Chefs Plaids, Jugements, Ordonnances &c, 16-19th centuries

Bound MSS, staff E. Metal fastening engraved: 'LF 1773.' Contact the Library for further details. The material falls into several sections: the first, detailed below, is in two hands and lists in rough date order Acts of the Royal Court in which the judgment passed down is of some legal interest; the last Act noted is from 1719. Then follows an interesting set of documents covering the Civil War period and the reign of James II, some of which are Lord Hatton correspondence and may be unpublished. Finally a later hand has transcribed Acts relating to the Militia; the last of these dates from 1769. The back of the volume was reversed and charters and other early Acts and Ordonnances have been transcribed.

Bail and rents

From the Report of the Royal Commissioners deputed to the Island of Guernsey in 1815, published by J. A. Chevalier and N. Mauger in Guernsey in 1817. This investigation into Guernsey law came about after vociferous complaints to the Crown by non-native residents, or Strangers, about their lack of property and other rights in the island, especially when it came to laws concerning debtors and creditors. 

Court terms

A layman's guide to the workings of the Royal Court, from Mauger's Guernsey Almanac, 1823, including the Courts of Chief Pleas, Mobiliary, and Plaids d'Heritage.

Second Report of the Commissioners: The State of the Criminal Law in the Channel Islands: Guernsey

We whose hands and seals are hereunto set, Commissioners, appointed by Your Majesty's Commission, bearing date the 16th day of May, in the ninth year of Your Majesty's reign, for inquiring in to the Criminal Laws in force in Your Majesty's Channel Islands and into the constitutions and powers of the Tribunals and Authorities charged with the execution of such laws, humbly certify to Your Majesty that, having completed our inquiry so far as the same related to the Island of Jersey, the result of which we have already laid before Your Majesty in our First Report, we forthwith proceeded, in further obedience to Your Majesty's gracious commands, to the Island of Guernsey.Second Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into The State of the Criminal Law in the Channel Islands: Guernsey: London, William Clowes and Son for Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1848.

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