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