The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. I.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Cateray : "Onfroi et Maugier de Cartrai."—Wace. Sir Richard Charteray was of Beere-Charteray in the time of Coeur de Lion.—Pole's Devon. This family came from Carteret, in the arrondissement of Valognes. "Of Humphrey and Maugier, the companions of the Conqueror, nothing is known but their names. That of Roger is added by modern compilers. Regnaud de Carteret, son of an earlier Humphrey, accompanied Duke Robert the Magnificent to the Holy Land in 1035."—Planche. Geoffroi, Sire de Carteret, the son of Gui L'Oiseleur, founded the Norman abbey of Fontenelles, and is said to have been the father of the two Carterets who were at the Conquest. Du Moulins mentions Reginald de Carteraye among the followers of Robert Curthose at the taking of Jerusalem under Godfrey de Bouillon; and gives the arms that he bore Gules a Fesse fusillee Argent, which exactly correspond with those of the English Carterets. According to the family genealogy, their first recognized ancestor, Philip de Carteret, was his son.

This Sir Philip, in addition to his barony of Carteret, had considerable possessions in the "fair orchards of the sea" that lay opposite to it. He owned land in Guernsey, where, in obedience to a vow made in imminent danger of shipwreck, he built the church of Torteval in 1129, and held "Le Grand Fief Haubert de St. Ouen" in Jersey, with the charge of the island fortresses. It was a closely and constantly contested post of honour, but the trust was nobly and faithfully fulfilled by generation after generation of his descendants. They lost Carteret at the cession of Normandy in 1204; and another Philip, whom Henry III. had appointed joint-Governor of the Channel Islands with Amaury de St. Amand, had license in 1234 to go to the French King and try if he could regain his lands. But he found this could only be accomplished at the price—which he would not pay—of his allegiance to England. During the wars of the following century two Sir Reginalds de Carteret, father and son, successively defended the castle of Mont Orgueil against the French. The father was twice besieged, twice beat off his assailants, and lost his life in 1341 at the re-capture of Guernsey, which had been seized by the King of France three years before. The son had the rare honour of repulsing Bertrand du Guesclin himself. The great Constable "eyed the islands," in the words of D'Argentre, "as la retraicte seure des Anglois"; from whence they made their descents on the coast of Brittany, where he was then carrying on the war; and suddenly swooped down upon Jersey with a force of ten thousand men. He brought with him the Due de Bourbon and the flower of French chivalry, and, easily overrunning the island, sat down before its famous stronghold. But Mont Orgueil defied both sap and assault; for Sir Reginald held out even after a part of the walls had been thrown down; till, pressed for supplies, he agreed to surrender if not relieved by Michaelmas-day. Before this term had expired, the English fleet hove in sight, and the French retreated to the mainland. For this signal service, he and his seven sons were all knighted on the same day. In the beginning of Edward IV.'s reign Sir Philip de Carteret, with the English fleet under Sir Richard Harliston, recaptured Mont Orgueil from Pierre de Maulevrier, High Seneschal of Normandy, to whom it had been granted by Margaret of Anjou. This Sir Philip's son died before him, and his grandson was in ward to the King for eighteen years, and when he came of age found his heritage so ill cared for that "elder trees did grow in his hall, and other places of his manor house." He married the sole heiress of the gallant Admiral who had fought with Sir Philip, Margaret Harlistone, of whom the following story is told: He had been accused of treason on the evidence of a forged letter, and imprisoned in Mont Orgueil till he could clear his fame by the customary trial by combat, appointed for St. Lawrence's Day. But the Governor, whom he had taxed with some malpractices, was his secret enemy. He was stinted of food, to unfit him for the coming conflict; the side of the lists from which he was to do battle was studded with pitfalls, and his wife, dreading the result, determined to go herself to the King and ask for his liberation. It was then midwinter; she had been brought to bed of one of her many children four days before, and could only leave the island by stealth; yet she courageously put off in an open boat, with a single attendant, to cross the sea to England. It was a desperate venture, but she arrived in safety, made her way to Salisbury, where Henry VII. was then holding his Court, obtained an audience, and pleaded her cause so well that she returned in triumph to Jersey, before the appointed day, with a writ under the Great Seal reinstating her husband. This hardy and dauntless dame was the mother of nineteen (some say twenty) sons and two daughters. Helias Carteret, her grandson, was rewarded by Queen Elizabeth for his services against the French with a grant of the entire island of Sark, where his successor, Sir Philip, "planted a colony." Another Sir Philip received a baronetcy from Charles II. in 1670; and the elder line of the Carterets terminated in 1715 with his son, who bequeathed St. Ouen, La Trinite, &c, to the heir male of his house, John Carteret, Earl Granville.

This younger branch had been founded by Sir George Carteret, Governor of Jersey, "a man of great eminency and reputation in naval command," who, on the breaking out of the Civil War, was appointed Vice-Admiral of the Fleet by the Parliament. He refused to accept the post, and retired to Jersey, where he was very active in the Royal cause, and opened his house to such of the King's friends who were driven out of England. The Prince of Wales, with a great train, was for a short time his guest in 1646; and the Chancellor Hyde (afterwards Lord Clarendon) spent twenty-five months under his roof, engaged in writing his History. After the execution of his Royal master, he at once proclaimed Charles II.; and the new King, perplexed where to go, as no Court in Europe seemed willing to receive him, remembered Sir George and the loyal islanders that had welcomed him three years before, and returned to Jersey, landing on the only spot of English ground where he could set foot in safety. He brought with him the Duke of York, and a retinue of not less than three hundred persons, all of whom were entertained by Sir George from September, 1649, till the latter end of the following March. The King spent his time in riding about the island, and grew so familiar with its geography that he drew out a map of it with his own hand. The year after his departure, Cromwell sent out a large fleet under Admiral Blake to reduce Jersey, with a body of troops under General Haines. They effected a landing, and captured the harbour fort, St. Aubin, and the venerable and dilapidated Mont Orgueil, without much difficulty. But Sir George shut himself up in Elizabeth Castle, then the residence of the Governor, and though the King sent him word that he must not look for relief, swore that it should be the last of all the Royal garrisons to surrender. And he made good his words; for his defence "was worthy of his courage and of the cause," and after holding out for two months, he only capitulated when his provisions ran short in the last days of December, 1651. He then proceeded to join the King at Paris, followed him in all his wanderings, and at the Restoration rode with him into London on his triumphant entry. He was Vice-Chamberlain of his Household, and Treasurer of the Navy, and died at a good old age in 1679, while the patent of his Barony was being made out. His eldest son, who was married to Lady Jemima Montagu, had then been dead seven years; having perished with his father-in-law, Lord Sandwich, in his ship, the 'Royal James,' during the great sea fight in Solebay. He left as his heir a little child, for whom the careful grandfather, "thinking it prudent to provide in his life time to keep up the honour of his name," arranged a marriage with the youngest daughter of his old and dear friend John Granville Earl of Bath. This little Lady Grace, who was married in 1674 to a boy of eight years old, lived to become one of the co-heiresses of her nephew the last Earl, who died childless in 1711; and was created Viscountess Carteret and Countess Granville in 1714. This was many years after the death of her husband, who—premature in all things—was made Lord Carteret when he was not more than fifteen, and died at the age of twenty-six.

Their son, John Earl Granville, was a distinguished statesman in the time of the two first Georges, and became chief minister after the fall of Walpole in 1742. "No one," says Lord Stanhope, "ever combined in a more eminent degree the learning of a scholar with the talents of a statesman. He might have lectured upon public law. He might have taken his seat in a synod, and taught the Canonists. Yet in public life no rust of pedantry ever dimmed his keen and brilliant intellect." "They say Lord Granville is dying," writes Lord Chesterfield to his son. "When he dies, the ablest head in England dies too, take it for all in all." Six modern languages were familiar to him, and he was particularly acceptable to George I. as the only one of his ministers who could speak German. But he combined with his abilities and acquirements "a careless, lolling, laughing, love of self and of epicurean ease" that rarely admitted of their being called into action for long together, and a fondness for wine that earned for his Government the nickname of the "Drunken Administration." "He is never sober," says Horace Walpole in one of his letters, "and his rants are amazing, but so are his parts and spirit." On coming into office he declared that England could only be governed by corruption. He remained in power two years, and in 1851 became, as President of the Council, the colleague of his old opponents. He died in 1763, having been twice married; the last time to a young beauty, Lady Sophia Fermor, whose love-letters he used to insist upon reading to his colleagues in Council; and left one son, with whom his titles expired in 1776. This last Earl Granville devised his estates to the second son of his sister Louisa, Viscountess Weymouth, Henry Thynne, who took his name and arms, and was created Baron Carteret in 1784, with remainder to the younger sons of the elder brother, Thomas, first Marquess of Bath. He died at ninety-one, unmarried; and his nephews, Lord George and Lord John Thynne, successively inherited the barony; but neither of them left heirs, and the last died in 1849.