The Channel IslandsMorris, Joseph E. (Joseph Ernest)
History
The Channel Islands
Morris, Joseph E. (Joseph Ernest)
Channel Islands
which is said to have won the Newdigate prize for Dean Burgon's poem
on _Petra_. Nor is Mont Orgueil by any means lacking in tragic
"foot-notes" to history. William Prynne had been condemned to lifelong
imprisonment by the Star Chamber in 1634, and to lose both his ears in
the pillory. Two years previously he had published his _Histriomastix_,
"a volume of over a thousand pages," in which he had upheld, with many
ancient and modern instances, the immorality of the drama and of
play-acting. Unfortunately, at about this time Henrietta Maria had
herself taken part in some private theatricals, and a certain passage
in the index, "reflecting on the character of female actors in
general, was construed as an aspersion on the Queen." For this, and
other offences, he received the savage sentence, which was carried
into execution with unrelenting cruelty. At first he was imprisoned in
the Tower; but three years later (having in the meanwhile been found
guilty of another "seditious libel," and branded on both cheeks) he
was removed, first to Carnarvon Castle, and afterwards to Mont
Orgueil. With the meeting of the Long Parliament, in 1640, Prynne was
immediately set at liberty. In Jersey he had occupied an enforced and
tedious leisure by indulging a propensity for verse-making. His
_Mount Orgueil, or Divine and Profitable Meditations_, was
published in 1641; and _A Pleasant Purge for a Roman Catholic_ in
1642; "Rhyme," says Mr. C. H. Firth, in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_, "is the only poetical characteristic they possess." A line
or two may be quoted from _Mount Orgueil_ as a sample:
_Mount Orgueil Castle_ is a lofty pile,
Within the Easterne parts of _Jersy Isle_,
Seated upon _a Rocke_, full large and high,
Close by the Sea-shore, next to Normandie.
The poet then goes on to tell us how this stronghold is sometimes
assaulted--but assaulted to no purpose--by sea and wind, "two
boystrous foes":
For why this fort is built upon a _Rocke,
And so by Christs owne verdict free from shocke
Of floods and winds; which on it oft may beate,
Yet never shake it_, but themselves defeate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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