Le Marchant, Remarques et Animadversions (1826)

Author(s): Thomas Le Marchant (c. 1620-1684)

Title: Remarques et Animadversions, sur l'Approbation des Lois et Coustumier de Normandie usitées es jurisdictions de Guernezé et particulierement en la Cour Royale de la ditte isle.

Remarks:

The Rev. Thomas Le Marchant's Remarques form a classic commentary on the law of Guernsey as reflected in, and differing from, the contents of the Approbation des Loix (1583). Le Marchant took Terrien's commentary (1574) on the Norman coutume, examined the treatment, if any, of its assertions in the Approbation, and proceeded to offer the author's own comments on the situation in his own day; often critically of the Royal Court. Le Marchant's brother Eleazar was an accomplished advocate and may have had some influence on the text. Similarly, Thomas, who was an associate of Viscount Hatton (1632-1706), appears to have influenced the latter's late seventeenth-century Treatise, sometimes attributed to John Warburton. Le Marchant was highly gifted although rather more popular with his congregation than with the elite: he spent several years in the Tower of London. Edition(s) (this copy in bold): 1826, 2 vols, Guernsey, ed. J. Guille and P. Le Cocq. The manuscript is lost. Provenance of this copy: St John Robilliard Collection

Further reading:

G. Dawes, Laws of Guernsey (Oxford, 2003), p. 8. G. Dawes, "Introduction" to G. Dawes (ed.), G. Terrien, Commentaires du Droict Civil (Guernsey, 2010), pp. 58-59. R. Hocart, Guernsey in the Reign of Charles II (Guernsey, 2020). D. Ogier, 'The Authorship of Warburton's Treatise', Société Guernesiaise Transactions xxii (1990), 871-77.