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A loyal servant of the Crown
Sir George Carteret: One of Jersey’s most famous sons rose to high office in the Navy and the English Civil Service
AT a time when the Island is celebrating its 800-year bond with the Crown it is appropriate to remember a Jerseyman who served his monarch with utmost loyalty in the turbulent and dangerous era of the English Civil War.
The man in question is George Carteret, who despite being ‘born a sea boy’, rose to high office – not only in the Navy but also in England’s civil hierarchy.
It is assumed, but not established, that George Carteret was born in about 1609 in Jersey.
The son of Jurat Elie de Carteret, he came from a family which had long been near the centre of power in the Island.
However, he was not bound for a career in the law, the Church or political service.
In May 1629 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the King’s Navy and went to sea in the 700-ton Garland.
Four years later he was given his first command, the 180-ton Eighth Lion’s Whelp, one of a flotilla of similar vessels.
His progress was rapid.
In 1635 he took command of the 400-ton Mary Rose, in 1636, the 600-ton Happy Entrance and in 1637, the 600-ton Antelope.
It was at this stage that he was sent on the expedition which made his name.
He was promoted to Vice-Admiral and charged with attacking Sallee, the Barbary pirate stronghold on the Atlantic coast of Morocco near Rabat.
After a blockade of the port and a series of raids, Carteret – who by this time had dropped the de from his surname – returned to England with 270 Englishmen and a number of Dutchmen and Spaniards who had been freed from slavery.
In December 1639 he was made Comptroller of the Navy.
The following year he married his cousin, Elizabeth de Carteret, in Mont Orgueil, then known as the Old Castle.
By this time tension between Parliament and King Charles I was high, and when Carteret was offered the post of Vice-Admiral of the Fleet in 1642 he declined to accept – following the King’s wishes – and returned to Jersey.
Soon, however, he began to take an active part in the conflict which had begun to rage in England.
Drawing on his nautical skills, he ferried supplies of gunpowder and other munitions from France to Royalist forces in the West Country.
Although Jersey had attempted to remain neutral in the Civil War, Parliament eventually sent forces to the Island and besieged Carteret’s uncle, Sir Philippe de Carteret, who was Bailiff, in Elizabeth Castle.
The siege was unsuccessful largely because Carteret’s ships kept the castle well supplied.
In 1643 Sir Philippe died, opening the way for Carteret to become not only Bailiff but also Lieut-Governor.
When he landed on 19 November near Mont Orgueil to assume his roles Parliament’s forces in the Island fled.
To ensure continuity of supplies, to raise money and to take the war to the enemy, Carteret had a fast galley built in St Malo and used it to raid shipping in the English Channel.
Captured ships began to fill St Aubin’s Bay and the handier of them were converted into ships of war to swell the privateer squadron.
Technically, this activity, initially carried out without authority, was piracy, but in due course the King declared the Jersey ships part of his Navy.
He also conferred a knighthood on Carteret – who, by way of a substantial bonus, was doing very well personally from the Channel raiding.
In 1646 the King’s heir, Charles, Prince of Wales, came to the Island and was entertained by Carteret – partly at his own expense – for ten weeks until he was able to leave for the Continent.
In February 1649 Jersey’s Royalists heard that their sovereign had been executed.
Shortly afterwards, the Prince of Wales, who had been proclaimed Charles II by his supporters, returned to the Island for a five-month stay.
Carteret’s hospitality was rewarded with a gift of land in Virginia – land which, as it turned out, was not settled successfully in Carteret’s time.
Then the crunch came on 20 October 1651 as Parliament’s Admiral Blake arrived off St Ouen with a fleet of 80 ships.
When New Model Army troops were landed they routed the Royalists, who took refuge in Elizabeth Castle until a massive mortar round fired from St Helier destroyed the powder magazine and a large quantity of stores.
Capitulation came on 3 December.
On 16 December Carteret was allowed to sail to St Malo without penalty, though other Royalists were made to pay fines of up to two years’ income.
Incredibly from a 21st century perspective, the resourceful Carteret managed to secure a position as an Admiral in the French navy, though as soon as Oliver Cromwell and Parliament made an alliance with France the situation changed.
Carteret was first imprisoned in the Bastille and then banished to the Netherlands, where he joined Charles in exile.
The Restoration signalled a complete change of fortune, however.
The Jersey ‘sea boy’ was made Vice-Chamberlain of the King’s Household, a Privy Councillor and Treasurer of the Navy.
Having resigned as Bailiff and Lieut-Governor of Jersey, he was also elected MP for Portsmouth.
In the Navy Office he worked with Samuel Pepys, the diarist, who records that his superior showed ‘ignorance not to be borne in a Privy Councillor’.
The poet Andrew Marvell also had a poor opinion of Carteret, sneering at his ‘ill English’.
But this was only part of the picture. Pepys was willing to say that the treasurer was ‘the most dextrous man in business I have ever known’ and praised him for his untiring hard work.
That did not stop outside forces conspiring, and Carteret was obliged to resign his post when the Navy accounts were examined.
Historical investigations have since established that there had been no cheating or embezzlement and that the treasurer had even dipped into his own pocket to keep ships at sea.
In any event, temporary embarrassment did not ruin Carteret’s career.
In 1673 he returned to the Admiralty as Commissioner.
He also received further gifts of land in what are now known as New Jersey and the Bahamas, both of which were settled with conspicuous success.
He died on 13 January 1680, just as Charles II was about to elevate him to the peerage.
He left three sons and five daughters – plus money for the poor in each of Jersey’s 12 parishes.
author - Rob Shipley
Anna Heuston
This article updated: 2004/02/24 12:21:57
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| ......Daily Ditons...... |
Battre sus d’l’etrain, ch’est du travas en vain.
Threshing straw is labour in vain.
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