Royal Peculiars are an oddity of the Church of England. Churches and chapels that would normally come under the jurisdiction of the local bishop are in fact ‘peculiar’ when they have an ordinary who is not the local bishop but someone appointed by the Crown – and in some cases the Queen herself. In the Channel Islands, the whole deaneries of Jersey and Guernsey rather than individual churches claim to be Royal Peculiars. Whether this claim is valid is not easy to determine. While together with the Isle of Man, but excluding Ireland, they form part of the British Islands, they are not part of the United Kingdom.Footnote ¹ The United Kingdom government is responsible for the defence and international relations of the Channel Islands, but the Crown is ultimately responsible for their good government, and Acts of the British Parliament do not apply to the Channel Islands.

So how did they end up in this extraordinary state of near independence? The Channel Islands were part of the Duchy of Normandy when William set sail and perhaps fortuitously acquired the throne of England at Hastings. The Anglo-Norman Realm as it then became, survived barely 150 years before King John lost continental Normandy in June 1204. John managed to retain sovereignty over the islands, however, which remained of strategic importance during the many centuries of war between England and France. There were temporary occupations by the French, and more recently by the Germans for five long years. The Crown never sought to incorporate the islands into the realm of England, so the two Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey have enjoyed a degree of self-determination over the centuries wholly disproportionate to their size. For all domestic matters, the Islands' parliaments, the States of Deliberation, make their own laws.Footnote ² The islands have wide powers of self-government, although primary legislation passed by the assemblies requires approval by the Queen in Council.

In fulfilling its responsibilities to the Channel Islands, the Crown acts through the Privy Council. The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor is the Privy Counsellor primarily concerned with the affairs of the Channel Islands. In the islands, the Queen is known as the Duke of Normandy: at official functions, islanders raise the loyal toast to ‘The Duke of Normandy, our Queen’. The Royal Court, established in the thirteenth century, applies a common law based on the custom of Normandy.

All these legal distinctions also apply to those churches in the islands that are in communion with the Church of England. So are they, in fact, members of the Church of England? That is one of many questions about the claim to be Royal Peculiars. An example can be found in ecclesiastical legislation. The Channel Islands (Church Legislation) Measures 1931 and 1957 provide that Measures passed by the Church Assembly or, subsequently, the General Synod may be applied to the Channel Islands but only if the measure contains express provision that it may be so applied.Footnote ³ The mechanism for incorporation of Measures into insular law is by Order in Council. For instance, the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1993 was incorporated into Jersey law by Order in Council in 1999.Footnote ⁴ This raises another question about the status of peculiar: are the Channel Islands in the Province of Canterbury, and, more immediately of relevance, in the diocese of Winchester? The Isle of Man is in a very similar legal situation to the Channel Islands,Footnote ⁵ but it cannot claim to be a peculiar as it has its own diocese and the Bishop of Sodor and Man.

The Deanery of Guernsey comprises 16 parishes, 14 in Guernsey and one each for the islands of Alderney and Sark. Similarly, the Deanery of Jersey has 18 parishes, and the dean is the Rector of St Helier Parish Church. The deans are very senior members of insular society. The Dean of Jersey ranks next after the Lieutenant Governor, Bailiff and Deputy-Bailiff and is an ex-officio member of the States. The Dean of Guernsey ranks third after the Lieutenant Governor and Bailiff, and, though not a member of the States of Deliberation, he is a member of the States of Election. The earliest record of the appointment of a Dean of Guernsey dates from 1295; since 1435 the Dean of Jersey has been appointed by the Crown.Footnote ⁶

The Dean of Jersey writes:

As ‘Commissaries’ (acting in a surrogate role for the bishop), the deans conduct all institutions to benefices and preside over the Ecclesiastical Court.

The fact that the Dean of Jersey is directly appointed by the Queen, and that the deans are presidents of their respective ecclesiastical courts, goes some way to showing that the deaneries over which they preside are Royal Peculiars. However, there is general confusion as to their status. The Deans of Jersey and Guernsey are listed in The Church of England Yearbook alongside the Deans of the (non-royal) Peculiars of Battle, Bocking and Stamford.Footnote ⁸Crockford's Clerical Directory does not include the Channel Islands in its list of Royal Peculiars but nor does it include the Royal Peculiars of King's College and Trinity College in the University of Cambridge. Those listed come under the administration of the Clerk of the Closet, a bishop and member of the Queen's household.Footnote ⁹ The Cambridge colleges are Royal Peculiars because Henry VI and Henry VIII respectively exempted them from the jurisdiction of their diocesan, the Bishop of Ely, but they have no connection with those under the administration of the Clerk of the Closet. The Channel Islands are also not under this household official and fall into a different category. Nevertheless, the fact that Her Majesty appoints the deans by virtue of her right as Duke of Normandy points to them being Royal Peculiars.

The question of episcopal jurisdiction is bound up in the complicated ecclesiastical history of the islands. In the year 912, Rollo, the first Duke of Normandy, transferred the Channel Islands to the Diocese of Coutances, in Normandy. This was the position of the Church in the islands when William landed in England. With the separation of the islands from mainland Normandy in 1204, the English sovereign King John acquired the right of presentation to their benefices. This is possibly the origin of the islands becoming Royal Peculiars. At this time, the Channel Islands came under the Diocese of Exeter, but after a short time were reunited with the Diocese of Coutances.Footnote ¹⁰ There they continued, by the Treaty of Bretigny in 1360, in which the French abandoned any claims to the Channel Islands in return for English recognition of the Bishop of Coutances. There occurred another blip in the history of the Diocese of Coutances, probably not in fact affecting the Channel Islands at all: in 1378, during the papal schism, the diocese was transferred by the Urbanite pope to that of Nantes, but when the schism ended in 1417, the islands returned to Coutances.Footnote ¹¹

There is confusion about a Bull of Pope Alexander VI: according to Duncan, the Bull of 5 November 1496 separated the Channel Islands from the Diocese of Coutances and transferred them to the Diocese of Salisbury.Footnote ¹² However, according to Wainewright, the Bull was dated 20 January 1500 and transferred them to the Diocese of Winchester.Footnote ¹³ As both Bulls are mentioned by Marr, it is entirely possible, if inconsistent, that both were executed, although he states that that they remained de facto under the Bishop of Coutances.

Wainewright questions whether these Bulls were ever revoked. However, in 1550 Edward VI, by Order in Council, confirmed the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Bishop of Coutances as diocesan bishop of the Channel Islands ‘in all things not contrary to the laws of the realm’, so it appears that the Bulls were either revoked or, more probably, ignored. Perhaps Edward made this transfer because Stephen Gardiner, the opponent of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, was the Bishop of Winchester at the time, until his sequestration on 19 July 1551. Evidently, the Channel Islands were still Roman Catholic. The Ecclesiastical Licences Act 1533, which replaced the papal authority to grant ecclesiastical dispensations with that of the Archbishop of Canterbury under the authority of the King in Council, would not have applied to the Channel Islands. Nor would the Acts of Supremacy, which were hardly necessary as the sovereign was the suzerain of a feudal state. An Order in Council of Elizabeth I of 11 March 1569 finally placed the Channel Islands under the episcopal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester. That Order in Council remains the foundation upon which ecclesiastical jurisdiction is still exercised in the Channel Islands, although there followed a long period of Presbyterianism until the Restoration of Charles II re-established the deaneries.Footnote ¹⁴

The problems with the deaneries' claim to be Royal Peculiars are several and sparsely documented. Crockford notes an ‘Archdeaconry of the Channel Islands’, but there is no Archdeacon of the Channel Islands.Footnote ¹⁵ However, the deans have archidiaconal functions and are members of the Southern Group of Archdeacons. The former Bishop of Winchester considers the Islands only ‘peculiars in the technical sense’, but believes that the bishop is their ordinary.Footnote ¹⁶ Although he is the ordinary, this was by virtue of Elizabeth I's Order in Council, and not, I believe, by right as diocesan bishop.

This is not a question of new legislation but rather of new interpretation. One hates to question a legal authority, but even that can be wrong. The 1957 edition of Halsbury's Laws of England stated, ‘The Channel Islands form part of the Diocese of Winchester’.Footnote ¹⁷ This was corrected in the new 2011 edition, where it is made clear that the Islands are ‘annexed to’ Winchester.Footnote ¹⁸ This means that they are not within, or part of, the Diocese of Winchester, but that the bishop has ordinary jurisdiction in the islands in ecclesiastical causes. In fact, the correct interpretation of the Order in Council of 11 March 1569 is probably that Elizabeth I transferred only the ecclesiastical jurisdiction to the Bishop of Winchester; at no time has the evolution of the Channel Islands' constitution involved amalgamation with, or subjection to, the Government of the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, the actual Order in Council is missing from the Privy Council Records.

There is a document held in Hatfield House that refers to ‘Articles to be considered by the Queen's Privy Council’, and that speaks of the spiritual government of Jersey being that of the Diocese of Countances. This gives credence to the Order in Council of Edward VI of which the Privy Council Office could find no trace. The articles to be considered include

If that was indeed the text that became part of Elizabeth I's Order in Council, then the conclusion would be that, although the Bishop of Winchester has spiritual jurisdiction, the Channel Islands are not within his diocese. It could even be interpreted that there is residual presence of the Diocese of Coutances.

The Pope did not have such a problem, as he claimed universal jurisdiction. It seems that the only time that the Channel Islands were clearly within the boundaries of a diocese was when Rollo incorporated them into the Diocese of Coutances. With the division of the territory of the Duchy of Normandy in 1204, the bishop would have ceased to exert any control over what was now a foreign region which had once been part of his diocese.

The Dean of Jersey agrees that the islands are not fully part of the Diocese of Winchester. The Vicar-General of the Province of Canterbury has stated ‘I am not sure that these are the true peculiars – first anomalies.’Footnote ²⁰ A nineteenth-century definition of peculiars states that things ‘exempt jurisdiction are so called, not because they are under no ordinary; but because they are not under the ordinary of the diocese, but have one of their own. These are therefore called peculiars, and are of several sorts’.Footnote ²¹ The Royal Peculiar definition means that it is not part of a diocese, but that the Crown has provided for ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

My contention is that the deaneries of Jersey and Guernsey are Royal Peculiars. The various reasons for reaching this conclusion include the facts that the deans are appointed by Her Majesty the Queen, that they fall into a special category of peculiars and that the Bishop of Winchester is not the diocesan bishop but is appointed by the Queen to exercise episcopal jurisdiction in her feudal territory of the Channel Islands. They are thus under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester (and, failing that, under the Archbishop of Canterbury) but are not part of his diocese. They do fall under the definition of peculiar in having episcopal jurisdiction by an ordinary appointed by the Crown, failing to have a bishop of their own, as they are not in any diocese with episcopal jurisdiction; nor, indeed, are they in the same country.