Before 1204 Jersey and the other Channel Islands were an important and integral part of the Plantagenet empire. They provided the English Crown with a strategic point en route to their lands in Gascony and a jumping off point to mainland France should they wish to re-take lands lost to the French. However, when King John lost the duchy of Normandy to the French in 1204 Jersey faced an uncertain future. This book, commissioned to celebrate the 800th anniversary of this crucial event, uncovers the history of Jersey before and after 1204 and attempts to answer the question of why the islanders remained loyal to the English Crown and how this was shown and encouraged. Decscribing the power-holding in Jersey after 1204 as `self-government with royal supervision', it is easy to see how the new-found power, authority and lands awarded the elites in Jersey by the Plantagenets were sufficient to ensure their continued support.