Page:The Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock - 1847.djvu/18

, in his Chronicles, makes mention of Sir Hugh Brock, an English knight, keeper of the castle of Derval, in Brittany, for his cousin Sir Robert Knolles, who was governor of all the duchy, and resided in Brest, during the absence of the duke in England. The French overran Brittany at this, and leaving 2,000 men near Brest, so as to prevent its receiving succours, sat down with "great engines" before the castle of Derval, to the siege of which came the constable of France, the Duke of Bourbon, the Earls of Alençon and of Perche, and a great number of the barony and chivalry of France. The castle being sore oppressed, Sir Hugh Brock was at length constrained to agree to surrender it at the end of two months, if not relieved by that time. Sir Robert Knolles, hearing this, also began to treat with the French and agreed with Bertrand du Guesclin, the constable, that he would surrender the garrison of Brest in forty days, unless a sufficient force should arrive, and enable him to fight. Being reinforced, he set out from Brest, and relieved his Castle of Derval. These events occurred in the reign of Edward the Third, about the latter half of the fourteenth century, when the English were driven out of France; and as Guernsey is in the direct course between Brittany and England, may not one of Sir Hugh Brock's family, on his passage across the Channel, have visited the island and settled there?

The common ancestor of the present Guernsey family of the name of Brock was William Brock, Esq., a native of the island, who died in the year 1776, and was the grandfather of the subject of this volume. He had three sons and one daughter, who became connected by marriage with some of the principal and most ancient families of Guernsey; namely, William, married to Judith, daughter of