Including John Andros, six members of his family were Seigneurs of Sausmarez over a period of nearly two hundred years. The third of these,
Amyas Andros, who was a staunch
royalist throughout the Civil War, played a distinguished part as liaison between the King's forces which controlled Jersey and the brave royalist garrison of
Castle Cornet. After the
Restoration, he was made
Bailiff by
Charles II, being one of the only two prominent Guernseymen who were not obliged to seek pardon from their Sovereign for their conduct during the
Grand Rebellion. His son, Sir
Edmund Andros, was in 1674 both Bailiff and Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey and at the same time Governor of the
Colony of New York as well as
New England,
North Carolina,
Virginia,
Massachusetts,
New Plymouth and
New Jersey. In fact it was he, who changed the name from
New Amsterdam to New York, when he was its first British Governor. Very little of his time seems to have been spent in Guernsey, for he retired to live in Westminster. One of his reasons for doing so appears from the following clause in his will, dated 1713. Clearly Sir Edmund did not consider the old Tudor Manor House to be worthy of a man of his station. Moreover, he contemplated rebuilding it himself. The great beauty of the building and the strong touches of New England influence that it displays indicate that the plans were prepared for him in London before his death in 1714. The work was duly carried out by John Andros during the next four years, though the clause quoted suggests that he did so with some reluctance and under the threat of sanctions! The façade, built of grey granite with red granite coigns is of beautiful proportions. The house, all the outer walls of which are two feet thick in thickness, is four storeys high and has two rooms on each floor. It originally had no communication with any of the earlier buildings. The main entrance is from a flight of eight steps leading to the oaken front door on the first floor. This door opens upon a hall whence a typical Queen Anne staircase rises to the top of the house, and ends with a door giving access to a widows walk, from which can be had a fine view of the greater part of the Island. The next Seigneur,
Charles Andros, succeeded his uncle John in 1746. Within two years he had sold the house and fief back to the de Sausmarez family to whose history we must now return. Having lost their connection with the manor house and fief as a result of their cousin Judith's marriage to John Andros, some members of the younger branch of the de Sausmarez family became, like so many of the fellow islanders in the 16th and 17th centuries, wool merchants with their chief markets in France. In the days of Charles II a
Michel de Sausmarez (b.1655) had a shop in Paris where he sold woollen goods, principally stockings, provided for him by a cousin from an efficiently organised Guernsey cottage industry. Among his customers was Prince Rupert of the Rhine who ordered some of his clothes from the French Capital. Yet despite this high patronage the wool trade was by then in decline as a consequence of a change in fashion greatly stimulated by the French King, Louis XIV, who made his nobles dress in silk and satin in order to attend his court at Versailles. The firm faced ruin, but Michel's eldest son Matthew (b.1685), from whom all members of the family today are descended, was a man of imagination and energy. He married
Anne Durell, the daughter of a rich Jersey
Jurat and niece of
Sir Edward de Carteret, retired Governor of New Jersey, and with the money she brought him fitted out some of the earliest of those Guernsey
privateers on the activities of which, legal or otherwise, the wealth of the island was in the 18th century so largely to rely. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Matthew, on some visit to France, noticed how profitable the corsairs were proving to the citizens of the port of
St. Malo and decided to take a leaf out of his neighbours' book. In addition to being a pioneer of privateering he was also in practice in Guernsey as an advocate. His eldest son, John, was, like him, a member of the Guernsey bar and for 38 years held succession the two Law Offices of the Crown, those of Controller and Procurer. His second son, Philip, was the first of many of the family to serve in the Royal Navy. The latter, after a most promising career, in the course of which he sailed round the world with Commodore
George Anson in , was put in command of the great Spanish galleon, the richest prize ever, captured during his voyage. He was killed in action and left a considerable fortune, derived from prize money, to his family. This windfall certainly helped John to buy back the
fief and Manor House from Charles Andros in 1748. A third son, Matthew, was the father of Admiral
James Saumarez, 1st Baron de Saumarez. Having regained the house of his ancestors,
John de Sausmarez celebrated his return by putting up the gates, which are a well known feature of Sausmarez Road. Their outer pillars each bear the family crest of a falcon displayed, the two inner ones a unicorn and a greyhound, the supporters of the family arms. These were all the work of Sir
Henry Cheere, the celebrated 18th-century sculptor who also made the memorial to
Philip Saumarez in
Westminster Abbey. In 1759, John restored the upper end of the Tudor manor house and added a new entrance to it. == The Regency house ==