Bill Henderson MLC used his speech at the Illiam Dhone commemoration to call for the UK to return a historic Manx document.

The Chronicles of Mann, believed to have been written in the early 13th century at Rushen Abbey, are held by the British Library in London.

Mr Henderson was speaking yesterday (Wednesday) on the 356th anniversary of the execution of Dhone for high treason during the English Civil War, a charge many consider to have been unjust, in part because King Charles II had issued a general pardon which came too light.

The MLC said the manuscript is ’probably one of the most important surviving historical artefacts pertaining to our island, if not the most important’ and called for the Council of Ministers to review the situation, having last done so in 2007.

Mr Henderson said: ’If we can rescue William Christian’s personal oak chair from Canada in recent months and have it returned to the former Christian seat of power at Milntown, then I am absolutely sure that there must be something we can do to rescue our Chronicles of Mann.

’The pages record a comprehensive history of our island and isles, including a record of the kings and Norwegian overlords of our ancient kingdom of the southern isles, bishops of that diocese and additional notes ranging from 1016 to around 1316.

’The Chronicles are incredibly detailed in places and are an original surviving document of the period thus making them of immense historical, cultural and heritage important to the island.’

unpleasant

Mr Henderson detailed a meeting of Tynwald on October 25, 1237 recorded in the Chronicles where it is said ’all islanders attended’ and after ’unpleasant words being thrown around’ and nothing was agreed.

’Nothing new there then’, he said.

However in a sign of how things have changed, the Chronicles state that two men were later killed in the scuffles which followed that Tynwald sitting.

In his call for the Chronicles to be returned from the British Library, he said: ’Our Chronicles are of the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles are sitting in England, as part of a British Library collection!

’Our national treasure stuck in London of all places and it seems anchored by British law to that institution.

’The irony of this would not be lost on William Christian (Dhone).’

Mr Henderson said he knows there is significant interest in Tynwald as to the return of the Chronicles to the island including, he claimed, Chief Minister Howard Quayle.

He added: ’I am sure more can be done, and I for one will be continuing this call with other Tynwald members who also have a keen interest in the Chronicles as we go through 2019.’

The service to Illiam Dhone was led by Bernard Moffatt with Mec Vannin chairman Mark Kermode providing the oration in Manx.

The wreath was laid by Garff MHK Daphne Caine’s daughter Jemima, aged 10.

In 2007, Isle of Man Newspapers launched a campaign to bring the Chronicles home, prompting a Tynwald resolution to begin urgent negotiations to have the manuscript returned.

Those negotiations came to nothing, however.