Over eight days in July 1765, the transfer was executed. Crown officers arrived at Castle Rushen. The Purchase Act had already passed. The Mischief Act had already criminalised the island’s trade.

Tynwald was silenced. The House of Keys passed its resolution of protest — and was ignored. The Proclamation that announced Crown authority was drafted by a man who knew nothing about the island and had no intention of learning. It mentioned no constitutional relationship, acknowledged no existing rights, promised nothing.

The merchants who had committed capital on the Duke’s assurances discovered what those assurances were worth. The warehouses full of goods that had been legal yesterday were contraband today. And the system that had governed the island for centuries — the Deemsters, the Keys, the customary law, the whole constitutional framework — was now subordinate to administrators who answered to London.

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