The Channel Islands are the remaining part of the Duchy of Normandy which was lost by King John in 1204. The Treaty of Paris in (I think) 1256 establishes their ownership by the English crown. As such, they owe their loyalty to the queen not as monarch of the United Kingdom but as the Duke of Normandy. Their relationship with the English and subsequently British monarchy has never been in question. The islands, however, are not part of the United Kingdom.
The Battle of Jersey in 1781 was a skirmish in the American Revolution by proxy, in which a French force attempted to prevent Jersey being used as a base for British privateers who were attacking vessels taking supplies from France to the American revolutionaries.
Two groups of rocky islets and reefs, the Ecrehous, to the NE of Jersey, and the Minquiers - or Minkies - between Jersey and St Malo, were determined to be part of the Channel Islands by the International Court of Justice in about 1954. This does not prevent the occasional French nutter from erecting the Tricolor on one or other of these islands. His territorial occupancy usually lasts just a few hours.
