 In the early fourteenth century , Lihou may have become the origin of a local legend about a wealthy Bailiff of Guernsey who attempted to have an innocent peasant executed on false charges of theft of silver cups . In either 1302 or 1304 , a priory servant called Thomas le Roer was alleged to have murdered one of the monks . The Bailiff and several assistants attempted to apprehend Le Roer but he did not surrender and was subsequently killed by Ranulph Gautier , one of the Bailiffs assistants . Gautier tried to find sanctuary in a nearby church and eventually fled to England , before returning to Guernsey when the king pardoned him . However , some years later Gautier was tortured to death in Castle Cornet , but it is not known why . 
