THE FINAL DOMINO FALLS:

End of Europe's last fiefdom as Sark votes for democracy (Cahal Milmo, 05 October 2006 , Independent)

Some 450 years after it was given to an Elizabethan nobleman on the condition he keep it free of pirates, the Channel island of Sark has ceased to be the last feudal fiefdom in Europe.

The population of the tiny Crown dependency, 20 miles off the French coast, voted yesterday for a new system of government which will mean it is ruled entirely by elected representatives for the first time in its history.

The referendum ends the rule of the Seigneur of Sark - an inherited office which can be traced back to Hellier de Carteret, an aristocrat from Jersey who was granted the island by Elizabeth I in 1565 to keep it free of marauding privateers.

Under the previous system, the Seigneur presided over the Chief Pleas, a ruling body composed of the descendants of 40 farming families who helped colonise the island and 12 non-landowning deputies voted for by residents. Yesterday, 418 of the 600 residents of the smallest state in the British Commonwealth chose between retaining a mixture of elected and unelected deputies or a system consisting solely of directly elected deputies.

By the close of polling on the island, which is three miles wide and 1.5 miles long, a slim majority of 234 had voted for full democracy.