Dame Sibyl Hathaway (1884–1974) was the 21st and longest-serving feudal ruler (Dame of Sark) of the tiny Channel Island of Sark, governing for 47 years from 1927 until her death.... When the Germans came for her island in 1940, Dame Sibyl Hathaway buried her champagne. She intended to drink it when they left. Sibyl wasn’t an ordinary island resident. She was the hereditary Dame of Sark, ruler of a tiny Channel Island whose government still retained centuries-old feudal traditions. When German officers arrived, she refused to behave like a conquered woman. She made them come to her. Fluent in German and acutely aware of military etiquette, Sibyl received officers at La Seigneurie, her ancestral home, where they were expected to observe the formalities due her position. She discovered that German officers accustomed to hierarchy often respected hers. Behind the manners, however, occupation was brutal. Food became desperately scarce. Islanders were deported, including Sibyl’s husband. Thousands of mines were planted. Sibyl stayed. When hunger worsened, she helped obtain food for her people. Accounts describe her participating in the removal of hundreds of pounds of wheat from German stores and hiding potatoes beneath a trapdoor in her drawing room. Then, in May 1945, Germany surrendered. British troops arrived on Sark and accepted the surrender of the German commander. There was just one problem. Around 275 German soldiers remained on an island with only a few hundred civilians, and the British couldn’t spare enough men to stay. So they left Dame Sibyl with them. Asked whether she could manage for a few more days, the woman who had endured nearly five years of occupation reportedly replied: “As I have been left for nearly five years, I can stand a few more days.” The Germans were disarmed and put to work dealing with the dangerous aftermath of their occupation, including mine clearance. And Sibyl? She had her gardener retrieve the champagne she had buried five years earlier. The Nazis had arrived believing they had conquered Sark. Sibyl Hathaway had been waiting to drink to the day they discovered they hadn’t conquered her. #archaeohistories