Cornwall in Rebellion

Not many things really annoy me these days. But not being able to self-identify is something that does bug me. 

I don't mean self-identify in terms of my sexuality, gender or politics. 

I'm talking about my ethnic identity. 

I'm Cornish. 

You may not know this but, in 2014, the UK government recognised the Cornish people as a national minority, which now affords us the same status as the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish. That's nearly a decade ago. And yet, when I have to complete a document where it asks you to self-identify, the option for Cornish is never there. Scottish is there. So are Irish and Welsh. But Cornish? The best I can do is to tick 'white other'. And, in doing so, I sometimes get snidey remarks or sniggers. 

You may now be thinking, 'You can't have a box for every county!' and you'd be right. But Cornwall isn't an English county and never has been. Cornwall is not in England. It's a separate state - just like the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. It's a Duchy - a territory ruled by a Duke who, if they choose, can offer their allegiance to the English crown. In 1973, a Royal Commission on the Constitution resulted in the Kilbrandon Report which recognised Cornwall as part of the United Kingdom but not as an English county. It stated that the designation ‘Duchy of Cornwall’ should continue to be used for all official documentation in order to preserve its ‘special relationship and territorial integrity’. 

It's a position that the Cornish have had to fight long and hard to keep. Don't we deserve a tick box to acknowledge that fact?

Like Scotland, Ireland and Wales, Cornwall's history is a catalogue of attempts by the English crown to bring Cornwall into England. There were even attempts to deliberately extinguish the Cornish language. 

Cornwall has always been happy enough being part of the British Isles and Great Britain as a whole as long as it could retain its independence. It was self-governing and the people did not speak English, other than as a second language. They spoke Kernewek, a Brythonic Celtic language closely related to Welsh and Breton. However, in 1337, Edward III declared the ancient kingdom a  Duchy in an attempt to exert a degree of control over the region and to provide financial independence for his heir, Prince Edward (the Black Prince). Ever since then, a charter has dictated that the eldest son of the Monarch and heir to the throne – currently Prince William - will assume the role of Duke of Cornwall and that the Duchy provides their primary income.  

For hundreds of years Cornwall had been ruled by a body called the Stannary Parliament that could pass laws that affected everyone west of the River Tamar (a boundary set by King Athelstan in 936CE). Stannary Law took precedence over Common Law, and the Stannators (the equivalent of MPs) had the power of veto over any English laws that affected the Cornish people. For example, Cornish miners were exempted from paying taxes directly to the crown. Instead they paid their dues at a rate set by the Stannary Parliament, which was lower than the crown would have liked. 

However, as time went on, the power of the Stannary began to cause dissatisfaction among the English aristocracy. In 1496, Arthur Tudor, Duke of Cornwall, tried to levy new taxes but the Stannators rebuked his plans. In response to this his father, King Henry VII, decreed that the Stannary Parliament was suspended and set punitive taxes to support his war with Scotland. This so angered the Cornish people that 15,000 men marched on London led by blacksmith Michael Joseph An Gof of St Keverne – a village on The Lizard - and Bodmin lawyer Thomas Flamank. The rebellion culminated in the bloody battle of Deptford Bridge and the execution of the rebel leaders. 

This was followed by a second unsuccessful rebellion in 1497 led by Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the crown, who used still simmering Cornish resentment to support his cause. There is no doubt that these events rattled the King’s nerve and, of course, reduced the production of valuable tin and copper. So, in order to prevent more unrest, he restored the Stannary Parliament in return for a one-off payment of £1,000 to support his war efforts. He also pardoned any remaining rebels and agreed that no new laws affecting the Cornish could be enacted without the consent of the Stannators. 

In 1513 the same King Henry VII engaged an Italian cleric called Polydore Vergil to write a history of Britain. This resulted in the epic work Anglica Historia in which Vergil wrote: 

'Britain is divided into four parts, whereof the one is inhabited by Englishmen, the other of Scots, the third of Welshmen and the fourth of Cornish people, which all differ among themselves, either in tongue, either in manners, or else in laws and ordinances.’ 

Most Cornish people will tell you that nothing has changed in the half millennium since. 

A third uprising, known as the Prayer Book Rebellion, took place during the reign of the boy king Edward VI in 1549. Edward was the first English monarch to be raised as a Protestant after his father Henry VIII severed ties with Rome. Consequently, the now dominant Church of England introduced the English language Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. However, proposals to translate the books into Cornish were deliberately suppressed. It was the final straw for many Cornish churchgoers who didn’t actually speak English and who saw this as yet another attack on their language and culture. They marched towards London in protest (they had other grievances too) but were eventually defeated by the King’s troops after a prolonged siege at Exeter. This is seen by historians as a major turning point in the history of Cornish language use as neither a complete translation of the Book of Common Prayer nor The Bible was ever produced and many god-fearing Cornish men and women were consequently forced to learn to speak the ‘foreign’ language of English. 

A fourth rebellion took place on the 26th July 1643 - 380 years ago to this day -  during the turbulent era of the English Civil War when Royalists who supported King Charles I fought against Cromwell's Parliamentarians. The conflict involved Cornish, English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh people (and is sometimes called 'The Five Nations War').

Most Cornish people supported King Charles because the Duchy and the Stannary Parliament had strong connections with the royal family. The Parliamentarian army knew this and set fire to the Duchy Palace and burnt the records of the Duchy and the Stannary Parliament. They also vandalised holy wells and Cornish crosses and tore down maypoles as they did not agree with such things. 

Image: Prince Rupert at the storming of Bristol

The Cornish saw the Parliamentarians' strong English identity as a threat to their own culture and identity. But Sir Richard Grenville saw the conflict as an opportunity to fight for full independence. The Royalist army, including many Cornishmen, marched on the Parliamentarian stronghold of Bristol and laid seige. Eventually the Governor of Bristol, Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes, ‘beat a parley’ seeking terms to surrender the city to the Royalists. 

For the next three years Cornwall was fully independent. In his book West Britons Professor Mark Stoyle of Southampton University tells of the Cornish fighting for themselves as a Nation. In 1644, Grenville created four new regiments called the 'New Cornish Tertia' and garrisoned them along the Tamar with orders to keep out ALL 'foreign troups' (sic) - including Royalist English armies. But the Parliamentarians marshalled their forces and marched into Cornwall in 1646 and forced the Cornish surrender. 

One interesting aspect of events in 1646 was that following the siege of Pendennis Castle in August, John Arundell was allowed by Sir Thomas Fairfax to march out of the castle with weapons and colours intact. Such a privilege was only given to troops of defeated national armies. If, as some have suggested, Cornwall had merely had a ‘county militia’, or ‘trained bands’, then the customs and rules of war prevalent at the time might have been expected, i.e. transportation to the colonies. 

And so Cornwall remains a sovereign Duchy - it is where the Duke derives his crown immunity, because he is sovereign over Cornwall. He just agrees to let Cornwall be governed as if it were an English county.

Meanwhile, the fight for recognition goes on some 377 years later. The Cornish language - Kernewek - has made a spirited comeback. Many books are published in the language and road signs now carry directions and information in English and Cornish. Cornish is taught as a voluntary subject in some secondary schools and pre-schoolers can attend dual language nurseries.

There's no good reason why Cornwall cannot be self-governing in the modern age. After all,  the Isle of Man is a British Crown Dependency with its own government (the Tynwald), a unique language and bespoke currency. And yet, at 572 km2 (221 sq miles) it’s one sixth the size of Cornwall (3,562 km2 (1,375 sq miles) and its population is significantly smaller too – 84,000 to Cornwall’s 568,000. Meanwhile the Channel Islands consist of two Crown Dependencies, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Bailiwick of Guernsey (Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, and Herm). Although they are not part of the United Kingdom or the European Union, they are entirely self-governing entities, despite populations of just 33,500 and 18,207, respectively. So Cornish self-government is entirely feasible and, as some commentators have pointed out, the charters that empowered the Stannary Parliament have never been revoked or repealed despite its last session being held in Truro in 1753. Therefore, they argue, the powers and rights of the Parliament are still valid and could be used to let Cornwall govern itself today. 

For many, the fight to regain Cornish independence is a true passion. As one of the country's poorest areas with high unemployment, record levels of homelessness and the highest levels of child poverty in the UK, it's believed that a local government with real power could do a better job than distant Westminster. I'm inclined to agree.

I sometimes wonder what people actually mean when they complain that British history isn't being taught in schools. Because this is British history. So is our involvement in the slave trade and how we took the lead in abolishing it. To teach history you have to teach the bad stuff as well as the good stuff. Otherwise you're presenting an unbalanced and untrue history that's all about empire building and winning two world wars (and one world cup). Perhaps if people knew their country's history they might not be so snide when I tick the box that says 'White British' and write the word CORNISH next to it.

I'm proud of being both. And I'm proud of my heritage, ss we all should be. 

Being allowd to identify as Cornish is such a small thing ... it's not much to ask is it? 

It would be a big step forward for our small nation.

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Some comntent adapted from Professor Mark Stoyle's essays, Kernow bys vyken and British Battles and from the Facebook group The Cornish are a Nation.