Constitutional status of Cornwall
[4] The first element "Corn", indicating the shape of the peninsula, is descended from Celtic kernou, an Indo-European word related to English horn and Latin cornu.[5] References in contemporary charters (for which there is either an original manuscript or an early copy regarded as authentic) show Egbert of Wessex (802–839) granting lands in Cornwall at Kilkhampton, Ros, Maker, Pawton (in St Breock, not far from Wadebridge, head manor of Pydar in Domesday Book), Caellwic (perhaps Celliwig or Kellywick in Egloshayle), and Lawhitton to Sherborne Abbey and to the Bishop of Sherborne.Elizabethan historian William Camden, in the Cornish section of his Britannia, notes that: As for the Earles, none of British bloud are mentioned but onely Candorus (called by others Cadocus), who is accounted by the late writers the last Earle of Cornwall of British race.Cornwall was included in the survey, initiated by William the Conqueror, the first Norman king of England, which became known as the Domesday Book, where it is included as being part of the Norman king's new domain.Ingulf's Chronicle tells us: Having obtained this indulgence, he now opened the foundation for the new church, and sent throughout the whole of England, and into lands adjoining and beyond the sea, letters testimonial.On account of certain escheats we command you that you inquire by all the means in your power how much land and rents, goods and chattels, whom and in whom, and of what value they which those persons of Cornwall and England have, whose names we send in a schedule enclosed...The Italian Polydore Vergil in his Anglica Historia, published in 1535 wrote that four peoples speaking four different languages inhabited Britain: the whole Countrie of Britain... is divided into iiii partes; whereof the one is inhabited of Englishmen, the other of Scottes, the third of Wallshemen, [and] the fowerthe of Cornishe people, which all differ emonge them selves, either in tongue, ... in manners, or ells in lawes and ordinaunces.For example, Lodovico Falier, an Italian diplomat at the court of Henry VIII said, "The language of the English, Welsh and Cornish men is so different that they do not understand each other."For example, after the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, the Venetian ambassador wrote that the late queen had ruled over five different 'peoples': "English, Welsh, Cornish, Scottish ... and Irish".For example, in 1769 the antiquary William Borlase wrote the following, which is actually a summary of a passage from Geoffrey [Book iii:1]: Of this time we are to understand what Edward I. says (Sheringham.that Britain, Wales, and Cornwall, were the portion of Belinus, elder son of Dunwallo, and that that part of the Island, afterwards called England, was divided in three shares, viz.[citation needed]Another 18th-century writer, Richard Gough, concentrated on a contemporary viewpoint, noting that "Cornwall seems to be another Kingdom", in his "Camden's Britannia", 2nd ed.[citation needed] During the 18th century, Samuel Johnson created an ironic Cornish declaration of independence that he used in his essay Taxation no Tyranny[28] His irony starts: As political diseases are naturally contagious, let it be supposed, for a moment, that Cornwall, seized with the Philadelphian phrensy, may resolve to separate itself from the general system of the English constitution, and judge of its own rights in its own parliament.We are the acknowledged descendants of the earliest inhabitants of Britain, of men, who, before the time of history, took possession of the island desolate and waste, and, therefore, open to the first occupants.The English practice of charging 'foreigners' double taxation had existed in Cornwall for over 600 years prior to the 1838 act and was first referenced in William de Wrotham's letter of 1198 AD, published in G. R. Lewis, The Stannaries [1908].[34] In 1328 the Earldom of Cornwall, extinct since the disgrace and execution of Piers Gaveston in 1312, was recreated and awarded to John, younger brother of King Edward III.The legal claims concerning the Duchy, they argue, are without merit except as relics of mediaeval feudalism, and they contend that Stannary law applied not to Cornwall as a 'nation', but merely to the guild of tin miners.[60] In 1780 Edmund Burke sought to curtail further the power of the Crown by removing the various principalities which he said existed as different aspects of the monarchy within the country: Cross a brook, and you lose the King of England; but you have some comfort in coming again under his Majesty, though 'shorn of his beams', and no more than Prince of Wales.If you travel beyond Mount Edgecombe, you find him once more in his incognito, and he is Duke of Cornwall ... every one of those Principalities has the apparatus of a Kingdom for the jurisdiction over a few private estates, and the formality and charge of the Exchequer of Great Britain for collecting the rents of a country squire.In 1977 the Plaid Cymru MP Dafydd Wigley in Parliament asked the Attorney General for England and Wales, Samuel Silkin, if he would provide the date upon which enactments of the Charter of Pardon of 1508 were rescinded.A letter in reply, received from the Lord Chancellor on 14 May 1977 and now held at the National Library of Wales, stated that the charter had never been formally withdrawn or amended, however that "no doubt has ever been expressed" that Parliament could legislate for the stannaries without the need to seek the consent of the stannators.[64] An early campaign for an independent Cornwall was put forward during the first English Civil War by Sir Richard Grenville, 1st Baronet.The Cornish were fighting for their Royalist privileges, notably the Duchy and Stannaries and he put a plan to the Prince which would, if implemented, have created a semi-independent Cornwall.The petition was undertaken in the context of an ongoing debate on whether to devolve power to the English regions, of which Cornwall is part of the South West.For example, a Guardian editorial in 1990 pointed to these differences, and warned that they should be constitutionally recognised: Smaller minorities also have equally proud visions of themselves as irreducibly Welsh, Irish, Manx or Cornish."[69]The Guardian also carried an article in November 2008 titled "Self-rule for Cornwall" written by the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
Cornwalladministrative countyEnglandCornish languageearly modern periodmodern eraRoman BritanniaDumnoniaWessexAnglo-SaxonEgbert of WessexKilkhamptonSt BreockCelliwigEgloshayleLawhittonSherborneKing AthelstanNorthumbriaScotlandWest CountryWilliam of MalmesburyExeterRiver TamarBodmin manumissionsEdmund IEdward the MartyrAethelred IIEdmund IIEdward the ConfessorDella HookeTywarnhaileTraboeTretheweyBishop EaldredGodwin, Earl of WessexDorsetWilliam CamdenCandorusWilliam the ConquerorDomesday BookRobert of MortainEarl of CornwallHenry of HuntingdonScrope v GrosvenorPolydore VergilEnglishmenScottesWallshemenCornishe peopleSebastian MunsterAbraham OrteliusGirolamo RuscelliGerardus MercatorChristopher SaxtonQueen Elizabeth IElizabeth IArthur HoptonKingdom of EnglandLaws in Wales Acts 1535–1542Berwick-upon-TweedWales and Berwick Act 1746William BorlaseBelinusDunwalloriver ExSevernLand's-EndRichard GoughSamuel Johnsondeclaration of independenceA. K. Hamilton JenkinWilkie CollinsW. H. HudsonHundreds of CornwallHundredsSalfordshirePiers GavestonKing Edward IIIDan RogersonLiberal DemocratsPolitics of EnglandEnglish parliamentEdward ICalaisSouth West EnglandYorkshireCheshireAthelstanTudor dynastyCornwall County CouncilLancashireArchbishop of CanterburySt GermansEarl OddaWinchesterWilliam I of EnglandmanorsPatent RollsKing's CouncilParliament of EnglandTaxatio EcclesiasticaHenry IVLocal Government Act 1888non-metropolitan countyLocal Government Act 1972Andrew GeorgeMark PriskNorthern Irelanddevolution dealMebyon KernowDick ColeDuchy of CornwallJohn SpeedRoyal Arms of EnglandKilbrandon ReportEdmund BurkeCornwall Submarine Mines Act 1858county palatineCounty Palatine of DurhamPrince-Bishop of DurhamStannary lawRevived Cornish Stannary ParliamentCornish Stannary ParliamentWestminsterPlaid Cymru