Elsewhere within this site I draw attention to an apparent move to associate a 'Celtic' identity to what passes for an 'English' Southwest Region and, by equating this with Brittany, thus further marginalising Cornwall's historic relationship with Brittany. This seems to have polarised within the very recent past and there now appears to be an orchestrated campaign to establish a form of 'Celtic' legitimacy for the English county of Devonshire.   The Cult of Celticity, within England proper, has been around for a considerable number of decades - thanks to the work of people like Celtic historian, Dr Anne Ross, and many others.   Similarly, I recall a programme many years ago - was it on BBC Radio 4? - where Dr Anne Ross illustrated that most, if not all, old English customs/festivals were, in fact, founded on Celtic originals.   One is left wondering, therefore, as to why this 'Celtic' spark has only just, relatively speaking, been ignited within Devonshire?   They are perfectly entitled to pursue such a course but is it a legitimate agenda?

Dipping TGG's toes into the murky waters of a BBC 'Cornwall' message board back in 2002 [first post says JGG and is a typo] and, as a consequence, a subsequent "Have Your Say" conversation with a former Chair of the Wessex Society within the TGG site, prompted a view that TGG held on this phenomenon at that time.   A view which has not changed and, in fact, has been reinforced by the way that the phenomenon has been promulgated.   Indeed, on a recent BBC message board, I withdrew from the discussion in order to give a more considered response to the allegation that TGG was, in that particular poster's opinion, at "the top of the list" of those who "distorted Devon's history" yet when asked to give examples only the actions of others (regarding things upon which I have never passed any opinions) were quoted.   When pressed on the point, the poster quoted text from my original exchange in 2002

Rather than repeat those previous 'BBC Board' discussions - much of which contained spurious discussion and red-herrings (see above links) - it would seem more prudent to attempt to identify the most significant points being made, whether against TGG or to others, and to respond to them accordingly.  First, however, it has to be said that anyone, or any group, are at liberty to establish for themselves any identity based upon whatever they feel happy to identify with as a community.   This is an initial response which will, of necessity, be added to and updated over time.  I feel, however, that it is appropriate to include here the text of an article in today's Western Morning News [29th August 2006] which gives someone else's view of this phenomenon!

There seems to be a number of factors, from recent research, that may have evoked this phenomenon, seeing as they are constantly being referred too, and these will be included below in a listing of factors to be considered within this response.  However, we would do well to remember how many times in past campaigns, that the Establishment had refused to accommodate 'the Cornish' because to do so would open the floodgate to "every other English county"(sic).  Interesting, indeed, that this (self-fulfilling?) prophesy should only now rear its head in such a practical way, and, right next door where half-truths and facts merge.   On two occasions now, I have been caught off-guard during a TV news report [June/July 2006] where I noticed someone bearing a Cornish flag on his sleeve - until the penny dropped (because of the topic) and realised that it was the newly devised flag of 'Celtic' Devon, as proven by a later picture of a larger 'see-through' flag (i.e. when the green was obvious!).   The news item, as on a previous occasion, was about the trimaran "Spirit of Teignmouth".

A - Modern evidence:

• 01 - Recent evidence on genetics which indicate no genetic difference between the population of Cornwall and the English county of Devonshire and, indeed, most of southern Britain.

• 02 - Recent suggestions by some historians that the Anglo-Saxon advance was not a massive displacement of the indigenous Celtic peoples but a gradual process.

• 03 - Recent studies on placenames in Devonshire which now reveal that many more of the placenames have been identified as having origins in the Brythonic language.

This new research is used to point out that there is no genetic distinction east or west of the Tamar to justify any comment that the Tamar Border is a demarcation between Celt and Anglo-Saxon.   Is the science of genetics, which is clever enough to say that we are all 90% chimpanzee and 60% banana, also clever enough then, to determine political, social or cultural allegiances... or, for example, integrity and ideological preference?   To counter the historic perception of the Germanic invaders decimating the indigenous population comes the propaganda which encourages us to see them as philanthropic and friendly and openly welcomed.   This link gives a view that there was a form of Apartheid and that the Germanic invaders pursued a policy of rapid Germanic population increase.   I feel sure that there must also be some expert opinion out there that would give a good account of other factors such as intermarriage and/or rape!   The final section in this extract from the British Archaeology Magazine, in my opinion, probably gets it just about right!   This critique, however puts the issue of genetics into its proper perspective.

What we know, as an incontrovertible fact, is that something happened following the Roman exodus from Britain.   This endured from the mid-fifth century and was an east to west progression of a significant political & cultural change that effectively replaced a 'Celtic-speaking' population with a 'Teutonic-speaking' one.   This change has been indisputably identified as the hybrid 'Anglo-Saxon Advance', even though there were a few Frisians and Jutes somewhere in the mix.   I personally feel that the bits in between are now irrelevant and would have been a mixture of battles of attrition, battles over land, resistance, intermarriage, wholesale slaughter, cultural genocide in the methodology of bringing the Brits to heel.   One website even offered the suggestion that factors such as use of the weregild would have been a significant factor in this 'voluntary' aspiration to 'A-S'ness.   The absence of archaeological evidence has also been used as one of the pointers to rebut the population replacement theory, so it is surprising that there is now the theory [TV Series - Meet the Ancestors] that the mysterious total disappearance of Calleva Atrebatum [Silchester] was a deliberate act following the end of the Roman Period and could be down to ethnic cleansing because it was in competition with Dorchester-on-Thames.

Whatever the truth may eventually be proven to be on the methodology, the political and cultural reality is that the change became absolute, in that the 'pressure' from the east was derived by an Inertia of Anglo-Saxon dominion.   The scenario which offers itself, is that former Brits, under their new allegiance, continued driving westward, politically and culturally, as Anglo-Saxons - irrespective of genetic makeup which, surely, never figured in their consciousness.   This process has continued down to the present day within an Empire that was said to be owned by the English but run by the Scots - the latter also being referred to as cannon fodder! - under the euphemistic title, latterly at least, of a 'British' Empire.   The same mechanisms, and pressure from the east, may still shown to be at work today in considering the nebulous status of our Cornish Duchy as a living model of this repressive historic process.   Compare the Cornish who consider themselves English and, paradoxically, the English (and others) who now consider themselves to be Cornish!

What this means is that then, as now and throughout history, the frailties and gullibilities of the human mind becomes a pawn to the power and manipulation of dominion.   Nothing at all to do with genetics but part of the same human psyche that allows us to make conscious choices.   Whether this is simply joining a club, or saving our skins, or choosing to be on what is perceived to be the winning side, or which side in a civil war, or which political party, or which sort of music etc., ad nauseum!   Therefore, to attempt to use genetic similarity to suggest that there is not an ideological boundary at the Tamar Border, is simply to deny the powerful influence of a human consciousness and its relationship to territory and history.   Destroying that 'relationship' is a significant psychological factor in achieving genocide.

In order to substantiate a Celtic 'sameness' with Cornwall - or was it, perhaps, more to show how undifferent we, the Cornish, are? - the advocates of this new 'Celtic' Devon also draw attention to the fact that many of the presumed Anglo-Saxon placenames have now been shown to be corrupted forms of Celtic placenames.   For example, it is suggested that placenames containing 'cott' could derive from a version of the Cornish coit/cot/cos (meaning 'a wood').   Other examples are also produced and which it is not necessary to dispute.   I would only seek to attempt to put it into the context of a general socio-political Anglo-Saxon advance and how placenames would have progressively been modified, evolved, changed en route during that period until totally obscured because of the prevailing cultural and political environment.   There would, I feel sure, have been a similar political/cultural/linguistic change, with the new order incrementally, and ultimately, prevailing and which might well have been at differing rates.   The progression of placename evidence within the Duchy, east to west, is another incremental window showing a time-capsule of linguistic change but still in marked contrast to the extent of the cultural and political timeline of evolution east of the Tamar.   I would go further, with regard to the above concept of Cornwall being a living model, and suggest that Cornwall is a prime example now of an identity in crisis but still having the will to resist the cultural genocide brought into play by insensitive and hostile dominion from the east.   Possibly the will to resist derives from the fact that the Cornish retained the intellectual right to their territory - there being nothing beyond it?

One must compare the Cornish Renaissance over the past 100 plus years and a well-recorded Cornish historical existence to that of Devonshire's sudden re-discovery of a distant past and ask the reason, why?   Would, for example, such a claim have even been considered if the Cornish Dimension had not been there?   Without the Cornish Dimension, what would have been the motivation/catalyst for these new, genetic/placename, researches to have even been undertaken?   I see a parallel in the recent announcement [July 2006] that it is now going to become 'lawful' for the flying of 'national' flags.   This has - apparently? - been brought about by the recent public display of the English people proudly flying their newly discovered national flag, the Cross of St George, to celebrate England's participation in the 2006 World Cup.   This is a welcome change to the hitherto misappropriation of the symbols of the United Kingdom on previous and similar occasions.

What, in fact, has brought about this renewed sense of an 'English' identity?   Could it be, perhaps, something to do with devolution to Scotland and Wales and a sudden realisation that Britain ("This Sceptred Isle") is NOT England after all?   So powerful is this new-found Englishness and proud banner waving that it has compelled the UK Government to now declare that the flying of 'national flags' is to be made legal.   But.... the exception to this rule is.... Yes! you guessed it!   The Cornish flag of St Piran is not included.   A visit to Cornwall24 will give a full briefing.

To return to our nearest English neighbour:   During the 70s and 80s, I had an ongoing, and friendly, political discourse with a proud Devonian (personally and via the press), an elderly gentleman (historian and Latin student), living in Helston.   At no time did he indicate any knowledge, or perception, of Celticness for Devonshire but, in fact, always seemed concerned about the dwindling status, and numbers, of the Anglo-Saxons and the potential dangers of 'English' nationalism as compared to that of Celtic nationalism. Also, one reads in Borlase's "Antiquities (1769)" [Limits of Cornwall], that long after the events of AD 936 that Totnes was still considered to be the eastern boundary of Cornwall - as late as the time of Henry III.   How right, or wrong, this may eventually be shown to be, it does confirm historic perceptions of an erosion 'of Cornwall', as opposed to a peculiar status of Devonshire.

Also within Borlase consideration of the "Limits of Cornwall" we find :

"This Cornwall, as has been hinted before, reached anciently far beyond its present limits, if it did not include all the ancient Dunmonium; for the Britans gave way by degrees, and disputed the ground with the Saxons for several centuries:   but the fortune of the Saxons prevailed; and the Cornish Britans being soon forced to leave the Eastern part of Dumnonium in their possession, become bounded by the river Ex."

  At this point we are directed to a footnote which says:

"Of this time we are to understand what Edward I. says (Sheringham. p. 129.) 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. Britain, which reached from the Tweed, Westward, as far as the river Ex; Wales inclosed by the rivers Severn, and Dee; and Cornwall from the river Ex to the Land's-End."

I have no idea who Sheringham was and have attempted some online searches but need some more information to narrow the search.   The point of including the quotes here, is to give an example of perception founded on established historical perspective, namely, that which determines how things progress forward.   The protagonists of a 'Celtic' Devon argue that historical perceptions affecting the demise of Dumnonia, are founded upon allegedly dubious historical sources and, consequently, that the Cornish claims founded on such sources distorts Devonshire's place in history.   The allegations of 'dubious sources' may well be shown to be a matter of fact but, again, it is a red-herring.   Cornish history, and how this has been presented over centuries, has reflected a unique distinction of Cornwall and based, not on dubious historical sources, but developed 'over time' on contemporaneous perceptions.   Therefore, if not considered to be appropriate and relevant, why consider politial accommodations which perpetuate something presumed to be flawed (q.v. preambles to documents referring to the creation/restoration of the Duchy of Cornwall.) unless, of course, it aligns with the contemporaneous view?  

There has been no such parallel, non-English, peculiar, distinction for Devonshire, nor, it seems, an innate consciousness, of its people through history, to change the status quo with regard to its relationship to England.   Given my hypothesis of Cornwall as a living model of the cultural genocide of advancing Anglo-Saxon dominion, it could well have been anticipated, in fact, that Devonshire would have been leading the fight for recognition and autonomy/independence well before there was an identity crisis within our Cornish Duchy!   This, surely, suggests that the cultural transition (to Anglo-Saxon) for Devonshire was absolute and that the current foray is reactive.   Motivated, in fact, by a reflexive historical ripple of Cornishness and, it must be said, a general awareness of a Celtic ascendancy!   Indeed, it would seem that one of the most vociferous protagonists for a 'Celtic' Devon is happy for us all to remain 'British' - by bypassing an English identity and claiming that he is Devonian & British - because he believes that such identities as English, Cornish, Welsh, Scots etc., are divisive!   So, is there an alternative agenda at work here?

The way that I see it, is that the willingness to 'probe' into a 'Celtic' identity for Devonshire does not seem to have come from some innate, pro-active, historical experience of difference, but instead is fed by new research and a cynical attempt, I would guess, to keep up with its western neighbour.   Whatever the true agenda, it is for them alone to maintain and develop.

B - Factors said to distort Devonshire's history - (not in any particular order of importance):

• 01 - References to 'Devonshire' when the official name is now 'Devon'.

I use the term 'Devonshire', throughout, as a means of comparison between that historic English county and the historic (non-English) Duchy of Cornwall.   The name 'Devon' became the official term as part of the 1974 constitutional changes.   I do not consider this statement of fact to be, in any way, a 'distortion' of history.   Modern perceptions and opinions of history, as discussed elsewhere, are wilfully manipulated by the constant failure to relate matters of history to their correct geographical place in time (for example, "When the Romans landed in England.")   I simply think in terms of Cornwall & England unless other factors dictate otherwise!

• 02 - References to the Tamar Border as a boundary between Celt and Anglo-Saxon.

I have touched upon this aspect above, with regard to a flawed perception of equating identity and genetics.   Perhaps a browse through the section on Cornish Genocide [The Cornish Paradox] might give some food for thought in this context?

• 03 - References to the battles of 1497 and 1549 presented as 'Cornish' events.

I have never discussed any of the Cornish battles at anytime, anywhere because, I am sure that there is still a considerable amount of research still to do before there can be a truly definitive account of these.   To say that referring to these as 'Cornish' events, because of known participation of others (from Devonshire in particular),is somehow wrong and, as a consequence, this represents a distortion of Devonshire's history is, I feel, rather fallacious!

Considering that we are in the process of a decolonisation of Cornish history and, consequently, now writing it from a Cornish perspective, such an assertion has no relevance.  As long as this rewriting of history is objective and the participation of others - not just from Devonshire - is included in any narrative, then its legitimacy is unchallengeable.   Unlike, for example, the telling of history from an Imperial English point of view.   A fact which, sadly, has created the perception that England = Britain.   If the Devonshire version of events has any substance, and which distinguishes it from either the Cornish or English versions, then I am certain that there will be someone out there only too willing to write about it.

• 04 - References to the Duchy of Cornwall that ignores or plays down any Devonshire connection.

• 05 - References to the time of Athelstan that ignores a 'Celtic' Connection with Devonshire.

• 06 - References implying a mass slaughter/displacement of Celts due to the Anglo-Saxon Advance.

See comments above!

• 07 - References suggesting/stating that Devonshire was 'in Wessex'.

It seems that the first reference found that refers to Devonshire as being part of Wessex did not occur until "500 years after Wessex disappeared".   It is suggested, therefore, that to consider/state/imply that Athelstan (circa AD 936) established the Tamar as a border between Cornwall and Wessex is not being correct!

This site's approach to the Cornish Question is in seeking to resolve the Cornish Paradox.   It is not about a clinical examination of the minutiae of the history of others - as interesting as that may be!  My first thoughts on this presumption of Devonshire as "not in Wessex", is to pose the questions:

a - Is there a possibility that more definitive earlier evidence could well have been destroyed?
b - Given that there was an imminent change to the English State and presumably, as a consequence, a well- established dual Wessex/English identity, could it be that the use of Wessex was becoming anachronistic?
c - If Devon(shire) is perceived by some as a 'conquered land' (q.v. Sir Keith Feiling)- was it, perhaps a premature presumption that the whole of the western peninsula had been completely contained and thus the derivative of Dumnonia attributed to it? Were not lands to the north and east also similarly misappropriated?
d - One must also question where the English/Wessex kings derived their authority over Cornwall, if what became Devonshire was not in Wessex, unless that term had already been superceded by English.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for A.D. 926 records (TGG highlighting):

This year appeared fiery lights in the northern part of the firmament; and Sihtric departed; and King Athelstan took to the kingdom of Northumbria, and governed all the kings that were in this island: -- First, Howel, King of West-Wales; and Constantine, King of the Scots; and Owen, King of Monmouth; and Aldred, the son of Eadulf, of Bamburgh. And with covenants and oaths they ratified their agreement in the place called Emmet, on the fourth day before the ides of July; and renounced all idolatry, and afterwards returned in peace.

And, for A.D. 942 records (TGG highlighting):

Here Edmund king, of Angles lord, protector of friends, author and framer of direful deeds. o'erran with speed the Mercian land. whete'er the course of Whitwell-spring, or Humber deep, The broad brim-stream, divides five towns. Leicester and Lincoln. Nottingham and Stamford, and Derby eke. In thraldom long to Norman Danes they bowed through need, and dragged the chains of heathen men; till, to his glory, great Edward's heir, Edmund the king,

The Cornish Milestones [AD 944] shows us that Edmund, The Magnificent, "King of England", considered himself to be, "King of the English and ruler of this province of the Britons".   I would suggest that there needs to be a detailed examination of any extant documents relating to Devonshire, to see how he considered his dominion over that place.   History picks out Cornwall in distinctive (non-English) ways and this would also need to be legitimately identified as being the case within a history of Devonshire.

• 08 -

• 09 -

C - Counter argument used to negative the Cornish Dimension:

A current discussion on a BBC forum seems a good point to pick up (mid-October 2006) on this aspect of the 'Celtic' Devon argument.   The opening statement from the individual, previously referred to is:

"It would seem that the old love/hate relationship for the Duchy of Cornwall among the Cornish Nationalists is surfacing yet again.   They seem to need the Duchy in their absurd attempts to justify their flawed contention that Cornwall is not a part of England, but at the same time they blame the Duchy for the violation of their human rights.   They want their cake and eat it."

Reference is drawn to a link previously provided by another poster to that forum and responded to as follows:

Their case for consideration as a national minority (Cornish National Minority Report) is a total farce.   Just take a look at the “Historical Differences” section

To which he sets out the following responses:

• 01 - Athelstan never forcibly evicted the Britons (West Welsh) from Devon. There is no evidence for this whatsoever.

  Athelstan did not fix the border between Cornwall and Wessex.   Wessex had completed the conquest of Dumnonia (including Cornwall) nearly a century before Athelstan.   The boundary that Athelstan fixed was that between the bishoprics of Devon and Cornwall, when he split the Cornish bishopric from the Devon bishopric.   They were later (in the next century) to recombine.

Without any provision of reliable sources to substantiate any of the above points, it is difficult to respond to what is being said.     However, the presentation of the Cornish arguments derive from what has been personally felt and traditionally understood over historical time and commented on from many sources (mainly non-Cornish) which pre-date the existence of what he terms the Cornish Nationalists, and from writers much closer to the period in question.   If the 'alleged' lies that emanate from what can only be termed as the 'non-Cornish' portrayal of history has provided some succour to the Cornish, whilst denying a similar benefit to Devonshire, then, possibly, there might be some significant inferences to be drawn from it!   This, again, has been discussed above.

The notable example of written evidence that does not find favour and, as above, continually put into doubt is the statement by William of Malmesbury (1095-1143) on Athelstan's campaign in "the far South Sest".   Was it based on earlier written sources, historic perception, or just a good story?   If not factual, then why such a focus 'on Cornwall' by a monk and scholar from Wiltshire, who would have been reasonably conversant with any residual traces of Celticity in Devonshire at that time?:

"He attacked the British with great force and compelled them to withdraw from Exeter, which hitherto they had inhabited on an equal footing in law with the English.   He then fixed the left bank of the Tamar as the boundary of the shire, just as he had made the Wye the boundary of the North British."
(Maumsbury (b): 148.)

Probably worth noting, that the absence of extant written evidence does not prove that something did not happen.   As to the creation of the Cornish Border with Wessex, as implied, by Egbert:   I have some cautious sympathy with that view because it seems to coincide with the use of Devon(shire) in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles for AD 823., but this still needs some objective research and reconciled with the immediately preceding reference, the entry for AD 926., and Edmund's Charter of AD 944.

A.D. 813. This year Archbishop Wulfred returned to his own see, with the blessing of Pope Leo; and King Egbert spread devastation in Cornwall from east to west.

A.D. 823. This year a battle was fought between the Welsh in Cornwall and the people of Devonshire, at Camelford; and in the course of the same year Egbert, king of the West-Saxons, and Bernwulf, King of Mercia, fought a battle at Wilton, in which Egbert gained the victory, but there was great slaughter on both sides. Then sent he his son Ethelwulf into Kent, with a large detachment from the main body of the army, accompanied by his bishop, Elstan, and his alderman, Wulfherd; who drove Baldred, the king, northward over the Thames. Whereupon the men of Kent immediately submitted to him; as did also the inhabitants of Surrey, and Sussex, and Essex; who had been unlawfully kept from their allegiance by his relatives. The same year also, the king of the East-Angles, and his subjects besought King Egbert to give them peace and protection against the terror of the Mercians; whose king, Bernwulf, they slew in the course of the same year.

A.D. 878. This year about mid-winter, after twelfth-night, the Danish army stole out to Chippenham, and rode over the land of the West-Saxons; where they settled, and drove many of the people over sea; and of the rest the greatest part they rode down, and subdued to their will; -- ALL BUT ALFRED THE KING. He, with a little band, uneasily sought the woods and fastnesses of the moors. And in the winter of this same year the brother of Ingwar and Healfden landed in Wessex, in Devonshire, with three and twenty ships, and there was he slain, and eight hundred men with him, and forty of his army. There also was taken the war- flag, which they called the RAVEN. In the Easter of this year King Alfred with his little force raised a work at Athelney; from which he assailed the army, assisted by that part of Somersetshire which was nighest to it. Then, in the seventh week after Easter, he rode to Brixton by the eastern side of Selwood; and there came out to meet him all the people of Somersersetshire, and Wiltshire, and that part of Hampshire which is on this side of the sea; and they rejoiced to see him. Then within one night he went from this retreat to Hey; and within one night after he proceeded to Heddington; and there fought with all the army, and put them to flight, riding after them as far as the fortress, where he remained a fortnight. Then the army gave him hostages with many oaths, that they would go out of his kingdom. They told him also, that their king would receive baptism. And they acted accordingly; for in the course of three weeks after, King Guthrum, attended by some thirty of the worthiest men that were in the army, came to him at Aller, which is near Athelney, and there the king became his sponsor in baptism; and his crisom-leasing was at Wedmor. He was there twelve nights with the king, who honoured him and his attendants with many presents.

• 02 - When the Duchy of Cornwall was formed in 1337, it included only those parts of Cornwall which had been parts of the previous Earldom.   These were the 17 manors mentioned in the first Duchy Charter.   The rest (and majority) of the Duchy consisted of named estates in other counties (mostly in Devon).   The Duchy of Cornwall is not, and never has been, the same entity as the County of Cornwall.

This argument has long been shown to be fallacious and I can only commend the reader to visit the pages on this site, via the Internal Links, with regard to the Duchy's vested interest in defending its right over the Cornish Foreshore.   There is one major question that simply begs to be satisfactorily answered if the Duchy is only 17 manors within Cornwall plus the majority of estates, which exist outside Cornwall, (not, of course, forgetting the stannaries) and that is: Why was the Duchy, specifically, and indeed the Earldom, possibly, never called "of Devon"?  Further!   Considering the period when all this was going on, and the modern arguments being put forward for a 'Celtic' Devon, and what is now being said about what the Cornish Earldom was not, or did not comprise - a situation which has pathologically been carried over into arguments about 'the Duchy' - how on earth could Devonshire itself ever have not been considered to form part of this new and unique, unheard of before, [Celtic] creation?  Possibly, there might be some significant inferences to be drawn from this also!

Probably appropriate here to respond to his opening remarks regarding a Cornish love-hate relationship with the Duchy of Cornwall: He feels agrieved at what he alleges is a distortion of Devonshire's history over recent decades by, allegedly, 'the Cornish nationalists', yet Devonshire's history is what the people of Devonshire, themselves, have made of it over, at least, the past thousand years.   The Cornish argument does not represent some petty claim of a new identity inspired by out of context genetic research but, instead, represents exposing a significant package of lies and deceit by the Crown, Parliament and Duchy which has conspired to deny that the 'Cornish' people exist.   We need the Duchy like a 'hole in the head'!   All we wish for is some truth and integrity from the pinnacles of society, rather than the airbrushing of the Cornish people and its unique constitutional position from history and perceptions by superficial and retrospective Anglo-centric mind-games and Anglo-self-justification!

• 03 - The charters governing the Stannary Courts and Parliament (apart from the 1508 Charter of Pardon) applied equally to the Devon Stannary Courts and Parliament.   The 1508 Carter of Pardon came about because in 1496, Prince Arthur, Duke of Cornwall, had suspended the Cornish Stannary Parliament for infringing his ordinances.   In 1508, following the death of Arthur, Henry VII proposed (in his Charter of Pardon) to restore the Cornish Stannaries, but with the provision that the Stannary Parliament would no longer have powers of legislation.   These powers were to be replaced by the power of veto over (Westminster) Acts of Parliament which directly related to the Stannaries.   The Devon Stannary Parliament (which had not been suspended) continued to exercise the right of legislation.   Unfortunately, the 1508 Charter of Pardon was never ratified at Westminster, so the constitutional status of the Cornish Stannary Parliament is in some doubt, unlike that of its Devon neighbour.   In the convocation of the Cornish Stannary Parliament of 18th January 1588, the Stannators petitioned for the right of legislation to be restored, but this was never granted to them. (Source: “Stannary Law – A history of the mining law of Cornwall and Devon” by Professor Robert R. Pennington, Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Birmingham, 1973.)

Not being sufficiently familiar with the legal statutes of the Cornish Stannary, I will invite a response to this from the Cornish Stannary Parliament - either directly here, or properly via their own website.   The proposed book on Cornish Law will, hopefully, address such points in detail. see 'pro-Cornish Actions' [the Constitution] for an insight

• 04 - The claim of separate origins of the Cornish people is groundless.   In recent genetic surveys carried out by Professor Bryan Sykes of Oxford University, it has been conclusively shown that the majority of the population of Britain have ancestral origins dating back to the early post-Ice Age period in the glacial refuge of Northern Iberia. Although the percentage of Cornish people who can claim such ancestry is greater than the English average, it is no greater than that in Devon or West Somerset.   Thus the claim of unique and separate origins for the Cornish people is a myth perpetuated by the Nationalists.

This flawed aspect of the 'Celtic' Devon argument has been considered above in depth but I repeat a link already shown above. Once again, the concept of a Cornish identity and its origins predates Cornish Nationalism by centuries and derives from peoples' perceptions over time and the same observation as stated at the end of item 01, above, applies.   Whilst 'genetic' origins may be shown to be the same, the divergence of identity can, and does, manifest itself by evolving over time through many avenues of choice and isolation.   The divergence between West Britons (Cornish) and North Britons (Welsh), for example, occurred through territorial isolation (post 6th century), whereas any divergence between Cornwall and Devonshire occurred through a Cornish-English socio-political isolation (post 9th century) at the Tamar.

This was a divergence obvious to Geoffrey of Monmouth when (early in the 12th Century) he tells us that when Brutus and Corineus, his second in command, came to the island (Albion), he named the island Britain and his companions Britons.   Similarly, Corineus, who had precedence over all others, called his chosen share of the island Cornwall and his companions Cornish.   This version of events may well account for a reference above to 'Totnes'?   The reference to what became Wales, Scotland and England, only occurred after Brutus died when he had allocated these places to his sons, Kamber, Albanactus and Locrinus.   The latter (Loegria) eventually become 'England'.   Whatever opinion, one may hold on this presentation of history, it had a major influence on historical perception and which gave rise to the 'Galfridian Conceit'.   Even if a literary myth it reflects a particular understanding of Cornwall in the early 12th century, consistent with other contemporaneous knowledge.  Possibly, there might be some significant inferences to be drawn from the omission of Devonshire with this also!

• 05 -

• 06 -

This page has been posted to the site prior to its being completed because it contains some material of current importance regarding the flying of the Cornish Flag plus a news item on the newly devised 'Devon' Flag.
There will be progressive updates to complete the objective, as outlined above, of this page!