Britishness, what it is and what it could be, is now high on both ...

<strong>is</strong>ings of 1497 or 1549 <strong>and</strong> even the complaint that many Corn<strong>is</strong>h <strong>could</strong> not read the
Engl<strong>is</strong>h of the new Prayer Book was relegated to a minor place in the l<strong>is</strong>t of dem<strong>and</strong>s
made by the Prayer Book re<strong>be</strong>ls, while an earlier call for a Corn<strong>is</strong>h l<strong>it</strong>urgy seems to have
d<strong>is</strong>appeared. 116 Rather than oppos<strong>it</strong>ion to the association w<strong>it</strong>h Engl<strong>and</strong>, the Corn<strong>is</strong>h
reaction in the first half of the Tudor century has <strong>be</strong>en read as “arguments about the terms
of association”, arguments eventually settled on the terms of the royal government. 117
There were in any case many other factors involved in the Tudor r<strong>is</strong>ings - anger at
taxation, dynastic <strong>is</strong>sues, squabbles <strong>be</strong>tween local gentry, religious conservat<strong>is</strong>m - as well
as many other actors from <strong>be</strong>yond Cornwall. While the construction of an ethno-h<strong>is</strong>tory
dem<strong>and</strong>s these are seen as a “golden age” of the defeat of a whole people, there <strong>is</strong> a <strong>high</strong>
probabil<strong>it</strong>y that they were not seen as such at the time, when ethnic ident<strong>it</strong>ies may well
have played second fiddle to other ident<strong>it</strong>ies, especially religious ones. 118
The work of the mil<strong>it</strong>ant antiquarian local<strong>is</strong>ts of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries
forged the resources for a rich ethno-h<strong>is</strong>tory for the Corn<strong>is</strong>h, fusing a set of myths <strong>and</strong>
symbols w<strong>it</strong>h selective h<strong>is</strong>torical memories. However, three factors help to explain why
th<strong>is</strong> ethnie did not <strong>be</strong>come a national<strong>it</strong>y. First, the ubiqu<strong>it</strong>ous presence of the monarchy
across the centuries goes a long way to explain the paradoxes <strong>and</strong> uncertainties of the
Corn<strong>is</strong>h ident<strong>it</strong>y. The major<strong>it</strong>y of the Corn<strong>is</strong>h gentry threw their support <strong>be</strong>hind the
Crown in 1642. Th<strong>is</strong> developed into <strong>what</strong> Stoyle terms the “Corn<strong>is</strong>h Royal<strong>is</strong>t
trad<strong>it</strong>ion”, 119 full-blown by the later seventeenth <strong>and</strong> early eighteenth centuries, when the
events of the 1540s were erased from the h<strong>is</strong>torical memory <strong>and</strong> those of 1642-46 put in
their place. But the presence of the royal<strong>is</strong>t trad<strong>it</strong>ion was not the only factor. The two
other elements that explain Cornwall’s ambiguous location w<strong>it</strong>hin the Br<strong>it</strong><strong>is</strong>h terr<strong>it</strong>orial
system - something more than a county, but not yet a nation – were the inst<strong>it</strong>utional
context of Cornwall’s regional formation <strong>and</strong> <strong>it</strong>s longst<strong>and</strong>ing cultural plural<strong>is</strong>m, home to
two vernacular languages – Corn<strong>is</strong>h <strong>and</strong> Engl<strong>is</strong>h – <strong>and</strong> two cultural trad<strong>it</strong>ions.
The Corn<strong>is</strong>h Royal<strong>is</strong>t trad<strong>it</strong>ion
Susan Reynolds” concept of “regnal solidar<strong>it</strong>y”, 120 an ident<strong>it</strong>y looking towards a royal
author<strong>it</strong>y, <strong>is</strong> useful in unravelling the relationship in medieval Cornwall <strong>be</strong>tween
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