The Dissidence of Despair: Rebellion and Identity in Early Modern Cornwall

In May 1648 a group of Cornishmen who had rebelled against Parliament in the name of Charles I met with comprehensive defeat at “the Gear,” near Helford, and were then pursued back across the Lizard peninsula to the seacoast beyond. Surrender seemed inevitable, yet a number of the fugitives refused to submit. Instead they “joyned hand-in-hand” and hurled themselves bodily into the water: “a desperate expedient on that rocky coast,” as one later writer remarked. What can have driven them to such despair? No convincing answer can be given by looking at the events of 1648 alone. The rebels' despairing plunge can be understood only if it is seen as the final act in a long-running drama, a story of repeated popular protest in West Cornwall that spanned over 150 years. It is a story that has gone largely unrecognized by previous historians, most of whom have portrayed the Cornish revolts of 1497, 1548, 1549, 1642, and 1648 as isolated events rather than as part of a continuum. Yet it is a story that deserves to be told, not only because it provides a dramatic new explanation for many of the most important rebellions of the Tudor and Stuart periods, but also because it serves as an enduring monument to a forgotten people and their struggle to preserve a separate identity for themselves in the face of overwhelming odds.A fierce sense of distinctiveness has always characterized the inhabitants of Cornwall.