West Britons provides a fresh interpretation of the bloodiest, most devastating years in Cornwall's history and a wholly new perspective on the history of the far South West of Britain. The book explores the unprecedented series of rebellions which took place in Cornwall between 1497 and 1648, traces the connections which existed between those revolts and the contemporary Cornish perception of themselves as a separate 'people', and argues that Cornish history must be viewed within a 'British', rather than a purely English context.
West Britons will be required reading for all those who are engaged in the contemporary political and historical debate over 'Britishness'. The book also includes transcriptions of a number of previously unpublished documents, useful to teachers and their students, and a list of some 300 Cornish Royalist officers, of special interest to Civil War enthusiasts and genealogists.
Mark Stoyle is senior lecturer in early modern history at the University of Southampton. He specialises in early modern British history, with particular research interests in the 'British crisis' of the 1640s; cultural, ethnic and religious identity in Wales and Cornwall between 1450 and 1700; and popular memory of the English Civil War from 1660 to the present day.
Introduction
1. ‘The Dissidence of Despair’: Rebellion and Identity in Early Modern Cornwall
2. ‘Knowest Thou My Brood?’: Locating the Cornish in Tudor and Stuart England
3. ‘England No England But Babel’: English Nationalism and the English Civil War
4. ‘Pagans or Paragons?’: Images of the Cornish during the English Civil War
5. ‘The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel’: Sir Richard Grenville and Cornish Particularism
6. ‘The Gear Rout’: The Cornish Rising of 1648 and the Second Civil War
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