A POIGNANT MEMORIAL

During the course of a ramble through the hinterland of the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall last week, I happened across this splendid statue in the village of St. Keverne.

It depicts the two leaders of the Cornish Rebellion of 1497 - Thomas Flamank, a lawyer from Bodmin and Michael Joseph, the blacksmith (An Gof) from St. Keverne. For it was here that the rebellion had its roots and its inspiration and if ever there was a prime example of justifiable Cornish defiance then it was here.

I imagine it was the culmination of a long line of grievances but the imposition of punitive taxes to finance Henry VII`s English war against the Scots was the final straw for the Cornish. Here they were hundreds of miles from the seat of monarchy, even more hundreds of miles from Scotland and neither seemed to have much relevance to them, especially as Cornwall had been granted some immunity from tax increases, given its stannary status.

And so an `army` of 15,000 disgruntled Cornishmen was raised to the cause, led by Flamank as the strategist and An Gof as the commander, passing through Exeter, Bristol, Salisbury and Guildford until the battleground at Blackheath was reached. Against the forces massed by the king, the Cornish army was defeated with the two leaders subsequently hanged at Tyburn.

I cannot begin to give a detailed description of this momentous event in Cornish history, but a few things struck me as really significant on my visit to St. Keverne. First, the statue itself - it`s handsome, accurate and does justice to the memory of Flamank and Joseph. The plaque which describes it tells that the statue was unveiled by the children of St. Keverne in 1997, to commemorate the 500th anniversery of the rebellion. It`s perfectly clear that pride in the event, in being Cornish, in the history and fiece independance of Cornwall is still alive and well. I could almost feel it as I walked, with perhaps a little trepidation, through the village streets.

Indeed it seems to be gaining strength. One of the aspects of the rebellion was that, at the time, Cornish as a language was widely spoken and so it`s doubtful that much of the edicts from London were understood, let alone agreed with. The language is being revived, of course, and it was encouraging to see that - in west Cornwall particularly - the street names and `entry` signs to towns and villages are now in English and Cornish. I also noticed that the name Angove (derived from An Gof - `the smith`) is one of the most common - you know when you`re in deepest Kernow when, at the village of Drift on the A30 on the way to Land`s End, you pass `Lower Drift Garage` (prop. Chris Angove.)

St. Keverne reminded me that, once again, I had invaded the sovereign territory of Kernow and I felt a little sad that we, the English, seem to have lost our sense of pride in ourselves and our own history, for which we seem forever to be apologising . The Cornish have nothing to apologise for to anyone .....and I cannot help but admire the preservation of their traditions, their proud history and their glorious country.