This book brings together a number of specialist scholarly articles published previously in the series Cornish Studies, and presents them in revised form as a history of Cornwall in the early modern period, focusing especially on issues of language, identity and rebellion in the period 1490–1690.

The expansion of the English state in the early modern era provoked resistance throughout Britain and Ireland, not least in Cornwall where this intrusion was challenged in a series of dramatic uprisings in the two centuries between 1490 and 1690.In this wide-ranging collection of chapters, several based on articles published previously in the series Cornish Studies, Philip Payton brings together an impressive team of international scholars, including Paul Cockerham, Bernard Deacon, D.H. Frost, Lynette Olson, Joanna Mattingly, Matthew Spriggs, and Mark Stoyle, to present a history of early modern Cornwall, focusing especially on the related issues of language, religion, identity and rebellion.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47788/LZGH4973

Cornwall in the Age of Rebellion Philip Payton 

Where Cornish was Spoken and When? A Provisional Synthesis Matthew Spriggs

‘a . . . concealed envy against the English’: A Note on the aftermath of the 1497 Rebellions in Cornwall Philip Payton

Tyranny in Beunans Meriasek Lynette Olson

The Helston Shoemakers’ Gild and a Possible Connection with the 1549 Rebellion Joanna Mattingly

Glasney’s Parish Clergy and the Tregear Manuscript D.H. Frost

‘On My Grave a Marble Stone’: Early Cornish Memorialization Paul Cockerham 

‘Sir Richard Grenville’s Creatures’: The New Cornish Tertia. 1644–46 Mark Stoyle 

Afterlife of an Army: The Old Cornish Regiments, 1643–44 Mark Stoyle

William Scawen (1600–1689) – A Neglected Cornish Patriot and Father of the Cornish Language Revival Matthew Spriggs

Who was the Duchesse of Cornwall in Nicholas Boson’s (c.1660–70) ‘The Duchesse of Cornwall’s Progresse to see the Land’s End . . .?  Matthew Spriggs

The Recent Historiography of Early Modern Cornwall Mark Stoyle

Propaganda and the Tudor State or Propaganda of the Tudor Historians Bernard Deacon 

Conclusion Philip Payton