The original population of Cornwall was probably Iberic, of the same primitive race as the dark-haired population of Ireland, before the island was invaded and subjugated by the Celts.

The branch of the Celts in Britain and Cornwall was Brythonic, and there is nothing certain to show that the Goidels were in Cornwall before the Brythons. It is true that some few river names, and again inscriptions are Irish, but these latter pertain to the settlement in Cornwall of Irish expelled from Ossory and Wicklow in the fifth century.

Popularly the dark hair and dusky complexions of some of the Cornish is attributed to Spaniards wrecked from the Armada. But no Spanish wreck came on shore in Cornwall. The first loss the Armada sustained was east of Plymouth. On its way back to Spain none of the vessels came near Cornwall. Several were wrecked on the coast of Ireland and their crews massacred to a man by the natives.

Posidonius travelled after b.c. 123 and visited Spain, where he collected a variety of information on points of geography and natural history, and after spending thirty days at Gades returned to Italy. He learned among other things something about the collection of tin in Bolerium, a name afterwards appropriated by Ptolemy to the Land's End. He says: "The inhabitants of that promontory of Britain which is called Bolerium are very fond of strangers, and from their intercourse with foreign merchants are civilised in their manner of life. They prepare the tin, working very skilfully the earth in which it is produced. The ground is rocky, but it contains earthy veins, the produce of which is ground down, smelted, and purified. They make the metal up into slabs shaped like knuckle-bones, and carry it to a certain island lying in front of Britain called Ictis. During the ebb of the tide the intervening space is left dry, and to this place they carry over abundance of tin in their waggons.... Here then, the merchants buy the tin from the natives, and carry it over to Gaul; and after travelling overland for about thirty days, they finally bring their loads on pack-horses to the outlet of the Rhone." It is very doubtful whether Posidonius ever visited Britain. What he relates is doubtless due to information received by him, either at Gades or at Massilia.

According to Timaeus, the contemporary of Pytheas, the isle of Vectis was six days sail from Britain, "in an inward direction." Vectis, there can be little doubt, is the Isle of Wight, formerly connected with the mainland by a ridge of chalk since broken through by the waves. Ancient mariners coasted, and those who came to Britain for tin followed the Gallic shore till they could see the white cliffs of Dover, when they crossed, and coasted down channel to the Isle of Wight.

There is no evidence that the Phoenicians ever visited Cornwall. Nor has a single relic of Phoenician art or coin been found in Cornwall. The traders with Britain were the Veneti of the Morbihan, in Brittany. Moreover, as General Pitt Rivers has pointed out, bronze celts (axe heads), which have been unearthed in Cornwall, are never found in any parts where the Phoenicians have been.

It has been assumed with much confidence that Cornwall or the Scilly Isles must have been the Cassiterides of the ancients. But even this is doubtful. The Cassiterides were described as lying west of Spain, and the description applies to the Azores; it may have been due to ignorance or design that they were represented as islands prolific in tin.

The Nine Maidens, St Columb Major

The Nine Maidens, St Columb Major

That tin was worked in Cornwall from a very early period can hardly be questioned, in 1823 at Carnon a deer-horn pick was discovered 40 ft. below the surface, but as a crucifix was also found there 30 ft. below the surface, this only shows how the creeks have had their floors turned over and silted up.

Though tin was exported from Cornwall, bronze was not manufactured there till a comparatively late period. Bronze came from the East, and the great centre whence radiated the trade in bronze weapons was the basin of the Po.

What seems to be abundantly clear is that the export of tin from Britain had come to an end by the first century of the present era. Caesar, on invading Britain, heard nothing about it, and when Britain was finally conquered, the Romans who worked the lead mines in the Mendips, and gold and copper in Wales, totally neglected Cornwall, holding it to be worthless. They never settled there, only traversed it to the Land's End, leaving behind them a couple of square camps, some coins, few and far between, and some Samian ware; but this shows little more than that a traffic went on between the Britons of Cornwall and the Romans and Romano-British beyond Exeter. The fact that the Romans had no idea that tin was to be found in the peninsula shows that the mining for it had ceased there for some time previous. The Brythonic Celts are held to have invaded Britain b.c. 300; and it is probable that from that date the industry in tin mining carried on by the Ivernian natives declined rapidly and expired, leaving not a tradition behind.

It is noteworthy that the Dumnonii were behind the British peoples in the east. They had no coinage, whereas those in the south-east had theirs, copied from a stater of Philip of Macedon. No Greek coins had reached the Dumnonii, and they had consequently none to copy, however clumsily.

In the battle of Deorham, 577, the Britons were defeated with great slaughter, and the West Welsh of Devon and Cornwall were cut off from further communication with their brethren of Wales. The Saxons steadily advanced, but for long the Parrett was the boundary. In 823 a battle was fought between the Saxons and Britons at Gavulford, now Galford, a point on the old road from Exeter to the west, where the hills draw together, and whence it is commanded by a huge camp. The Britons now called the Danes to their aid, and twelve years afterwards a battle was fought on Hingeston Down, above Calstock, in which Egbert was victorious. This was in 835. Hitherto the Britons had occupied one portion of Exeter, but Athelstan, after defeating the Cornish King Howell, not only expelled them from the city but fixed the Tamar as their boundary. Then he passed through Cornwall, and even visited the Scilly Isles. The Count of Poher in Brittany, of whose son Alan Barbetorte was the godson of Athelstan, fled from Brittany with a crowd of his countrymen from the devastations of the Northmen, and Athelstan gave them homes in England. It is probable that he planted some in the Lizard, and others about Camborne, for we find there church dedications to distinctively Breton saints, and we know, moreover, that the fugitive Bretons brought with them the bones of their patron saints. As they spoke the same tongue as the Cornish, it would be natural for Athelstan to send them there.

In 981, the Danish pirates plundered the monastery of St Petrock, and in 997 ravaged the territories of their old allies from one end of Cornwall to the other with fire and sword. Shortly before this, in 993, Olaf Tryggvason of Norway, with Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, after having attacked London, devastated the east coast, burnt Sandwich and Ipswich, and stormed Bamborough, then harried the Scottish coast, the Western Isles, the Isle of Man, and Ireland, where "he burned far and wide, wherever inhabited." He then came to the Scilly Isles, where he put into Tresco harbour. There the monks of the abbey founded by Athelstan so impressed him, that he consented to be baptized.

In 1068, the county was plundered by Godwin and Edmund, sons of Harold, after a battle in Somersetshire, and on their way back to Ireland.

In 1322, the craze for going on pilgrimage took possession of Cornish men, women, and children, and they set off for the Holy Land, whence few returned.

In 1497, in consequence of the dissatisfaction occasioned by the levy of a burdensome tax, the commoners of Cornwall, headed by Thomas Flamank, a gentleman, and Michael Joseph, a Bodmin blacksmith, rose in rebellion. Having prevailed on Lord Audley to be their general, they marched as far as to Blackheath in Kent, where they were defeated with much slaughter by Lord Daubeny. In the same year Perkin Warbeck landed, according to some at Whitesand Bay, near the Land's End, according to others in St Ives' Bay, and marching to Bodmin, found the Cornish ripe for a new rebellion. At the head of 3000 men he marched to Exeter, but was unable to take it. He made his way to Taunton, where, despairing of success, he deserted his army and fled, but was taken and executed.

In 1548, another rebellion broke out occasioned by the changes in religion, which the Cornish resented. Their leader was Hugh Arundell, Governor of St Michael's Mount. They proceeded to besiege Exeter, but although the city was sorely distressed for want of provisions it held out till relieved, and in a battle fought at Woodbury, they were defeated with immense slaughter. Cornwall remained quiet in the reign of Elizabeth, save that it sent out whole fleets of privateers to prey on the Spanish traders and treasure vessels.

The Armada was off the Lizard on the 29th to 30th July, 1588. An English fishing-boat was hanging near them, counting their numbers. They gave chase, but the boat shot away down wind and disappeared. It carried the news to Drake at Plymouth, who at once prepared to sail forth.

In the Civil War, Cornwall was almost unanimous on the side of the King. Lord Robartes, however, threw in his lot with the Parliament. On the side of the King were Sir Bevil Grenville, Sir Ralph Hopton, Godolphin, Slanning, and Trevanion. A battle was fought at Boconnoc on January 19, 1643, in which General Ruthven and the Roundheads were defeated. Another battle in which the Royalists were successful was at Stamford Hill above Stratton, May 16, 1643.

Charles I visited Cornwall, and was so impressed by the devotion and loyalty of the people that he addressed to them a letter of recognition, copies of which may be seen in some of the churches. Prince Charles spent a great part of the autumn and winter of 1645 in Cornwall; on March 2, 1645-6, he embarked at Pendennis Castle for the Scilly Isles, where he "was much straitened for provisions." He quitted Scilly on April 16, and landed next day in Jersey, whence he sailed for France. Queen Henrietta Maria had left Pendennis for France in July, 1644.

Cornwall took no active part in the Revolution; in the European War, it sent forth many gallant sailors, among whom in the first place may be reckoned Admiral Boscawen, "old Dreadnought." But since the Civil War the history of the Duchy has been mainly one of social and industrial advance. The principal events stirring the community were the introduction of steam-engines to pump the mines, affrays with smugglers, and the excitement and unlimited bribery and corruption at elections in the rotten boroughs till these latter were swept away by the Reform Bill of 1832. About these rotten boroughs a few words must be said. The old boroughs that existed before the reign of Edward VI were Truro, Helston, Lostwithiel, Bodmin, Liskeard, and Launceston. But the advisers of Edward VI, conscious of insecure tenure of the throne and doubting whether the country was willing to go with them in their sweeping alterations in religion, and desirous of counteracting the growing importance of the House of Commons, considered that their object would be best attained by conferring the right of returning members of Parliament upon the obscure dependent villages of Cornwall. Accordingly Saltash, Camelford, West Looe, Bossiney, Grampound, Penryn, Mitchell, and Newport were elevated into boroughs, each returning two members to Parliament.

St Mawes, Falmouth Harbour

St Mawes, Falmouth Harbour

Under Queen Mary, St Ives received the same privileges, and under Elizabeth six more were made boroughs with the same rights, St Germans, St Mawes, Tregony, East Looe, Fowey, and Callington. Some of these places, as Mitchell, Tregony, and St Mawes, were mere hamlets. They all soon passed away from the direct control of the Crown and fell into the hands of borough mongers who returned what members they liked, by gross bribery, expecting to be repaid with Baronetcies and with lucrative sinecures by the Ministry of the day they supported.