Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/459

Rh CORNWALL 427 of the owners of land in the days of the Confessor are all Saxon. The conqueror bestowed nearly the whole county on his half brother, Robert of Mortain, and thus arose what Mr Freeman styles &quot; that great earldom and duchy of Cornwall which was deemed too powerful to be trusted in the hands of any but men closely akin to the royal house, and the remains of which have for ages formed the apanage of the heir-apparent to the crown.&quot; Of the earls, the most important were the brother of Henry III., Richard, king of the Romans, and his son Edmund. In 1336 the earldom was raised to a duchy by Edward III. in favour of his son, the Black -Prince, and of his heirs, eldest sons of the kings of England. Since that time the Prince of Wales has always been duke of Cornwall. &quot;When there is no Prince of Wales the revenues of the duchy are appro priated by the Crown. When the duchy was first created by Edward III., the lands belonging to and dependent on it included, not only the great open moors of Cornwall, and Dartmoor fn-est in Devonshire, but 9 parks, 53 manors, 10 castles, 13 boroughs and towns, and 9 hundreds. Considerable changes and reductions have, however, been since made, and the income of the duchy is at present derived from lands in Somerset and Devon as well as in Cornwall itself. The history of the duchy is virtually that of Cornwall. There has been little to connect it with the general history of the country except during the Civil War, when Cornwall was fur the most part royalist, and some sharp fighting took place within its bounds. Besides much skirmishing, there were two important battles, that of Braddock Down (Jan. 19, 1642-3), and that of Stratton, (May 15, 1643), both gained for the king. Antiquities. No part of England is so rich as Cornwall in antiquities of the primaeval period. These chiefly abound in the district between Penzance and the Land s End, but they occur in all the wilder parts of the county. They may be classed as follows. (1.) Cromleclis. These in the west of Cornwall are called &quot;quoits,&quot; with a reference to their broad and flat covering stones. The largest and most im portant are those known as Lanyon, Caerwynen, Mulfra, Chun, and Zennor quoits, all in the Land s End district. Of these Clnln is the only one which has not been thrown down. Zennor is said to be the largest in the British Isles, while Lanyon, when perfect, was of sufficient height for a man on horseback to ride under. Of those in the eastern part of Cornwall, Trethevy near Liskeard and Pawton in the parish of St Breock are the finest, and have remained intact. (2.) Rude uninscribed monoliths are common to all parts of Cornwall. Those at Boleit, in the parish of Buryan, are the most important. (3.) Circles, none of which are of great dimensions. The principal are the Hurlers, near Liskeard ; the Boskednan, Boscawen-un, and Tregeseal circles ; and that called the Dawns-un, or Merry Maidens. All of these, except the Hurlers, are in the Land s Eud district. The other circles that may be mentioned are the &quot; Trippefc Stones,&quot; in the parish of Blisland, and one at Duloe. (4.) Long alignments or avenues of stones, resembling those on Dartmoor, but not so perfect, are to be found on the moors near Roughtor and Brown Willy. A very remarkable monument of this kind exists in the neighbourhood of St Columb, called the &quot;Nine Maidens.&quot; It consists of nine rude pillars placed in a line, while near them is a single stone known as the &quot; Old Man.&quot; (5.) Hut dwellings. Of these there are at least two kinds, those in the eastern part of the county resembling the beehive structures and enclosures of Dart moor, and those in the west, comprising &quot;hut-clusters,&quot; having a central court, and a surrounding wall often of considerable height and thickness. The beehive masonry is also found in connection with these latter, as are also (6.) Caves, or subterraneous structures, resembling those of Scotland and Ireland. (7.) Cliff castles are a characteristic feature of the Cornish coast, the chief being the &quot; Little Dinas&quot;near Falmouth, Trevelgue near St Columb, and Treryn, Men, Kenedjack, Bosigran, and others in the west. These are all fortified against the land side. (8.) Hill castles, or camps, are very numerous. Castel-an- Dinas, near St Columb, is the best example of the earth work camp, and Chun Castle near Penzance, of the stone. Of early and mediaeval antiquities the most noticeable are crosses, scattered all over the county, and of various dates, from the 6th to the 16th century, many resembling the early crosses of Wales ; inscribed sepulchral stones of the 7th and 8th centuries, of which the &quot;men scryffa&quot;in Madron is a good example; and oratories of the early Irish type. St Pirans is the most important of these. The Cornish churches, for the most part, belong to the Perpendicular style of architecture, and are generally low in the body, but with high and plain granite towers. The rich tower of Probus, however, is an exception, as well as the church of St Mary Magdalene at Launceston, the exterior of which is covered with sculpture. Within, the chief feature is the absence of a chancel arch. The castles of Launcestou, Trematon, and Restormel seem to be of the time of Henry III., but the mounds which occur in the first two are no doubt much earlier, possibly marking British strongholds. Tintagel has b.it a few shapeless walls. Of later castles there is Pendennis (built temp. Henry VIII.); St Michael s Mount, although castellated at an early period, has nothing more ancient than the 15th century. Language. The old Cornish language survives in a few words still in use in the fishing and mining communities, as well as in the names of persons and places, but the last persons who spoke it died toward the end of the 18th century. It belonged to the Cymric division of Celtic, in which Welsh and Arrnorican are also included. The most important relics of the language known to exist are three dramas or miracle plays, edited and translated by Edwin Norris, Oxford, 1859. A sketch of Cornish grammar is added, and a Cornish vocabulary from a MS. of the 13th century (Cotton MSS. Vespasian A. 14, p. 7rt). The only dictionary of the language is Williams s Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum, 1865. See Max Miiller s Chips, vol. iii. ; also CELTIC LITERATURE, vol. v. pp. 298, 323. Parliamentary Representation. The duchy returns 13 members to Parliament, 4 for the county (2 from the east division and 2 from the west division) and 9 from the following boroughs: Truro (pop. 11,049), 2; Penryn and Falmouth (pop. 16,819), 2; St Ives (pop. 9992), 1; Liskeard (pop. 6576), 1 ; B&amp;lt;&amp;gt;dmin, the assize town (pop. 6758), 1, Helston (pop. 8760), 1 ; Launceston -(pop. 5468), 1. The municipal borough of Penryn has 3679 inhabitants, Falmouth 5294, St Ives 6965, Liskeard 4700, Bodmin 4672, He ston 3797, Launceston 2935. Penzance, which is unrepresented, has 10,414. Gentlemen s Seals. The principal houses to be noticed in Cornwall are Mount Edgecumbe (earl of Mount Eclge- cumbe), originally Tudor of Queen Mary s time, but much altered ; the grounds and gardens are, however, more important than the house ; Cotele, on the Tamar (dowager countess of Mount Edgecumbe), a most striking place, the house Tudor, temp. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and little changed ; it contains the ancient furniture ; Antony, the seat of the Carews; Pentillie (A. Coryton, Esq.); Port Eliot (earl of St Germans); Trelawne (Sir John Trelawny); Menabilly (Jonathan Rashleigh, Esq.); B jconnoc (Hon. G. M. Fortescue), where are the finest woods in the county; Lanhydrock (Lord Robartes), built between 1636-1651, and containing a very picturesque gallery, with richly moulded roof ; Glynn (Lord Vivian) ;