Cornish History and Lanson
 

 
Written evidence about the Celtic Church and the Kings of Cornwall is scarce, but the cluster of Lann names around Launceston is significant. The late fourteenth-century Calendar of Cornish Saints from Launceston Priory is the chief such record found in Cornwall itself. Nine miles south of Launceston at Hingston Down the Danes joined the Cornish in a ninth-century battle with the Saxons. In 926 Athelstan "banished the Welsh to beyond the Tamar" and ever since Launceston has been a border town.

Dunheved and Launceston were for centuries after the Norman Conquest (1066) the chief military and ecclesiastical stations within the Earldom (later Duchy) of Cornwall. This great medieval fortress and its dungeons, once known as "Castle Terrible", was the bustling centre of a vast feudal estate stretching from the "Tamar to Land's End". For 700 years it was the centre of Cornish Government. Between 1140 and 1176 the Earl of Cornwall confirmed the rights of LANSTONE in a statement "to all his people" whether "Franks, Angles or Walense". The Franks, mentioned first, were of course the Norman French, and the Walense, mentioned last, were the Cornish Britons or "Welsh".

During the Civil War the Cornish were fighting for their Royalist privileges, notably the Duchy and Stannaries. Stoyle says that in 1646 "the Cornish saw the Civil War as a fight between England and Cornwall as much as a conflict between King and Parliament." Similarly, when Sir Richard Grenville marched to Launceston he stationed Cornish troops along the Tamar and issued them with instructions to keep "all foreign troops out of the county". Grenville tried to use "Cornish particularist sentiment" to muster support for the Royalist cause and put a plan to the Prince which would , if implemented, have created a semi-independent Cornwall. Sir Richard sent several letters to the gentlemen of the county to meet him at LANSON (sic) in December 1645. Note that Clarendon's History attempts to blacken Sir Richard's name. The attitude of people in Lanson can be gleaned from the fact that in 1704 the grieving relatives of Hugh Piper of Launceston were PROUD that he had served in the Civil War with Sir Richard in the Cornish Army at the siege of Plymouth.

At the Launceston Assizes of 1678 the visiting Lord Chief Justice doubted whether there were any WRITTEN records of Cornish "now remaineing". In response that great but neglected patriot Wm Scawen produced a 100-page treatise entitled Antiquities Cornu-Brittanic or Memorials of the Primitive Speech of Cornwall. Sadly this work is unknown to most people in Cornwall today.

Cornish miners used the name Launceston for a town in Tasmania. The spelling LANSON can still be seen on a granite post in Bodmin with a finger pointing towards the new A30 road.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

The Histories of Launceston and Dunheved, by Richard Peter (Town Clerk) and son, published in Plymouth, 1885

Medieval Cornwall, by Rev L.E. Elliott-Binns DD, Canon of Truro, Methuen, London, 1955

The Saints of Cornwall, Nicholas Orme (Professor of History in Exeter), published by Oxford University, 2000

West Britons, by Mark Stoyle (Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Southampton) published by University of Exeter Press, 2002

Castles of Cornwall, Mary & Hal Price, Bossiney Books, 1980