Anniversaries

A protest that began in Cornwall comes to a bloody conclusion in the capital

It might seem odd that the great Cornish I

Rebellion of 1497, one of the landmarks in the county’s history, came to an end with a battle in Deptford, now in south London.

$WV KP C YC[ VJCV ECRVWTGU VJG UVTCPIG ʚCXQWT of this half-forgotten episode.

The rebellion had been triggered at the end of the previous year, when the Tudor king Henry VII, well known for his ability to squeeze money QWV QH JKU UWDLGEVU UWURGPFGF %QTPYCNNoU long-standing tax exemptions. Under Michael An Gof, a blacksmith, and Thomas Flamank, a lawyer and former MP, several thousand Cornishmen rose up and marched into Devon.

Unfortunately, their strategy was not entirely clear. The king did nothing, so the Cornishmen had no choice but to keep going. They moved on to Bristol, Salisbury and Winchester, but still Henry did nothing. Some of them went home; others moved on to Kent, and then into Surrey. Eventually, on 17 June, they arrived in Deptford – and this time Henry’s army was waiting.

The battle itself was something of a shambles. At one point Henry’s commander got so carried away that he ended up being captured by the Cornish. Bizarrely, though, they immediately let him go. The upshot, anyway, was that the Cornishmen were defeated and their leaders arrested. Both were sentenced to be hanged and then beheaded. Before he died, An Gof made the rousing declaration that they were destined to have “a name perpetual and a fame permanent and immortal”. Yet, as it turns out, most people have never heard of him.

Painted on deer hide, a Native American artwork shows Custer’s troops being butchered at Little Bighorn. The battle is remembered as a “symbol of a vanished age”, says Dominic Sandbrook

A statue on Cornwall’s Lizard peninsula depicting the leaders of the 1497 Cornish Rebellion