Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
An English army arrived to relieve the Scots siege of Stirling (above). Bruce (above left)
defeated the English army under Edward II, who was lucky to escape with his life. The Scots
victory at the Battle of Bannockburn secured complete Scots independence.
Scotland stayed relatively clear of the English until the consequences of Henry VIII's sister
marrying the King of Scotland, coupled with the failure of any of Henry VIII's own children
to produce an heir, led to the installation of James VI of Scotland as James I of England.
1|Page
Nica Mihaela-Catalina
2|Page
Nica Mihaela-Catalina
3|Page
Nica Mihaela-Catalina
A small rebellion - the Easter Rising of 1916 - was put down quickly by the government.
Crass mishandling by the British resulted in many of the leaders of the Easter Rising being
shot by firing squad, and the extremists acquired the status of martyers. In the election in
1918 73 of the 106 Irish seats went to Sinn Fein, who refused to go to Westminster and set up
a provisional government in Ireland. There then followed 3 years of bitter guerilla war with
atrocities on both sides, before a truce was finally signed in 1921, which led to the "final
solution of the Irish Problem " with partition. The Irish Free State in the South and the
continuation of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.
It is clear today that the Irish problem has not been solved - whether it ever can be is the
question. Northern Protestants feel they have a right to determine their own future
democratically on the basis of being in the majority. Northern Catholics feel they have the
right to be part of a united Ireland. Whilst both sides are suspicious of the other, it is unlikely
that a lasting solution can be found. Wherever in the world ethnic divisions exist (Bosnia,
Ruanda, Kashmir, Timor, Chetchin. Lebanon, Palestine) solutions are seldom forthcoming.
4|Page
Nica Mihaela-Catalina
Wales has been governed from London via the Welsh Office, under a cabinet minister.
Following the referendum on limited devolution in 1997, the Welsh were seen to be virtually
equally spilt on the subject, with the more rural "Welsh" areas being for devolution, and the
more industrial areas being against it.
5|Page
Nica Mihaela-Catalina
When I first drove down to live in Cornwall more than 20 years ago, I was
met by a graffiti message on a railway bridge near Truro: "Go home,
English!" I should have taken it personally. I should have politely turned
around to head back across the Tamar. I was exactly the sort of incomer
who was swamping the last little islands of Cornishness. But in fact, I found
it heartening. Cornwall was not England that was why I'd come.
6|Page
Nica Mihaela-Catalina
It is less folksy and more physical, something from the soil itself, like the
radon gas that seeps out of the granite of Carnmenellis or West Penwith.
The survival of Cornish identity can be traced, on one level, to the quirk of
geomorphology and tectonics that placed the sea on three sides and made
most of the fourth out of the river Tamar. The shape is reflected in the
name: the "Corn-" comes from the Cornish "kern", or "horn" ( the Cornish
name for Cornwall, Kernow, is now as ubiquitous as St Piran's flag, and has
the same root). Trying to identify Cornwall's appeal, Jacquetta Hawkes
reached for its shape: "Cornwall is England's horn, its point thrust out into
the sea."
The second Tudor revolt is no less keenly remembered. The Prayer book
rebellion of 1549 was a reaction against the introduction of a vernacular
prayer book in English. Although the liturgy had been said in Latin until
then, everyone knew it and the Creed was uttered in Cornish. The Cornish
were right to feel threatened by Cranmer's innovation, that it would
undermine the survival of their own language. The rebels marched east
again, "lusty and fresh, and fully bent to fight out the matter". They
besieged Exeter but, in the end they too were defeated, several thousand
were killed and the leaders taken to prominent places and hanged.
7|Page
Nica Mihaela-Catalina
Apart from the few scraps of literature, there is one everyday reminder of
the Cornish language, a faint but constant echo of the county's non-
Englishness: its place names. They have proved a vital part of the
revivalists' attempts to reassemble the vocabulary and structure of Cornish.
For the rest of us, the names are a spicy addition to the ceaselessly
rewarding pursuit of walking or driving through the county's back roads.
All those Zs, for instance from the far west, Penzance ("holy headland"),
Nanjizal ("low valley"), and Zennor (from St Senara). The saints themselves
offer another dimension to Cornwall's otherness, making many road signs
look as though they've been swiped from a hagiographic theme park.
Although in fact the 80% of Cornish parishes named Saint-something do
not reflect the region's innate holiness merely the lack of villages when
parish boundaries were drawn.
More than anything, Cornwall's particularity lies in its abiding and diverse
sense of place. No other region of England offers such a range of dramatic
landscapes, nor carries such a freight of mythology and projection. Many
archaeologists now explain the vast numbers of Neolithic and early bronze
age monuments, both on mainland Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, in terms
of ritual or sacred landscape. Areas such as Bodmin Moor and West
Penwith, rich in standing stones and stone circles, are believed to have been
vast arenas for visual alignments, focusing on certain hills.
The old man grabbed his hand and thrust it into the soil. "Feel that, boy,"
he said, "that's the beating heart of Cornwall. But don't you go telling
Grandma she thinks I'm a good Methodist."
8|Page
Nica Mihaela-Catalina
Retaining a sense of being Cornish has been made more challenging by the
growing influx of visitors, many with their own strong ideas of what
Cornwall represents. The artists who gathered in St Ives in the 1930s were
drawn in part by west Cornwall's freedom from the Englishness that
pervaded the rest of the country. Being a modernist or abstract
expressionist was a lot easier when you could contemplate the raw intensity
of rock and cliff and sea without any regard for local tradition.
Only one of the more prominent artists was Cornish. Peter Lanyon wrestled
with the abstractions his peers practised. The landscape to him was his own
past, the presence of his own ancestors: "How they natter at my feet, these
fellows!" he wrote. If he saw anyone painting the view out along the coast
path, he would stride up to them and say: "You do realise, don't you, that
there are miners working in those cliffs."
Cornwall is not big a tapering sliver of land no more than 80 miles long.
But within it, you can travel a short distance and be in a different world.
9|Page
Nica Mihaela-Catalina
Go inland from the glitzy coastal surf and sailing resorts, and you reach
empty moorland, or tidal creeks fringed with oakwoods, or the weird, white
landscape of the China-clay country, or the deprived, thickly populated
districts around Redruth and Camborne. The traditions of the Cornish are
likewise hidden from those who visit only the coast.
There is some scepticism west of the Tamar about what their new status
will really mean. But it can do no harm to remind those unfamiliar with the
south-west that the Cornish are not really English, and that Cornwall is
not really England.
10 | P a g e