English and Cornish; though there is said to be some evidence that even as late as the reign of Elizabeth, Cornish was spoken in a few places to the east of the Tamar, notably in the South Hams.  Polwhele, however, limits the South Hams use of Cornish to the time of Edward I., and we know from the English Chronicle that when Athelstan drove the “Welsh” out of Exeter in 936, he set the Tamar for their boundary.  In the reign of Henry VIII. we have an account given by Andrew Borde in his Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, written in 1542.  He says, “In Cornwall is two speches, the one is naughty Englysshe, and the other is Cornysshe speche.  And there be many men and women the which cannot speake one worde of Englysshe, but all Cornyshe.”  He then gives the Cornish numerals and a few sentences of ordinary conversation.  These are much mixed with English, and were, no doubt, such as might have been heard on the borders of Devon, for he probably did not penetrate very far, being doubtless deterred by the impossibility of obtaining drinkable beer—a circumstance which seems to have much exercised his mind in describing Cornwall.  These numerals and sentences are, as far as is known, the earliest specimens of printed Cornish, earlier by a hundred and sixty-five years than Lhuyd’s Grammar, though Dr. Jago,

quoting from Drew and Hutchins, who had evidently never seen this book, Dr. Davies’s Llyfr y Resolusion of 1632, or Gibson’s edition of Camden’s Britannia of 1695, says that there is no evidence that anything was ever printed in Cornish before Lhuyd.

The Reformation did much to kill Cornish.  Had the Book of Common Prayer been translated into Cornish and used in that tongue, two things might have happened which did not—the whole language might have been preserved to us, and the Cornish as a body might have been of the Church of England, instead of remaining (more or less) of the old religion until the perhaps unavoidable neglect of its authorities caused them to drift into the outward irreligion from which John Wesley rescued them. [12]  But it is said by Scawen and by Bishop Gibson in his continuation of Camden’s Britannia, that they desired that the Prayer-book might not be translated, and, though the statement is disputed, it is quite possible that the upper classes, who spoke English, did make some such representation, and that the bulk of the population in Cornwall, as elsewhere, had no wish for the Reformed Service-book in any language; for there were churches in Cornwall in which the old Mass according to the Use of Salisbury was celebrated as late as the seventeenth century, notably in the Arundel Chapel in St. Columb Church, as may clearly be inferred from the inscription on the tomb of John Arundel and his wife, the latter of whom died in 1602.

It is asserted by Carew, Polwhele, Davies Gilbert, Borlase, and others, that in the time of Henry VIII. Dr. John Moreman, the parson of Menheniot, was the first to teach his parishioners the Creed, Lord’s Prayer, and Commandments in English, these having been

“used in Cornish beyond all remembrance.”  This same Dr. Moreman is mentioned in the petition (or rather demand) presented to Edward VI. by the Cornwall and Devon insurgents, in favour of the old form of worship.  One paragraph of this is as follows:—“We will not receive the new service, because it is but like a Christmas game.  We will have our old service of Matins, Mass, Evensong, and Procession as it was before; and we the Cornish, whereof certain of us understand no English, do utterly refuse the new service.”

In the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, during the course of the many discussions on church matters, a number of articles were drawn up, to judge by their general tone, by the extreme Protestant party, and a copy of these, taken from a MS. in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, occurs in Egerton MS. 2350, f. 54, in the British Museum.  They are entitled “Articles drawn out by some certaine, and were exhibited to be admitted by authority, but not so admitted,” and their date, to judge by accompanying letters, etc., is about 1560.  The last article is “A punishment for such as cannot say the Catechisme,” and in it there occurs the following sentence: “Item that it may be lawfull for such Welch or Cornish children as can speake no English to learne the Præmises in the Welch tongue or Cornish language.”

In the same reign, but somewhat later, a report on England, addressed to Philip II. of Spain by an Italian agent, speaks thus of Cornwall: “Li hauitanti sono del tutto differenti di parlare, di costume et di leggi alli Inglesi; usano le leggi imperiali cosi como fa ancola li Walsche loro vicini; quali sono in prospettiva alli Irlanda et sono similmente tenuti la maggior parte Cattolici.”  However, since the agent insists that the Severn divides Cornwall from England, he can hardly have known much about the country.  The report occurs

among a number of Spanish state papers in Add. MS. 28,420, in the British Museum.

In Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, written about 1600, we read, however, that the language had been driven into the uttermost parts of the Duchy, and that very few were ignorant of English, though many affected to know only their own tongue.  It seems, however, from what he says further on, that the guaries, or miracle plays, were then commonly acted in Cornish, and that the people flocked to them in large numbers, and evidently understood them.  Carew adds that the principal love and knowledge of the language died with one “Dr. Kennall, the civilian,” probably John Kennall, D.C.L., Archdeacon of Oxford.  Carew gives the numerals and a few other specimens of the language.

In a survey of Cornwall, by John Norden, entitled Speculum Magnæ Britanniæ, pars Cornwall, addressed to James I., the following account of the language is given.

“The Cornish people for the moste parte are descended of British stocke, though muche mixed since with the Saxon and Norman bloude, but untill of late years retayned the British speache uncorrupted as theirs of Wales is.  For the South Wales man understandeth not perfectly the North Wales man, and the North Wales man little of the Cornish, but the South Wales man much.  The pronunciation of the tongue differs in all, but the Cornish is far the easier to be pronounced.”  Here he goes on to compare the sound of it with the Welsh, to the disadvantage of the latter. . . . “But of late the Cornishmen have much conformed themselves to the use of the English tongue, and their English is equal to the best, especially in the Eastern partes; even from Truro eastward is in a manner wholly Englishe.  In the west parte of the county, as in the Hundreds of Penwith and Kerrier, the Cornishe tongue is mostly in use, and yet it is to be marvelled that

though husband and wife, parents and children, master and servauntes, doe mutually communicate in their native language, yet there is none of them but in manner is able to converse with a stranger in the English tongue, unless it be some obscure persons that seldom converse with the better sort.”

In 1630 Sir John Dodridge in his History of the Ancient and Modern estate of the Principality of Wales, Duchy of Cornwall, and Earldom of Chester, says: “The people inhabiting the same [i.e. Cornwall] are call’d Cornishmen, and are also reputed a remanent of