Charles I visited Cornwall, and was so impressed by the devotion and loyalty of the people that he addressed to them a letter of recognition, copies of which may be seen in some of the churches. Prince Charles spent a great part of the autumn and winter of 1645 in Cornwall; on March 2, 1645-6, he embarked at Pendennis Castle for the Scilly Isles, where he "was much straitened for provisions." He quitted Scilly on April 16, and landed next day in Jersey, whence he sailed for France. Queen Henrietta Maria had left Pendennis for France in July, 1644.
Cornwall took no active part in the Revolution; in the European War, it sent forth many gallant sailors, among whom in the first place may be reckoned Admiral Boscawen, "old Dreadnought." But since the Civil War the history of the Duchy has been mainly one of social and industrial advance. The principal events stirring the community were the introduction of steam-engines to pump the mines, affrays with smugglers, and the excitement and unlimited bribery and corruption at elections in the rotten boroughs till these latter were swept away by the Reform Bill of 1832. About these rotten boroughs a few words must be said. The old boroughs that existed before the reign of Edward VI were Truro, Helston, Lostwithiel, Bodmin, Liskeard, and Launceston. But the advisers of Edward VI, conscious of insecure tenure of the throne and doubting whether the country was willing to go with them in their sweeping alterations in religion, and desirous of counteracting the growing importance of the House of Commons, considered that their object would be best attained by conferring the right of returning members of Parliament upon the obscure dependent villages of Cornwall. Accordingly Saltash, Camelford, West Looe, Bossiney, Grampound, Penryn, Mitchell, and Newport were elevated into boroughs, each returning two members to Parliament.
St Mawes, Falmouth Harbour
Under Queen Mary, St Ives received the same privileges, and under Elizabeth six more were made boroughs with the same rights, St Germans, St Mawes, Tregony, East Looe, Fowey, and Callington. Some of these places, as Mitchell, Tregony, and St Mawes, were mere hamlets. They all soon passed away from the direct control of the Crown and fell into the hands of borough mongers who returned what members they liked, by gross bribery, expecting to be repaid with Baronetcies and with lucrative sinecures by the Ministry of the day they supported.
20. Antiquities: Prehistoric, Roman, Celtic, Saxon.
The first men who inhabited our island were the merest savages. They had no knowledge of the use of metals, they could not make pottery; they had not domesticated the cow, the sheep, or the dog. They used extremely rude flint weapons and tools. They were contemporary with the cave bear, the woolly rhinoceros, the mammoth, and the cave hyæna, all which beasts then lived in Britain; and at that time the temperature was much colder than at present. This period is called the Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age.
The next race that entered our island found the temperature much as it is now. They were comparatively civilised. They still used flint implements, but of a very superior type, and far better finished than those of the earlier race. Moreover they were agricultural, grew corn, had cows and sheep and dogs, and made pottery. This race it was which erected the so-called cromlechs, stone circles, and tall upright stones. The remains of their villages of circular stone huts are very numerous on the moors. This period is called the Neolithic, or New Stone Age.