STANDS THE STANNARY

The Nationalists of Cornwall say some, already have their own parliament – an ancient institution recently mislaid. ALEXANDER FRATER met the men who wait for a single, revivifying legal judgement.

Down in Cornwall something is stirring. Not since the days of the shipwreckers and the brand-wine smugglers had the Duchy known such odd comings and goings. Rumours abound. Feelings run high. Advocacy is rife. Obscure legal precedents are bandied about like Newmarket starting prices and all because, in the smoky dining room of the Commercial Hotel, St Austell, a group of conspirators sit over their scrumpy and chops planning to ambush the British Constitution. Their aim – once them booggers up at Westminster have been mown down – is the reincarnation of a semi-feudal society, independent, self-governing, godly, and run according to the gilded precepts of the Magna Carta.

Briefly, they have discovered the bones of an ancient working parliament, all ready to be disinterred, wired together and put in motion again. Known as the Stannary, its members were miners, its powers considerable, its thinking largely circumscribed by tin. It had lain undisturbed and almost forgotten for 200 years when, in January, 1974, the whole of Cornwall was dramatically reminded of its existence.

The Truro-based workers of the English China Clay Company, protesting at the Pay Board’s rejection of a promised wage rise, suddenly received, out of the blue, a letter and a petition form. The letter, long, excited and declamatory, with many passages emphasised in capitals, explained that the Pay Board was not recognised in Cornwall, and that its decisions were therefore of no consequence. The only authority which could arbitrate on the dispute (it said) was Cornwall’s own parliament. “SIGN THIS PETITION,” demanded the letter, “asking for your own Miner’s Parliament to be Convened once more. They will then meet, and REAFFIRM that Their Laws are VALID, and have NEVER BEEN REVOKED…”

The letter was signed Frederick R. A. Trull, and the salutation was in Cornish, a language which Mr Trull does not actually speak (only 200 do) but it was a shrewd and emotive touch. The China Clay men, with nothing to lose, signed in their hundreds, and Mr Trull found himself holding the ancient constitutional key with which – theoretically, anyway – he could re-open the Stannary Parliament.

But what exactly was the Stannary Parliament? Most Cornishmen had heard about it, but had relegated it to the nether regions of the mind, along with all the other dusty artifacts of forgotten history lessons. Mr Trull, in a series of notices and press releases, set about reminding them. The Stannary was an ancient assembly of tin miners with unusual legislative and judicial rights. These included “Power in Chancerie to judge in Equity, Power of the Star Chamber to judge and to punish Ryotts, Perjurers, etc.. Power to hold a Parliament and to make laws, Power to muster Tinners” – a euphemism for raising an army. Its origins, according to Mr Trull, go back 2,000 years, though legal historians treat this figure sceptically, there seems little doubt, despite the absence of records, that a Parliament of Tinners was sitting in the tenth century. Its authority remained shadowy until 1508 when, after a tussle with Henry VII over the stamping of assay marks on tin, it was granted the Charter of Pardon. This formalised it and gave it significant right of veto of Westminster. Later it acquired Upper and Lower chambers and seemed set for a long and fruitful reign; its downfall was due to a combination of historical circumstances and natural atrophy.

Cornwall was becoming English. The Prayer Book Rising of 1549 was the last serious attempt to check the insidious influences creeping across the border, and it failed. While Westminster’s authority grew, the Stannary’s waned. By 1770, overcome with inertia after nearly a thousand years of continuous rule, it lay down and went to sleep. During the 1870s the miners themselves faced a slump and many emigrated, destitute. Then, in the 1880s, Westminster passed the County Councils Act – the mention of which still gets Mr Trull’s dander up – and Cornwall, stripped of her ancient rights and privileges, resignedly settled down to her role as just another bit of England.

That was the situation until a year ago. But then Fred Trull, and his friend Brian Hambley, came on the scene.

Both are avowed nationalists and both have, for some time, been seeking a means of reviving the Duchy’s flagging fortunes. The Stannary, comatose but still constitutional, provided the perfect answer.

Mr Trull, a slight, neat, rather secretive man who works as a freelance night security guard, is the brains. Mr Hambley, a bluff and eloquent bus driver with a carrying voice, is the mouthpiece. Both men live in St Austell – Mr Hambley in a council house, Mr Trull in a cottage on the outskirts of the town. Mr Trull is divorced. Mr Hambley is married to a comfortable, pleasant lady who supports him loyally in his endeavours. The two men are an improbable duo, but they have proved remarkably effective nevertheless. The waves they have made have washed right up to the portals of Westminster. How did they do it? Easy. They simply followed the rules.

The rules are straightforward enough. Having obtained a miners’ petition (supplied by the English China Clay workers) requesting the reconvening of the Stannary, you submit it to the Lord Warden of the Stannaries, with the request that he put the sequence in motion. The Lord Warden, Earl Waldegrave – a director of Lloyds Bank and the Bristol Waterworks – is personally appointed by Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall, to act as a link man between the Stannary and Buckingham Palace. His task, on receipt of this petition, is to issue writs to the Mayors of the four Stannary towns (Launceston, Lostwithiel, Truro and Helston), instructing them to summon their Corporations and elect 24 Stannators from the lists of nominees submitted to them.

But something went badly wrong. “We sent the signatures to the Lord Warden,” says Mr Trull, “and nothing happened. So I rang him. He was extremely considerate and charming, but he made it quite plain the he was unable to proceed.”

What was stopping him? There the mystery thickens. Mr Trull and Mr Hambley mutter darkly. Aspersions are cast. The names of people in high places are bandied about, but it is clear that neither of them know. Did Prince Charles personally intervene? It is quite possible, but, if so, it was done through Counsel, and Counsel are not saying. But sources close to the Duchy’s solicitors imply that a showdown would be in everybody’s best interests. What they would like Mr Trull to do – since there is a genuine uncertainty about Prince Charles’ rights of refusal – is issue a Writ of Mandamus through the High Court, ordering the Prince to instruct the Lord Warden to convene the Stannary. The Duchy’s lawyers would contest it, the judges would pronounce and the issue would be settled, one way or another, once and for all.

That notion has immense appeal for Mr Trull, because he thinks he would win. Only one thing is stopping him – money. The cost of a complex and protracted case would be beyond the means of the Stannary’s tiny Exchequer. So he has done the next best thing. For the cost of a stamp he has impleaded (from the Middle English “emplede” – to sue, arraign or impeach) the Queen. He wrote to her asking that “your Majesty be Pleased to Approve your Stannary Parliament, the same having existed these many centuries past, by Usage, Custom, and Common right, and Granted those Divers Liberties, Powers and Franchises by your Majesty’s Royal Progenitors”. He further asked that “we may be spared the abhorrence of seeking a writ of Mandamus against our Lord Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall,” and then composed himself to wait the 40 days which Magna Carta gives the monarch to reply.

During the period the postman, calling at the Commercial Hotel, was greeted with uncharacteristic eagerness – but nothing came from the Palace. Says Mr Hambley, “She is supposed to consult with her barons and let us know. She didn’t, so we sent her a reminder. That brought a letter from the Home Office, requesting details of our election methods. Still no word from the Queen, though, so we sent her a final Note stating that if redress was not received forthwith, we would invoke the provisions of Magna Carta and start seizing Crown property.”

But reason prevailed. They decided to leave the Queen out of it and go it alone. They assembled the ancient Tin Court, or Court of Haldhu, and explained the position to the roomful of miners present. (Historically, the term “miner” is broadly-based; even owning units in a unit trust – which will almost certainly incorporate mining shares – qualifies one as a “miner-in-ordinary”, while those actively engaged in the trade have the status of “privileged miners”.) The Tin Court decided, more or less unanimously, to elect members and reactivate the Stannary. Constitutionally they were skating on thin ice, but they were past caring. The deed was done. Mr Hambley was elected Lord Protector of Cornwall (acting in locum tenens for the Lord Warden), and Mr Trull was elected Clerk. But their exaltation was short-lived. The Home Office wrote saying that the elections had not been conducted according to the rules laid down by the Charter of Pardon, and therefore the Stannary would not be recognised. “But,” the Lord Protector points out, “Whitehall were the very ones who stopped us putting the Charter of Pardon election machinery into operation in the first place. They had us over a barrel. We decided to ignore them, and proceed as planned.”

The formal opening ceremony took place at Lostwithiel, the ancient capital, on May 20, 1974. Invitations were issued to the Queen, the leaders of the main political parties and every ambassador accredited to the Court of St James, asking them to attend the Monmouth Hotel at nine o’clock in the morning. Only two dignitaries turned up. One was the First Secretary of the Cuban Embassy, the other the Chargé d'Affaires from the Khmer Republic. “Present troubles apart,” explains Mr Trull, “the Republic was in the news once before when the entire population of one of their cities was kidnapped by creatures from outer space.”

After refreshments at the Monmouth, the party moved across the road to the Royal Talbot where, after prayers, Mr Hambley delivered a lengthy address and declared the Parliament open. Since then it as met in formal session several times – its 24 members include businessmen, pensioners, a peer of the realm (Lord Eliot of Port Eliot), a stockbroker and several “privileged miners” – to discuss Cornwall’s future and to brood, somewhat fretfully, over their own.

Have they got one? One extremely authoritative person would seem to think so. Professor Robert Pennington of the Birmingham University Law Faculty believes the odds are in their favour. “With such a long history of power and legislation,” he says, “the Stannary has a valid constitutional foundation – and the courts have, in the past, recognised it as such. To take just one legal point – according to the Charter of Pardon, any legislation going through Westminster which concerns tin mining even marginally (such as a Bill dealing with industrial wastes) should be referred to the Stannary for approval. The Stannary will consider the legislation and, if it doesn’t like it, it can reject it.”

A Duchy spokesman says the authority of the Stannary does not reach that far. “They never rejected legislation,” he said. “They refined it, and adapted it to local conditions. If a Bill recommending the use of square shovels was going through Parliament, the Stannary would have been within their rights to say, ‘Don’t be silly; square shovels are never used here. We use round ones’. That is all. They could not have rejected the use of shovels absolutely.”

The Duchy’s solicitors agree – “All they can do is proselytize and put the Cornish viewpoint.” But Professor Pennington does not. “On a strictly legal basis they do possess the power to reject Parliamentary Bills while they are still in passage through the House. And the only way for the Stannary to establish their authority is to make a test case. They should choose a Bill involving the mines – Tony Benn’s Industry Bill would do very well – and then they should ask Prince Charles to issue instructions for the convening of the Stannary on the grounds of their entitlement to meet and discuss it. The Prince, presumably, would refuse. They could then seek a Writ of Mandamus against him and force him to fight the case. It would be fascinating to see which way it went. We have never, in this country, had litigation on a general constitutional question before.”

Meanwhile, lacking the resources to take his cause to the High Court, Mr Trull has had to make do with the St Austell Magistrates Court instead. When he was arrested for driving his antique Ford Consul at 47 mph through a built-up area he realised that the Stannary had been given a unique opportunity. They would not merely fight the case. They would challenge the whole English judiciary by arguing that the court was not competent to try him.

For several days the Commercial Hotel hummed with activity as the defence was prepared. John Penderill-Church, a fellow Stannator, technical writer and lecturer in the occult, argued that Mr Trull should refuse to recognise the English mile and acknowledge only the Cornish Stannary mile – 2000 fathoms, or 1 ½ statute miles. Mr Hambley said that admitting only to driving at 70,000 fathoms an hour was splitting hairs. What Mr Trull had to do was refuse to recognise the court itself.

To add weight to their case, Mr Hambley nailed a notice on the courthouse door, ten minutes before proceedings were due to start, closing the building. The court, unruffled, proceeded for business. Mr Trull, refusing to enter the dock, made an impassioned speech from the rear of the court, arguing that the magistrates had no authority to try him. He said that this was an alien court, imposing alien laws, and that he was answerable only to the justices and statutes of the Stannary. To show that he meant business, he then announced that he was arresting the Clerk, Mr Anthony Wherle. Instead, Mr Trull was fined £44 for speeding, then charged with committing a breach of the peace. For the moment, the Stannary waits, pondering its future. Lacking the authority of statehood, it has nevertheless assumed some of its trappings. It has, for example, issued its own money - £3,000 worth, much of which Mr Trull carries on his person, ready to sell at a moment’s notice. It is on a parity with Sterling, backed by a Sterling deposit account (Mr Trull’s Giro card is the only Cornish-language one in existence) and by a trove of gold sovereigns and Maria Theresa dollars bought, wholesale, by Mr Trull, using his own money and donations. Until he has founded the Bank of Cornwall – one of his avowed claims – he will continue to issue the money personally. A few St Austell shopkeepers will accept the money, but they tend, in the words of one of them, to be those “who know which street corner Fred is standing on at any given moment of the day, so that they can, if they got nervous, redeem it for gold within minutes”. The Bank of England has not, so far, interfered. It regards Mr Trull’s money as mere IOUs, or promissory notes, and anyone is free to issue those.

This Stannary’s other plans for Cornwall range from a £2 levy on all tourists entering the Duchy, to a firm stand on the matter of fishing rights. When some Russian trawlers strayed into Cornish water, Mr Trull promptly fired off a letter to the Ambassador of the Soviet Union. “We are willing,” he wrote, “to overlook this recent incident, as your fleets were not probably aware of Our Limits; however, any future incident . . . will be treated with the utmost seriousness, and we shall use every means at Our disposal to disencourage such trespass. We await your Excellency’s assurance, on behalf of the Government of the Soviet Union, that this will not be repeated, to Our Displeasure.”

The Russian Ambassador did not reply, but Mr Trull feels that Cornwall must establish itself as a force in diplomatic circles. The Stannary will not be maintaining its own embassies abroad (British ambassadors will be asked to double as Cornish representatives) though it plans to employ at least one full-time diplomat – Mr Trull himself. “I shall be a roving ambassador,” he said, “a sort of Cornish Kissinger.”

The extent of his travels will depend on the health of the Cornish Exchequer. Where the Stannary will get its money from is not entirely clear, particularly as it has promised to reduce income tax by 5p in the pound and corporation tax to 27 per cent. Presumably tourism will make a substantial contribution, as would a scheme – still in the discussion stage – for declaring Cornwall a duty-free state, like Singapore, where everything from liquor to transistor radios would be available at greatly reduced prices.

Most Cornishmen regard these notions as daft. On an emotional level, however, particularly among those with families rooted deep in the Duchy, the Stannary enjoys considerable popular support. The Cornish, as a Truro railwayman points out, are in a minority in their own country. “Only a third of us are actually Cornish,” he says. “We’re outnumbered by English migrants and the Stannary, if it got itself organised, would speak for the likes of us.” But a well-to-do St Austell housewife was dismissive. “They’re a joke. They elected themselves you know. The whole thing is simply a silly historical excursion involving a bunch of muddled opportunists.”

Most reservations people have tend to concern the men running it now. “Whenever you read about the Stannary in the press,” says a St Austell garage proprietor, “they always point out that the Lord Protector is a bus driver and the Clerk is a night watchman. Cornwall is getting a rough deal from Westminster – who seem to regard us as nothing more than a large holiday camp – and something needs to be done. The Stannary, properly constituted and run, seems to be our only legal means of doing it.”

One of the men frequently mentioned as a future leader is a mining executive named Joseph Bendle. Chief Surveyor of the sizeable Wheal Jane Tin Mine, Bendle is educated, travelled, bright and personable. And his initial reaction to the Stannary, when he was persuaded to attend his first meeting, was one of derision. “I thought they were a bunch of twits,” he says. “But when I had listened to them, and read their laws, I realised there was a great deal of substance in their argument. The laws are there. They’re a bit dusty now, but just as valid as ever, and Westminster must recognise us, even if it’s only on a limited basis. They’re just too big and introspective to cope with a place as remote as this.”

But it is not just the problems of centralisation that concerns Bendle. There are industrial and monetary problems peculiar to Cornwall which need urgent re-appraisal as well. Mining is one of the foundations on which the Duchy’s fortunes were built and, says Mr Bendle, “Mining is the only industry that starts to die the day it begins. So while it’s all right to soak some factory in the Midlands for corporation tax, it’s dreadfully unfair to levy the same tax on a depreciating industry like ours. London just doesn’t comprehend that. Another thing it fails to understand is the extent of the dissatisfaction down here. It’s tremendous, and growing all the time. Something has to be done, and we’re trying to do it. For example, we pay out an estimated £100 million a year in taxes – but we get nothing like that back. A fresh approach is needed, and perhaps if we took the initiative other counties would follow. What I’d like to see is a federal system – county parliaments responsible, ultimately, to Westminster. I’m damned sure it would function more efficiently than the present system.”

What will happen now is anyone’s guess. The Stannary could remain in its present form provoking amusement in the press and irritation among the people, or it could change. Mr Hambley, an earnest well-meaning man whose Cornish roots go deep (his grandfather rode to work on a two-penny donkey and attained the rank and title of mine captain) is prepared to step down at any time. Mr Trull, on the other hand, born in Oxford of a German mother – which, in the eyes of many Cornishmen, effectively disqualifies him from office – will probably need to be pushed.

Two bodies of men could do that. The first is a very responsible element, led by Mr Bendle, or somebody like him. The second is another, irresponsible, element, featureless and slightly sinister, which is beginning to enjoy a certain measure of popular support in Cornwall. One recent evening, for example, while dressing (in his Cornish kilt) for a dinner at which he was to speak, Mr Hambley was summoned from his council house to take a call at a nearby telephone box. The caller remained anonymous but his message was plain.

“You people are getting nowhere,” he said. “You’re a joke. You’ll get nothing done the way you’re going. There’s only one way to get results with them booggers up in London m’dear.”

“How?” asked Mr Hambley.

The man chuckled and rang off. Mr Hambley, next morning, reported the incident to Mr Trull. Mr Trull evinced little surprise. “Oh yes,” he said. “At my speeding case half a dozen men with shotguns hidden in their overcoats offered to turn up and lend me support.”

“We will have no truck with that sort of thing,” said Mr Hambley. “We share neither common ground nor common aims with those people.”

It seems unlikely that the 5,000 avowed Cornish nationalists – led by a manic fringe who tend their dairy herds and admire Ho Chi Minh – will have much truck with Mr Hambley either. His methods are too cautious for them. But they must feel some gratitude towards him nevertheless. It was he and Mr Trull, after all, who, by reviving the dormant Stannary, have the Cornish people a focus for their discontent and reminded them that giants could be slain. It will probably be for that they will be remembered.

They would, after all, like to be remembered for something. They acknowledge that they are regarded as frivolous figures from a comic-opera parliament, but they know that a single ruling from the Home Court could change all that, abruptly and dramatically.

They have initiated a process that could result in England waking one morning to find that she has lost effective control of her westernmost county. England would not like that, and Mr Hambley feels no remorse at all for the prospect. “We all live for the days,” he says. “Strangers come up in the streets and push money in our hands and wish us well. And we’ll do it, mark my words. Years from now they’ll be saying, ‘Old Hambley, yes, he drove buses for Western National and he cracked the British Constitution like a nut.’”

Taken from The Telegraph Magazine issue number 550 from June 13th 1975.