The constitutional status of Cornwall has been a matter of debate and dispute. Cornwall () is currently an administrative county of England, with movements advocating for Cornwall to be regarded separately from being a county of England and either as a country of the United Kingdom or an independent country in its own right.

In ethnic and cultural terms, until around 1700, Cornwall and its inhabitants were regarded as a separate people by their English neighbours. One aspect of the distinct identity of Cornwall is the Cornish language, which survived into the early modern period (down to 5,000 speakers in the 18th century) but was then revived in the 20th Century.

History

Prior to the Norman Conquest

In pre-Roman times, Cornwall was part of the kingdom of Dumnonia. Later, it was known to the Anglo-Saxons as West Wales, to distinguish it from North Wales, that is, modern-day Wales. The name Cornwall is a combination of two elements. The second derives from the Anglo-Saxon word wealh, meaning "foreigner" "Celt", "Roman", "Briton", which also survives in the words Wales and Welsh. The first element "Corn", indicating the shape of the peninsula, is descended from Celtic kernou, an Indo-European word related to English horn and Latin cornu.

References in contemporary charters (for which there is either an original manuscript or an early copy regarded as authentic) show Egbert of Wessex (802–839) granting lands in Cornwall at Kilkhampton, Ros, Maker, Pawton (in St Breock, not far from Wadebridge, head manor of Pydar in Domesday Book), Caellwic (perhaps Celliwig or Kellywick in Egloshayle), and Lawhitton to Sherborne Abbey and to the Bishop of Sherborne. All of the identifiable locations except Pawton are in the far east of Cornwall, so these references show a degree of West Saxon control over its eastern fringes. Such control had certainly been established in places by the later ninth century, as indicated by the will of King Alfred the Great (871–899).; compare with p. 89 of this source.

King Athelstan, who came to the throne of England in 924 CE, immediately began a campaign to consolidate his power, and by about 926 had taken control of the Kingdom of Northumbria, following which he established firm boundaries with other kingdoms such as Scotland and Cornwall. The latter agreement, according to 12th century West Country historian William of Malmesbury, ended rights of residence for Cornish subjects in Exeter, and fixed the Cornish boundary at the east bank of the River Tamar.William of Malmesbury, "Of Ethelstan the son of Edward", in History of the Kings of England (Gesta Regum Anglorum)Payton, Philip. "Cornish". In Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe, Blackwell (2000). At Easter 928, Athelstan held court at Exeter, with the Welsh and "West Welsh" subject rulers present,"Æthelstan". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online (subscription required) and by 931 he had appointed a bishop for Cornwall within the English church (i.e. subject to the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury). The Bodmin manumissions, two to three generations later, show that the ruling class of Cornwall quickly became "Anglicised", most owners of slaves having Anglo-Saxon names (not necessarily because they were of English descent; some at least were Cornish nobles who changed their names).

It is clear that at this time areas beyond the core of Anglo-Saxon settlement were recognised as different by the English kings. Athelstan's successor, Edmund, in a charter for an estate just north of Exeter,Miller, Sean (ed.) Charter text (Latin), Sawyer ref. 498 New Regesta Regum Anglorum (2001) styled himself as "King of the English, and ruler of this province of Britons". Edmund's successor Edgar styled himself "King of the English and ruler of the adjacent nations".

Surviving charters issued by the Kings of England Edmund I (939–946), Edgar (959–975), Edward the Martyr (975–978), Aethelred II (978–1016), Edmund II (1016), Cnut (1016–1035) and Edward the Confessor (1042–1066) record grants of land in Cornwall made by these kings. In contrast to the easterly concentration of the estates held or granted by English kings in the ninth century, the tenth and eleventh-century grants were widely distributed across Cornwall. As is usual with charters of this period, the authenticity of some of these documents is open to question (though Della Hooke has established high reliability for the Cornish material), but that of others (e.g., Edgar's grant of estates at Tywarnhaile and Bosowsa to his thane Eanulf in 960, Edward the Confessor's grant of estates at Traboe, Trevallack, Grugwith and Trethewey to Bishop Ealdred in 1059) is not in any doubt. Some of these grants include exemptions from obligations to the crown which would otherwise accompany land ownership, while retaining others, including those regarding military service. Assuming that these documents are authentic, the attachment of these obligations to the King of England to ownership of land in Cornwall suggests that the area was under his direct rule and implies that the legal and administrative relationship between the king and his subjects was the same there as elsewhere in his kingdom.

In 1051, with the exile of Godwin, Earl of Wessex and his sons and the forfeiture of their earldoms, a man named Odda was appointed earl over a portion of the lands thus vacated: this comprised Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and "Wealas". As Wealas is Saxon for foreigners, this could mean "West Wales"—that is, Cornwall—or it could mean that he was overlord of the Cornish foreigners in Devon or elsewhere.

Elizabethan historian William Camden, in the Cornish section of his Britannia, notes that:

As for the Earles, none of British bloud are mentioned but onely Candorus (called by others Cadocus), who is accounted by the late writers the last Earle of Cornwall of British race.

Norman conquest and after Cornwall was included in the survey, initiated by William the Conqueror, the first Norman king of England, which became known as the Domesday Book, where it is included as being part of the Norman king's new domain. Cornwall was unusual as Domesday records no Saxon burh; a burh (borough) was the Saxons' centre of legal and administrative power. Moreover, nearly all land was held by one person, William's half-brother Robert of Mortain, who may have been the first Norman to bear the title Earl of Cornwall. He held his Cornish lands not as a Tenant in Chief of the King, as was the case with other landowners, but as de facto viceroy.

F. M. Stenton tells us that the early Norman compilation known as "The Laws of William the Conqueror" records all regions under West Saxon law. These included Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset and Devon. Cornwall is not recorded as being under West Saxon, or English, law.

Ingulf was secretary to William the Conqueror and after 1066 was appointed Abbot of Croyland. When his church burned down, he established a fund raising committee to rebuild it. Ingulf's Chronicle tells us:

Henry of Huntingdon, writing about 1129, included Cornwall in his list of shires of England in his History of the English.

The Scrope v Grosvenor lawsuit of 1386–1389 upheld the rule that two claimants of the same nation may not bear the same arms. However, the same case allowed Thomas Carminow of Cornwall to continue to do so, as Cornwall was considered a separate country, being "a large land formerly bearing the name of a kingdom".

The phrase "England and Cornwall" () has been used on occasion in post-Norman official documents referring to the Duchy of Cornwall:

Tudor period The Italian Polydore Vergil in his Anglica Historia, published in 1535 wrote that four peoples speaking four different languages inhabited Britain:

During the Tudor period some travellers regarded the Cornish as a separate cultural group, from which some modern observers conclude that they were a separate ethnic group. For example, Lodovico Falier, an Italian diplomat at the court of Henry VIII said, "The language of the English, Welsh and Cornish men is so different that they do not understand each other." He went on to give the alleged 'national characteristics' of the three peoples, saying for example "the Cornishman is poor, rough and boorish".

Another example is Gaspard de Coligny Châtillon – the French Ambassador in London – who wrote saying that England was not a united whole as it "contains Wales and Cornwall, natural enemies of the rest of England, and speaking a different language". His use of the phrase "the rest of" implies that he believed Cornwall and Wales to be part of England in his sense of the word.

Some maps of the British Isles prior to the 17th century showed Cornwall (Cornubia/Cornwallia) as a territory on a par with Wales. However most post-date the incorporation of Wales as a principality of England. Examples include the maps of Sebastian Munster (1515), Abraham Ortelius, and Girolamo Ruscelli. Maps that depict Cornwall as a county of the Kingdom of England and Wales include Gerardus Mercator's 1564 atlas of Europe, and Christopher Saxton's 1579 map authorised by Queen Elizabeth I.

A miniature "epitome" of Ortelius' map of England and Wales, published in 1595, names Cornwall; the same map displays Kent in an equivalent manner."Anglia", in Epitome Theatri Orteliania (1595) Online at Rootsweb. Maps of Britain which display Cornwall usually in their legends do not refer to Cornwall, e.g. Lily 1548.

17th and 18th centuries Recognition that several peoples lived within Britain and Ireland continued through the 17th century. For example, after the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, the Venetian ambassador wrote that the late queen had ruled over five different 'peoples': "English, Welsh, Cornish, Scottish ... and Irish".

Writing in 1616, diplomat Arthur Hopton stated:

England is... divided into 3 great Provinces, or Countries... every of them speaking a several and different language, as English, Welsh and Cornish.

Wales was effectively annexed to the Kingdom of England in the 16th century by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, but references to 'England' in law were not presumed to include Wales (or indeed Berwick-upon-Tweed) until the Wales and Berwick Act 1746. By this time the use of "England and Cornwall" (Anglia et Cornubia) had ceased.

Because of the tendency of historians to trust the work of their predecessors, Geoffrey of Monmouth's semi-fictional 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae remained influential for centuries, often used by writers who were unaware that his work was the source. For example, in 1769 the antiquary William Borlase wrote the following, which is actually a summary of a passage from Geoffrey [Book iii:1]:

Of this time we are to understand what Edward I. says (Sheringham. [De Anglorum Gentis Origine] p. 129.) that Britain, Wales, and Cornwall, were the portion of Belinus, elder son of Dunwallo, and that that part of the Island, afterwards called England, was divided in three shares, viz. Britain, which reached from the Tweed, Westward, as far as the river Ex; Wales inclosed by the rivers Severn, and Dee; and Cornwall from the river Ex to the Land's-End.

Another 18th-century writer, Richard Gough, concentrated on a contemporary viewpoint, noting that "Cornwall seems to be another Kingdom", in his "Camden's Britannia", 2nd ed. (4 vols; London, 1806).

During the 18th century, Samuel Johnson created an ironic Cornish declaration of independence that he used in his essay Taxation no TyrannySamuel Johnson. "Taxation no Tyranny". The Works of Samuel Johnson. Pafraets & Company, Troy, New York (1913). Retrieved 15 July 2006. His irony starts:

19th century