by Keith Retallick
It was high summer in 1497 and the Cornishmen gathered on Blackheath looked down on the city of London and the river Thames winding through it. For the majority it was probably the first time in their lives they had ventured out of their home county across the Tamar. A chronicler tells that they lay there ‘all night in a great agony and variance’. In the night many stole away secretly not wanting to face the conflict of the coming day. This was first of two Cornish uprisings in that year.
King Henry VII, the first of the Tudor dynasty, had come to the throne in 1485 after Richard III was killed at the bloody battle of Bosworth Field. During Henry’s reign peace was a fragile entity and the maintenance of a strong military force became increasingly necessary. By 1497 the king was at war with the Scots who supported Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the English throne. There was raiding all along the borders between Scotland and England. Henry realised that a confrontation with them was unavoidable and persuaded Parliament to impose heavy taxes to support his military endeavours. The burden fell heavily on the common people and unscrupulous landowners were opportunistic in applying the new laws. The ordinary Cornish folk saw no reason for their involvement in the kings problems far away on the Scottish borders; so by June 16th, that year they were found on the outskirts of London ready to air their grievances.
The main leaders of the uprising were two men, Thomas Flamank, an eloquent lawyer from Bodmin, and Michael Joseph, a blacksmith from St Keverne, a natural leader of men. The Cornish word for “the blacksmith” is “An Gof” (literally ‘the smith’) and the event has often been referred to as the “An Gof Uprising”. The common Cornish name of “Angove” or “Gove” has its origins here; the English equivalent is “Smith”.
Resentment spread through the county and many families among the lesser gentry allied themselves with the cause. Among these was Ralph Retallack of St Columb in company with Richard Borlase of St Wenn, Thomas Polgrene of Polgrene and others. Armed with a conviction of the rightness of their cause, and, as Francis Bacon said, with ‘bows and arrows and bills, and such other weapons of rude and country people’, they marched out of the county into Devonshire gathering support from the people as they went. They proceeded through Somerset to Wells; from thence to Salisbury and Winchester, eventually reaching Blackheath on the borders of Kent, only a few miles from the centre of London.
Considering his support for the cause it would be surprising if Ralph Retallack did not accompany the marchers. There were others of more significant rank among them, the best known being James, Lord Audley, who joined the uprising at Wells. Lord Audley later lost his life in the enterprise.
Sadly for the Cornishmen, the following day, June 17th, spelled disaster. They had overlooked the existence of the king’s army prepared for the Scottish campaign – perhaps 25,000 men. The Cornishmen fought bravely but could not match the better trained and better equipped army of their opponents. Bacon reports of the Cornish rebels that being ‘ill-armed and ill-led, and without horse or artillery, they were with no great difficulty cut in pieces and put to flight’. Michael Joseph fled but was captured and executed. Flamank also suffered the same fate. Some 200 Cornishmen died on the field of battle out of 15,000 men who were on Blackheath the night before. Perhaps Ralph Retallack was among those who returned with bruised pride to his home county, a wiser man. So ended the first uprising of 1497.
The Cornish were not easily subdued and in September of the same year Perkin Warbeck attempted to revive their hopes when he landed at Whitesand Bay near Lands End. His aim was to overthrow the king, Henry VII, and take what he considered to be his rightful place as King of England. The Cornishmen had still enough fire in them to rise again against the Crown and a new march began. Warbeck had heard of the An Gof Rising while in Scotland. On reaching Cornwall he proclaimed himself Richard IV at Bodmin and gathered 3000 men to support him. Under Warbeck the uprising was even less successful than the Blackheath disaster. The king moved his army westward to meet the rebels. By the time the royal army reached Glastonbury, the nerve of the rebel leaders failed and Warbeck deserted them. So ended the 1497 debacle.
As far as one can tell, the Retallacks do not appear again in the history books until 1606. There was much resistance in parts of Cornwall to the establishment of the Church of England and many families were fined for their recusancy. These fines gradually impoverished the family estates. Remember this was the time of the Gunpowder Plot (November 5th 1605) and feelings ran high. Among those families drawn into the net were the Retallacks and Michells of St Columb Major with others in that area. How much they suffered can only be a matter of speculation. Such were the times in which they lived.
For more information read “Tudor Cornwall” by A.L. Rowse (1941) and Thomas Gainsford’s “True and Wonderful History of Perkin Warbeck” (1618) from which books much of this information is drawn.