Smug Charlie
Tag Archives: Prince Charles
John Kirkhope’s FOI Request re: The Duchy
John Kirkhope is a solicitor and Notary Public who has long studied Cornish law and has been examining the very mysterious and complex Duchy of Cornwall and their latter claims of ‘private estate’.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21024828
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/14/secret-papers-royals-veto-bills
Further reading of John’s work:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/44178693/The-Duchy-of-Cornwall-A-Very-Peculiar-Private-Estate
“Yes, Cornwall is a separate feudal authority, ie kingdom.”
So says Kevin Cahill, a House of Lords scholar and researcher with no Cornish nationalist axe to grind.
“Cornwall really is a separate kingdom, as has long been claimed by activists west ot the Tamar.” so says Martin Hesp, a Western Morning News journo with no Cornish nationalist axe to grind.
So what the hell is going on? Well, Mr Cahill has published a facsimile of an old manuscript known as the ‘Second Domesday’ or more correctly, ‘Return of Owners of Land, 1873’. This dusty tome shows who owns what in Britain and as we in Cornwall have known for a long time, you don’t own squat.
Talking to people in my job, they are always amazed when I mention the Duke of Cornwall owning everything in Cornwall; the land, the trees, the leaves on the trees, your house (or at least the land it stands on) etc. Across the border in merrie England, it’s the Crown.
Here, is one more thing to further our cause. We don’t make things up, we are not fantasists. We put our argument forth with pure, hard and substantiated fact. Just because authority has chosen to keep the people in the dark, does not mean it’s not true. You’d think people would get that in the 21st century more than ever…
So here is a scan of the article that appeared in the WMN. You can’t find it online as they (WMN) haven’t deemed it worthy of putting up. Well, we wouldn’t want the populous to know the truth now, would we? It’s a wonder this article was ever printed at all but it was and it boosts Cornwall’s cause no end.
Prince Charles to Destroy Farmland
In an epic show of riding rough-shod over local opinion and blatent pocket-lining, the laughing prince and his cronies are set to build on prime farmland with an unwanted development in Truro (big surprise!).
Our already gridlocked capital will receive among other things; housing, a Waitrose and a park and ride, in one of the most congested parts of the city. I shudder to think what effect all that hard-standing will have in the flood-prone area just below.
The sooner people get wise to the fact that Charles is effectively quai-sovereign of Cornwall, has the right of veto in the English (masquerading as a UK) parliament and along with his developer chums will summarily concrete Cornwall, the better for all. The Duchy of Cornwall is NOT a private estate.
As for the Duke’s green credentials? Well they’re akin to something you might find in the field he’s concreting over, once the cows have left!
Soon enough there will be nowhere for local people to live (don’t delude yourself into thinking the housing is for them!), and no fields to grow the produce the Duke wants to sell in his quasi farmers’ market.
All hail the 1%!
Read more here:
John Angarrack on Duchy in WMN
Saturday and today saw two brilliant essays by John Angarrack on the Duchy and Cornwall’s consitutional status appear in the Western Morning News of all places! Read them here:
Pandora’s Box is Opening…
Over the past few days, info has been coming out about Prince Charles’ meddling in Parliamentary affairs. There seems to be a lot of surprise over this.
We in Cornwall of course, have known for years how the Duke acts. It seems his cosy little arrangements with government departments are now creeping out into the fresh air.
Pandora’s Box is opening and this can only be good for the people of Cornwall.
Some links below. The last contains a letter from John Angarrack.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/31/prince-charles-veto-planning-legislation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2011/oct/31/letter-prince-of-wales-consent
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/01/prince-charles-secret-fiefdom
For more info on the constitutional status of the Duchy of Cornwall, see here: http://duchyofcornwall.eu/
The Duke, the Statue and the Money
Some weeks ago, Charles Saxe Coburg-Gotha or ‘Windsor’ as he likes to call himself, aka The Duke of Cornwall, very ‘kindly’ sent a cheque, for an undisclosed amount (£500 according to An Helghyer’s sources) to the people raising money to erect a statue in memory and honour of the countless miners who lost their lives or suffered debilitating illness from their work underground in the St Just and Pendeen districts.
Now, the good people of St Just and Pendeen have, for years, been doing all they can to raise money to have made and erect this fine statue.
It is expected to cost around £40,000 and they, through various auctions, public events etc have raised thousands towards it but are struggling to reach the target.
My point, is this: I find it a bit sick that the Duke of Cornwall couldn’t have coughed up the remainder in order for this statue, which was first mooted in 2000, to be made.
Since the creation of the Dukedom in 1337, the successive Dukes have made a pretty penny out of Kernow over the years, with Charles being the latest leech.
For all the Duchy of Cornwall’s contemporary talk of a ‘Private estate’, anyone with an ounce of historical knowledge knows this to be blatantly not the case. (see here for more info)
In terms of why this is relevant to mining and a miners’ statue is as follows: for a five hundred year period, ‘tribute’ or ‘coinage’ was levied against the tinners of Cornwall by the successive Dukes of Cornwall. This meant vast sums of money worked for, by Cornishmen in blood and sweat, leaving the country and going into the pockets of the gad-about Dukes to lead excessive and lavish life-styles.
It has been worked out, that in today’s money, the revenue from tribute over the five hundred year period it lasted, is around £20 billion.
Even after tribute had ceased, vast sums still poured (and still does) from Cornwall to the Duke.
Edward Albert Saxe Coburg-Gotha (Edward VII) was Duke of Cornwall from 1841 until he became King in 1901. At 19, his wealth from the Duchy stood at, in today’s terms, £60,000,000. Huge amounts of Duchy income were spent on his gambling and the debts there accrued. In 1847, whilst the Cornish men, women and children from whom the spoils were drawn, were dying in the streets from starvation, the Duke was living it up, sailing down the Nile, accompanied by an entourage of boats containing some ten thousand pints of beer, three thousand bottles of champagne and four thousand bottles of claret!
And so to today. Ol’ Charlie can only spare a donation. You’d think that out of some sort of thought for the common man, whom over the centuries has created the wealth and paid for the homes this peculiar man now enjoys, he might see his way to shelling out forty grand (a paltry sum) in order to honour some of the bravest men who ever lived (and who actually knew what a hard day’s work was!).
Alas no. After all, he’s only the head of a Private Estate, isn’t he?
An Helghyer 