28/09/2026
St Ives and the English Civil War
The English Civil War was a conflict between the Stuart monarch Charles I and the English Parliament. At its heart was a simple question: who should govern England, the King or Parliament? The conflict would, however, spill beyond England and become the British Wars, drawing in all the nations of the British Isles. Cornwall was no exception.
When the English Civil War began in 1642, Cornwall stood out as one of the strongest Royalist areas, while much of the wider south west was generally Parliamentarian. Cornwall had a strong sense of its own identity, culture and traditions, and the Cornish were still very much recognised as a distinct people with their own culture and language. In the far west, the Cornish language was still predominantly spoken and the sense of being Cornish was as strong then as it is now.
This is important when looking at the Civil War, because Cornwall's support for the King was not simply a case of an English county choosing the Royalist side. There was a strong sense of Cornish particularism at work, with loyalty to the Crown through the Duchy and Cornwall itself often overlapping. Historians have argued that the Civil War in the south west had an important Cornish dimension, with many Cornish people viewing the conflict through the lens of their own distinct identity as well as the wider struggle between King and Parliament. There was even a feeling among some Cornish Royalists that Cornwall might once again have a degree of semi-autonomy under Prince, later King Charles II.
In West Cornwall, where support for Charles I was particularly strong, St Ives stood out as something of an anomaly. The town contained a significant Puritan and Parliamentarian element, with some of its leading citizens, including the Stephens, the Sises families and Major Peter Ceely. Their presence gave St Ives a political character that differed enormously from that of the surrounding Hundred of Penwith, meaning that the struggle between King and Parliament was not simply a distant national conflict but something that could divide the borough itself.
Yet the prominent Parliamentarian political sympathies of its people did not release St Ives from its obligations to the Royalist war effort. Early in the war, the town was required to provide supplies for the King's forces, including bread, butter, cheese, beef and bacon. For those in St Ives who sympathised with Parliament, being required to provision an army fighting for the opposing cause must have been uncomfortable. Whether such demands were always met with enthusiasm and on time, or whether the quality of the provisions reflected the feelings of those supplying them, is something the surviving records cannot tell us.
As the war developed, local opposition became more organised. In 1644, accounts describe men from St Ives, Towednack and Zennor gathering at Longstone Downs, just outside what is now Carbis Bay, with around 200 men under the command of Captain Francis Arundell. Sir Richard Grenville, one of the leading Royalist commanders in Cornwall, marched against them with a considerably larger force, reported to have numbered around 600 horse and foot. Unable to withstand the Royalist advance, the Parliamentarian force broke and fled from the Downs, disappearing into the lanes and byways where the Royalist cavalry could not easily follow. The fighting itself appears to have been brief, with relatively few men killed or injured during the confrontation.
The consequences, however, were more serious. At least three men were subsequently executed, including a constable from Zennor and two others taken after the fighting. Captain Francis Arundell was proclaimed a traitor and threatened with the same fate. He managed to escape by sea to Bridgwater, and later joined the Parliamentary army under Sir Thomas Fairfax.
The Royalist victory at Longstone Downs was followed by reprisals against those suspected of supporting Parliament. According to the local account, Sir Richard Grenville stayed at the house of St Ives's mayor, Edward Hammond, and fined Hammond £500 for failing to keep the town's rebellious inhabitants under control. Hammond was unable or possibly unwilling to pay and was consequently imprisoned at Launceston, where he remained for several months before being released by order of Prince Charles.
The town, however, appears to have remained difficult to bring completely under Royalist control. A later local account describes the inhabitants attempting to obstruct the movement of Royalist troops by blocking the roads with pilchard barrels filled with sand and placing a "strong guard" over the town. The surviving evidence does not confirm the story, so it needs to be treated with some caution, but it certainly points towards continued resistance within St Ives. If the account is true, it raises an interesting point: rather than suppressing opposition to the Royalist cause, the reprisals that followed Longstone Downs may actually have strengthened it.
At the same time, the earthworks known as the Bulwarks on The Island were still in use. Originally established as part of the town's coastal defences during the Tudor period, they were already more than a century old by the time of the Civil War, but they had not been abandoned. Instead, they continued to play a practical role in the town's Civil War defences. In 1645, the town records include a payment to men working around the Bulwarks, together with provisions of bread and b**r. It is only a small entry in the records, but it gives us a glimpse of the everyday realities of maintaining the defences and providing for the men working on them.
The landscape in which the Bulwarks now operated had changed considerably. The threat was no longer a foreign fleet approaching the harbour. Political and religious loyalties had divided communities and families, and the old earthworks had acquired a new significance. They could help the Royalists keep St Ives under control, and the people of St Ives would have been well aware that the guns of the Bulwarks, originally intended to protect them, could easily be turned on the town.
The tide of war eventually turned against the Royalists. A Parliamentary army entered Cornwall in early 1646, reaching Launceston in February and Bodmin in early March. On 15 March, the main Royalist army surrendered at Tresillian Bridge, near Truro. From this point, Parliamentary control was gradually extended across Cornwall, although several Royalist strongholds continued to hold out. Pendennis Castle at Falmouth remained in Royalist hands until August 1646, while the Isles of Scilly resisted for considerably longer under Sir John Grenville, nephew of our old friend Sir Richard Grenville, until 23 May 1651, when Parliamentary forces under Admiral Robert Blake arrived and the Royalists surrendered, bringing to an end the last Royalist resistance in Cornwall.
The Civil War had brought a conflict being fought across Britain directly into the everyday life and landscape of St Ives. Men from the town and surrounding parishes became involved in the fighting, the community was called upon to support a cause that many did not, and local families must have found themselves divided by their loyalties and convictions.
Much of this history has since disappeared from view. The Bulwarks on The Island have long gone, levelled by later development, while Longstone Downs has become part of the peaceful landscape around Carbis Bay. There is little indication that a Civil War skirmish once took place there. Yet these places remain part of the story of St Ives. The Island, first valued for its commanding view of the sea, retained its military importance at a time when the threat came not from an enemy across the water, but from within a nation divided by religious and political conflict.
For St Ives, as for countless other communities, the English Civil War was far more than a distant national struggle. It was a conflict that reached into the town itself, involving local families and transforming familiar places. The Bulwarks, the roads around St Ives and Longstone Downs all became part of a wider conflict that had begun far beyond St Ives but eventually reached directly into its streets and homes. Although much of the physical evidence has disappeared, the story survives, adding another fascinating layer to the long and complex history of St Ives.
