History of the Duchy – Dukes of Cornwall

The Black Prince was Duke of Cornwall for nearly 40 years. Although for much of this period he was away in France fighting to reclaim the French crown for his father, contemporaries regarded him as a kindly landlord. Thomas Brinton, Bishop of Rochester, wrote of him soon after his death in 1376, “Where the Lords of this world usually oppress and afflict their tenants and landholders, this lord always cared for his tenants, comforting them in many ways”. This is borne out in his actions, pardoning certain money payments to his Cornish tenants in 1357 on account of the Black Death, intervening in support of Cornish tinners whose goods had been interfered with at sea in 1359, and arranging for all the “fretters” [grazing animals] in the Forest of Dartmoor (owned then and now by the Duchy) to be distributed to the most distressed people in Cornwall.

Primarily a fighting man, he distinguished himself at the battles of Crecy in August 1346 and Poitiers in September 1356 though his campaigning in France and Spain came at a heavy cost resulting in his death at the relatively young age of 46 in 1376, a year before his father, Edward III.

One of the most active Dukes in its history was Prince Henry Frederick, eldest son of James I. Despite being Duke for only two years until his early death at the age of 18 in 1612, he was keen to set down rules for better guiding and governing the affairs of the Duchy. An intriguing correspondence between him and his auditor shows the latter drawing the young Prince’s attention to his father’s generosity in making him large financial gifts to maintain his household “thereby to teache You howe to lyve like Yourself, much resembling the Eagle, whoe to learne her Young to flye doth carry them on her owne back”.