The tale of John Tom, the Cornish rebel with the Messiah complex
When was the last battle fought on English soil? The traditional answer, still sanctioned by Wikipedia, is Sedgemoor, in 1685, when the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion was defeated and more than 1,000 combatants were killed. But there are other candidates, such as the Jacobite encounters at Preston and Clifton Moor in 1715 and 1745, reminders that English history didn’t end in everlasting peaceful compromise with the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The subject of Ian Breckon’s book was killed at yet another last battle, at Bossenden Wood in Kent, in 1838. It wasn’t a pitched battle like Sedgemoor, and only 11 people died, nine on the day and two later of
