Assuming he existed, I’d venture that he came over in a small boat. It sounds a lot more miraculous if it was a millstone, though.
Every few months a correspondence starts in our local paper - a letter arrives claiming to prove that the British parliament has no rights over true Cornish men. There are then three sorts of reply- those agreeing with it wholeheartedly, those disagreeing with it as an piece of arrant nonsense, and those who are Cornish Nationalist but not so extreme as to claim that Cornwall is ‘in fact’ a nation state usurped by Britain, but that it should have a claim to national status as for Wales, Scotland, and the island hangers on- Channel, Man etc. This debate gradually declines in quality. The non-nationalists drop out and the two groups of nationalists then start attacking each other over which version of the ‘dead’ Cornish language that they speak. The attacks become vituperative and personal and then the editor cancels all further letters on the subject for a few months.
It doesn’t really matter.
England doesn’t have national status. There’s no English parliament and, according to the EU, the place doesn’t even exist 
Here’s a map of the UK as seen by the EU
I looked at the map and took a slightly different view of it. The EU is saying there’s one entity, the U.K., with various regions, like London, Yorkshire/Humber, Scotland and so on.
In other words, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have no more significance than other regions of the U.K.
We’re a country, and we have Tony Blair. 
Heh. Couldn’t resist.