Cornwallis Family
Cornwallis Family
Cornwallis family of Beeston.
Sir Thomas Cornwallis (1518-1604), first son of Sir John Cornwallis, and brother of Henry. He married, by 1540, Anne Jerningham, daughter of Sir John Jerningham of Somerleyton, Suffolk. Succeeded family 22nd April 1544. The Cornwallis family had been established at Brome since the early 15th century and Thomas Cornwallis succeeded to considerable estates in Norfolk and Suffolk on the death of his father, steward of the household to Prince Edward. Cornwallis himself does not seem to have held any post in Edward's household but on the Prince's accession he was named to the Suffolk bench and in 1548 he was knighted at Westminster. He was related to the Throckmortons, through the daughter of his sister Elizabeth, Elizabeth Blennerhasset, married Sir Lionel Throckmorton.
In 1549 Cornwallis helped the Marquess of Northampton to recover Norwich briefly from Robert Kett, but was later taken prisoner by the rebels and held until the city was relieved. In the autumn of 1552 he was picked Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk and thus became involved in the succession crisis which followed the death of King Edward VI. According to a list made by Cecil, Cornwallis was one of the Suffolk knights called upon to assist Lady Jane Grey, but on 15th July 1553 he swore allegiance to Mary and throughout her reign he was to be employed in posts of increasing responsibility. By the middle of August 1553 he had become a member of the Privy Council, and his wife had joined Mary's household as a lady of the privy chamber. In October Cornwallis was sent with Sir Robert Bowes to settle border matters with the Scottish commissioners and in the early months of the following year he played a leading part in the suppression of Wyatt's rebellion.
About this time he was one of those responsible for bringing Princess Elizabeth from Ashridge to London. At the subsequent Council meeting at which it was proposed to send the Princess out of England, Cornwallis was among those Catholics who sided with the Protestants in opposition and he was also to align himself with that party on the Council which was reported to have openly combined to fight bills on religion introduced in Parliament without its fore knowledge. In February 1554 the responsibilities of the Council were shared among its members in order to make it more effective, and Cornwallis was one of the group charged with garrison-maintenance, while he himself was made treasurer of Calais under his cousin, Sir Thomas Wentworth, 2nd Lord Wentworth. His duties kept him fully occupied in France and he appeared infrequently at the Council except during the spring of 1555 when affairs of Calais were under review. In July 1557 he informed the Queen of the inadequacy of its defences. Later in the year he was recalled to take up the comptroller-ship of the Household following the death of Sir Robert Rochester, but he retained his interest in Calais until its surrender early in 1558. When in the spring the Count of Feria advised King Felipe to try to negotiate for the return of Calais he suggested that Cornwallis should be one of the negotiators, ‘although he always makes difficulties about everything’. While trying to re-establish the staple in the Netherlands, Cornwallis promoted his own interests, in October 1558 obtaining a licence to export wool for six years. Cornwallis's parliamentary career had begun in January 1552 with the by-election following the succession to the peerage of his cousin Wentworth: the Council had instructed that ‘grave and wise men’ should be elected to fill vacancies in the final session of that Parliament and the choice of Cornwallis indicates the confidence placed in him. His shrievalty may have debarred him from Membership of the Parliament of March 1553 but before his term of office had expired he was returned to Mary's first Parliament for Gatton, a borough owned by the Copley family. As Cornwallis is not known to have had ties with the Copley’s he was presumably elected there in response to official prompting, perhaps exercised through the sheriff, Sir Anthony Browne. On the list of Members for this Parliament Cornwallis was surprisingly and perhaps mistakenly, included among those ‘who stood for the true religion’, that is, for Protestantism. In Apr 1554 a seat was found for him at Grampound, a duchy of Cornwall borough, following Thomas Prideaux's decision to sit for Newport, Launceston rather than Bodmin or Grampound where he had also been elected: Cornwallis's kinsman John Sulyard replaced Prideaux at Bodmin. For the next three years Cornwallis was preoccupied with Calais and he was not to reappear in Parliament again until, following his appointment as comptroller of the Household, he was chosen knight of his own shire with the Speaker-designate, William Cordell. He played an active part in the House during the first session of the Parliament of 1558. The bill modifying regulations for the manufacture of cloth failed after its committal to him on 31st January but two more significant bills committed to him on 25th February, for armour and for musters, were enacted. He was also a frequent bearer of bills to the Lords. At the accession of Elizabeth I, Cornwallis was dismissed from office and retired to spend the remaining years of his long life at Brome Hall which he rebuilt. He was not left entirely undisturbed, being first made a ‘prisoner for matter of religion’ after the fall of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, whose feoffee he had been named in 1569 and of whose family his own had long been clients.
On this occasion he conformed after conference with the Dean of Westminster but within a few years he was again a recusant. He still enjoyed some favour at court, profiting especially from his long-standing friendship with Cecil, to whom from 1570 he was also related by marriage. After being confined in the home of his son-in-law Sir Thomas Kytson at the time of the Armada, he was allowed to remain at home in Suffolk as a very old man who, except in matters of religion, had ‘not been known to have intermeddled in causes of the state’ and in 1600 he was given leave to receive into his household his brother William, a seminary priest who had been imprisoned in the Clink. Cornwallis made his will on 26th March 1604, added a codicil on the following 6th November and died on 27th December.
He was buried in Brome church where a monument to his memory was erected near that of his parents.
Children.
Sir William Cornwallis Sir Charles Cornwallis. (1547-1610) Elizabeth Cornwallis (1547-1628) m Sir Thomas Kytson. Anne Cornwallis m William Halse. Alice Cornwallis m Richard Southwell.* (see Berney) Mary Cornwallis m William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath.
Mary secretly married, on 15th December, William Bouchier, Earl of Bath, through the connivance of her brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Kytson, who was the young earl`s uncle. The marriage was later repudiated, according to some sources, because the earl`s mother, Francis Kytson, by then re-married to William Barnaby would not consent to the match. A trial over the matter was instituted in May 1590 and the marriage was annulled on 28th April 1581. In 1582 Bourchier married Elizabeth Russell, daughter of the Earl of Bedford.
Mary however did not accept this turn of events; she continued to style herself Countess of Bath for the rest of her life and to stir up controversy over the matter. It was still a hot topic issue in 1600, when poet Francis Davidson, who had connection to the Russell family, published his “Answer to Mrs Mary Cornwallis”. On the other side, Sir Thomas Kytson left his Sister-in-law £300.00 in his will dated June 1601 and included in it a statement of his belief that she was the rightful Countess of Bath.
Sir John Cornwallis.
Cornwallis Heraldic Arms.
Cornwallis Family Tree.
Sir Charles Cornwallis.(1518-1604).
Elizabeth Cornwallis married Sir Thomas Kitson.
Sir Thomas Kitson.
Mary Cornwallis married William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath.
Sir Charles Cornwallis of Beeston St. Andrew, (1547-1629), Ambassador
Sir Charles Cornwallis (1547-1629) of Brome Hall, Suffolk and Beeston, married Elizabeth Farnham (1552-1584) at Beeston St. Andrew, she was the daughter of Thomas Farnham. Children:-Sir William Cornwallis (b.1576) and Thomas Cornwallis (b.1579) In 1602 he purchased Horsham St. Faiths, Norfolk, for £3,000. However, as a younger son, he inherited nothing when his father died in 1604 beyond the contents of the latter’s house in Norwich. He was the second son of Sir Thomas Cornwallis, controller of the Queen Mary`s household, who had been imprisoned by Elizabeth 1st in 1570. He was probably born at his father's house of Brome Hall, Suffolk. Nothing is known of him till 11th July 1603, when he was knighted. In 1604 he was Member of Parliament for Norfolk. Cornwallis married three times:
He was recalled in September 1609, and his secretary, Francis Cottington, took his place at Madrid. In 1610 he became treasurer of the household of Henry, Prince of Wales, resisted the proposal to marry the prince to a daughter of the Duke of Savoy, and attended his master through his fatal illness of 1612. He was a candidate for the post of master of the wards in the same year; was one of four commissioners sent to Ireland on 11th September 1613 to investigate Irish grievances, and reported that Ireland had no very substantial ground for complaint. In 1614 Cornwallis was suspected of fanning the Parliamentary opposition to the King. John Hoskins, who had made himself conspicuous in the House of Commons of England by his denunciation of Scots and Scottish institutions, declared when arrested that he was Cornwallis's agent. Cornwallis disclaimed all knowledge of Hoskins, but admitted that he had procured the election of another member of parliament, and had supplied him with notes for a speech against recusants and Scotchmen. The Privy Council placed Cornwallis under arrest in June 1614, and he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a year, with Hoskins and Leonel Sharp. Cornwallis retired late in life to Harborne, Staffordshire, where he died on 21st December 1629. He was buried in London at St. Giles in the Fields.
In 1604 he was elected MP for Norfolk, and he was allowed to retain his seat in the Commons even when, the next year 1605, he was appointed resident ambassador to Spain. He had an uncomfortable trip to Madrid, being ill and confined to a litter for most of the journey, as well as quarrelling over precedence with the earl of Nottingham, who had been sent to Spain to ratify the 1604 peace treaty. Cornwallis's main task in Madrid was to oversee the provisions of the treaty which allowed the English to practise their religion in private and protected merchants from the harassment of the Inquisition. He was required to deal with many complaints from English merchants that their goods had been seized by the Spanish under the pretence of searching for forbidden protestant literature. While in Madrid he provided valuable intelligence on Spain for Salisbury and busied himself writing treatises on the state of the country, the history of Aragon, the structure of the Spanish court, and the wealth of the nobility.
From 1607 he petitioned to be relieved from his post, claiming poverty and harassment from English Catholic exiles. He was finally granted leave to return to England in 1609. Cornwallis resumed his place in the Commons when he returned and in 1610 was appointed treasurer of the household to Henry, Prince of Wales. He was often in attendance upon Henry and found him an impressive figure, later writing `A discourse of the most illustrious Prince Henry, late prince of Wales' (1641). It was rumoured in 1612 that he would be made master of the court of wards but after the deaths of Henry and Salisbury the same year he received no further court or government office. In 1613 he was appointed a commissioner to investigate the elections to the Irish parliament and while there he set down his views on the people and the nation, describing them as `naked barbarians’. Upon his return to England, Cornwallis sought election to the 1614 parliament for Eye in Suffolk but before he arrived there he learned that the election had already taken place. During the parliament John Hoskins bitterly denounced the Scots and their influence over James I and, when questioned, claimed that he was echoing the views of Cornwallis, whom he had met on the road to Eye.
Called before the Privy Council, Cornwallis denied that he had suggested Hoskins attack the Scots but his guilt was seemingly confirmed when a letter was published in London in which he asked the king for forgiveness. He was committed to the Tower and on his release in June 1615 retired to the country to live at his ancestral home, Brome Hall, Suffolk, and at Harborne, Staffordshire. His second wife died in 1617 and three years later on 29th April 1620 he married Dorothy, daughter of Richard Vaughan of Nyffryn in Llyn, Caernarvonshire, Bishop of London, and widow of Bishop John Jegon of Norwich. Cornwallis died at Harborne on 21st December 1629, survived by his wife.
Sir Charles Cornwallis (1547-1610)
