anonymous on 26 Oct 2004  •  Link

Sir Frederick Cornwallis served as Treasurer of the Household from 1660 until 1663.

anonymous on 24 Dec 2004  •  Link

He was created Baron Cornwallis of Eye in 1661 in the English Peerage.

vicenzo on 17 Jan 2005  •  Link

Administrative/Biographical history: Frederick Cornwallis was born in 1610, the younger son of Sir William Cornwallis of Brome, Suffolk. He succeeded his half-brother to the family estates in 1626, was created a baronet in 1627 and knighted in 1630. Cornwallis acted as M.P. for Eye from March-May 1640, and from October 1640 to September 1642. He distinguished himself on the royalist side during the English Civil War, especially at Cropredy on 30 June 1644, and followed Charles II into exile. Upon Charles's restoration in 1660, Cornwallis was made Treasurer of the Household and a Privy Councillor. He also acted as M.P. for Ipswich from October-December 1660. He died in January 1662, shortly after his creation as Baron Cornwallis of Eye (20 April 1661).
A 64-line elegiac poem composed on the occasion of the death of Frederick Cornwallis, Baron Cornwallis of Eye, in January 1661/2. His virtues are recorded:
'... (though there bee
Twixt vulgar Spirits, and Nobilitie
A kind of Antipathie) yet will I
Appeale unto themselves [the Commons] what courtesie
They found in him: what affabilitie,
Humilitie, and sweetness, w[i]th rare parts,
Which (ev'n against their wills) had won their hearts.'
There is a reference to Prester John, and allusion is made to the office Cornwallis had held as Treasurer of the Household to Charles II:
'The King of Kings now meaning to confer
An higher title, made thee Treasurer
In Heaven's great Court, where thou had'st laid up store
Of never fading Treasure [long?] before.'
At the end runs a Latin inscription: 'Ita raptim flevit ex animo R.Wolverton. Eayensis sudor volgorum ex Icenis M.D.'

http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/se…
Family heavily involved in English History

Bill on 17 Nov 2014  •  Link

Sir Frederick Cornwallis, Baronet, had been created a Baron three days before the coronation. He was Treasurer of His Majesty's Household, and a Privy Councillor. He had married Elizabeth, daughter of John Ashburnham. His wife, therefore, and her brother, John Ashburnham, were first cousins to Villiers Duke of Buckingham. Rugge states in July, 1660, that "the King supped with Sir Frederick Cornwallis at Durham Yard, in the Strand." He died in January, 1661-2, and was buried with his ancestors at Brome, on the 18th. The medals which he received as his fee (nearly 100 in number) were carefully preserved in the family, and have been recently arranged, so as to form the setting of a large silver cup, at Audley End.
---Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, the diary deciphered by J. Smith. 1854.

Terry Foreman on 15 Mar 2021  •  Link

Frederick Cornwallis died suddenly of apoplexy. This entry settles the doubt in GEC (iii. 453) about the date of his death. According to Lloyd's Characters he was a man of so cheerful a spirit that no sorrow came next to his heart, and of so resolved a mind, that no fear came into his thoughts. -- L&M, 1662/01/16/

San Diego Sarah on 17 Jan 2025  •  Link

Cornwallis was descended from a London merchant whose son married a Suffolk heiress in the reign of Richard II.
One of the family first represented the county in 1439.

Cornwallis, a courtier like his father and grandfather before him, sat for Eye in both the Short and Long Parliaments. A Straffordian, he crossed over to the Dutch Republic in 1642 and was disabled from sitting for recruiting mercenaries for King Charles.

He held no commission, although he is said to have been in action at Cropredy Bridge.

He accompanied the Prince of Wales into the west country, and was in Exeter when it surrendered.

Most of the Cornwallis estate was out in jointure to his mother, and the remainder, valued at £800 p.a., had been mortgaged to her. His fine was set at one year’s income, but he was ‘obliged by the violence of his creditors to withdraw himself into parts beyond the seas’.

He was with Charles II in Jersey in 1649, but returned to England by 1655, when he was arrested for assisting in the escape of royalist agents.

His financial position was transformed when his mother died in 1659.

Under the Long Parliament ordinance against the candidature of Cavaliers, Cornwallis was ineligible at the election of 1660, although the family borough had no scruples about electing his son.

At the Restoration he was confirmed as treasurer of the Royal Household, and recommended as court candidate for a by-election at Haverfordwest.
He was given the freedom of Ipswich, and returned for the borough a few months later.

A court supporter, he was appointed to no committees in the Convention Parliament; but on the day of its dissolution he urged the Commons to agree with the Lords that they should be assessed for the poll-tax by their peers.

He did not stand again, being raised to the peerage in the coronation honours.

He did not enjoy his title long; he died of apoplexy on 7 Jan. 1662, and was buried at Brome.
He was described as "... a man of so cheerful a spirit, that no sorrow came near his heart, and of so resolved a mind, that no fear came into his thoughts; so perfect a master of courtly and becoming raillery, that he could do more with one word in jest than others could do with whole harangues in earnest; a well-spoken man, competently seen in modern languages, of a comely and goodly personage."

Samuel Pepys, who was less well-disposed towards Cavaliers, dismissed him as ‘a bold, profane-talking man’.

Frederick married around 1630, Elizabeth (d.1644), daughter of Sir John Ashburnham of Ashburnham, Suss., and they had 3 sons (2 d.v.p.) and a daughter.
In 1646, he married (with £2,000), Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Crofts of Little Saxham, Suff., and they had a daughter.
[Sir Henry Crofts also brought up the young John Scott, later the Duke of Monmouth, so Cornwallis' second wife was well connected. - SDS]

https://www.historyofparliamenton…