Born into a family of royal courtiers, Cornwallis was able to boast two kings as godparents (Charles II and James, duke of York, later James II). The wife of a royal duke (the duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth) was his godmother and later his stepmother. Macky reckoned him ‘of sweet disposition’, if ‘inclining to fat’. He was raised under the protection of his grandfather Sir Stephen Fox, and later saw active military service in the Low Countries before his return for Eye on the family interest.
A staunch supporter of the Revolution, Cornwallis was granted the honour of Eye out of jointure lands belonging to Mary of Modena and received a pension of £1,000 for life from 1701. Shrewdly, Fox arranged Cornwallis’ marriage to the wealthy heiress of the earl of Arran, fifth son of James Butler, duke of Ormond.
The political fortunes of the Cornwallis family had revived in 1690 with the election that saw a Cornwallis candidate returned for Eye. From 1695 until 1715, the dominance of the Cornwallis interest ensured that Eye escaped electoral contests completely. On 29 Apr. 1698, when Cornwallis succeeded to the barony, his seat at Eye transferred to Spencer Compton† (later earl of Wilmington), who was also associated with Sir Stephen Fox.
On 11 May 1698 Cornwallis received his writ of summons and took his seat in the Lords.
Having taken his seat six months after the start of the parliamentary session, Cornwallis was present for 33 sittings in his first session of the Lords (a quarter of the whole), attending sporadically until 4 July 1698, the day before the prorogation. In the ensuing election Spencer Compton and Sir Joseph Jekyll‡ were returned uncontested for Eye. Cornwallis attended two of the prorogation sittings between August and December 1698 (27 Oct. and 29 Nov.) before taking his seat at the start of the new session on 6 Dec. 1698. Thereafter he attended 89 per cent of sittings. He was again present on 16 Nov. 1699 for the first day of the following session, of which he attended just under 80 per cent of all sittings. On 23 Feb. 1700 he voted against adjourning the House during the debates on the East India Company bill. On the same day, he was one of 18 peers to register his protest against the passage of the bill. It is likely that he returned to Suffolk following the dissolution of Parliament on 19 Dec. 1700.
Cornwallis took his seat in the new Parliament on 24 Feb. 1701, 18 days after the opening. He attended for just under half of all sittings. Loyal to the Junto, on 17 and 23 June he voted to acquit John Somers, Baron Somers, and Edward Russell, earl of Orford, from the impeachment charges. The next Parliament assembled on 30 Dec. 1701 and Cornwallis arrived at the House six days later. He attended 78 per cent of sittings. On 8 Mar 1702, along with everyone in the chamber at the time, he was nominated one of the managers of the conference on the death of William III and the accession of Anne. On 1 May he reported from the select committees on two bills, the first involving the late John Cecil, 5th earl of Exeter, the second on the bill concerning hospitals and workhouses in Sudbury, Suffolk, an area in which he had both a personal and a political interest. He continued to attend until 16 May, when he entered his proxy in favour of Somers. It was vacated at the end of the session.
Throughout 1702 Cornwallis continued to function as lord lieutenant of Suffolk, appointing deputy lieutenants and pressing men into the navy following a royal directive of May 1702.
In March 1703 Cornwallis was replaced as lord lieutenant of Suffolk by Lionel Tollemache‡, 3rd earl of Dysart [S], who subsequently embarked on a purge of those deemed too ‘moderate’ from the lieutenancy.
The next session opened on 24 Oct. 1704, but Cornwallis missed the first three months of business, not taking his seat until 27 Jan. 1705. On 26 Oct. he had again registered his proxy in favour of Somers and on 23 Nov. he was noted ‘excused’ at a call of the House. He attended the session for approximately one-third of sittings and it is possible that Somers used the Cornwallis proxy for the division on 15 Dec. (which called for proxies) against the passage of the reintroduced Occasional Conformity bill. On 27 Feb. 1705 Cornwallis was named to the committee to consider heads for a conference with the Commons on the Ailesbury men, and on 7 Mar. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference on the bill to prevent treasonable correspondence. He attended the session until the penultimate day before the prorogation, registering his proxy in favour of Ralph Grey, 4th Baron Grey of Warke (vacated by the close). Parliament was dissolved on 5 Apr. and during the ensuing electoral campaign Cornwallis was acknowledged as a Hanoverian in an analysis of peerage attitudes towards the succession.
At the opening of the election campaign, Cornwallis was said to have been approached by his uncle Charles Fox, who had recently been dismissed from his place of joint paymaster of the forces and was anxious about his chances of retaining his seat at Salisbury. In the event, Fox secured re-election at Salisbury, freeing Cornwallis from an unwelcome obligation to promote Fox (a moderate Tory) at Eye in place of his own favoured (Whig) candidate. The election was accounted a success for the Whigs, though the story was not so favourable in Suffolk, where one of their number, Sir Dudley Cullum‡, was ‘turned out’.
Cornwallis was back in London by the autumn. He was one of a number of grandees to attend William Cowper, later Earl Cowper, at the Middle Temple and then to accompany him to his swearing-in as lord keeper at Westminster Hall on 23 October.
Cornwallis’ attendance during the winter 1706 session (of which he attended nearly 80 per cent of sittings) reflected the need for Whig support in the Lords as the Junto faced increasing pressure. With the House occupied with the Union with Scotland, Cornwallis was present at another Whig dinner gathering at the Queen’s Arms on 15 Feb. 1707, and at yet another on 24 Feb. (after the House had considered all of the articles of Union), at the residence of Thomas Wharton, earl (later marquess) of Wharton.
Cornwallis was present for just two days of the brief session that opened on 14 April. Following the proclamation to continue Parliament as the first of Great Britain, he took his seat on 23 Oct. for the start of parliamentary business and thereafter attended the session for 67 per cent of sittings. He was present on 19 Dec., when the Somers’ motion in the ‘No Peace without Spain’ debate was carried, and, if not present on 29 Jan. 1708 for the opening debate on the conduct of the battle of Almanza, he attended regularly throughout the remaining debates in February and for the subsequent vindication of the Whig ministry. On 5 Feb. he joined with the majority in voting for the speedy dissolution of the Scots privy council.
Following the general election of 1708, with the Junto preparing for a series of parliamentary confrontations, Cornwallis arrived at the House on the first day of the session and attended the new Parliament for 79 per cent of sittings. On 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers sitting in the House by virtue of post-Union British peerages from voting in the elections for representative peers. He was back at Westminster by 17 Nov. 1709 for the third day of the new parliamentary session, during which he attended 61 per cent of all sitting days. He was present throughout the trial of Henry Sacheverell and on 20 Mar. 1710 found Sacheverell guilty. He remained in London thereafter, attending the prorogations on 5 Apr., 2 May and 16 May. The fall of the Junto and dissolution of Parliament on 21 Sept. was followed by the landslide Tory victory at the general election and reconstruction of the administration. The election at Eye revealed that political differences had arisen between Cornwallis and the sitting Member, Spencer Compton, following the latter’s ‘frequent sallies against the Junto’ between 1707 and 1709.
In the autumn of 1710, Cornwallis was reckoned by Harley as a certain opponent of the new ministry. Having taken his seat in the new session on 25 Nov., he proceeded to attend 78 per cent of sittings. On 12 Jan. 1711 he registered his proxy in favour of Orford (vacated on the 19th) and continued to support the Whigs in debates and divisions, particularly in early February over the discussions of the previous administration’s handling of the campaign in Spain. On 3 Feb. he registered his protest against two resolutions that criticized the previous government’s handling of resources in Spain. Five days later Cornwallis received the proxy of his fellow Whig Charles Howard, 3rd earl of Carlisle (vacated on the 26th). On the same day he dissented twice from Lords’ resolutions: to present to the queen a representation regarding the war with Spain, and against wording in that representation concerning the ‘vast sums’ of money raised by Parliament for financing the war. The reasons for the protests became the subject of debate and a further three divisions on the 9th, when Cornwallis signed three protests over the expunging from the Journal of certain words and phrases. On 16 Mar. he received the proxy of Maurice Thompson, 2nd Baron Haversham (vacated at the end of the session). Continuing to socialize regularly with fellow Whigs, on 19 Mar. Cornwallis dined with Carlisle.
Cornwallis was present for the prorogation of 12 June 1711, after which (according to a list compiled by Oxford, as Harley had recently become) his political loyalties appeared to be wavering. In early December he was listed as one of those to be canvassed before the ‘No Peace without Spain’ vote in the House. He took his seat on 7 Dec. for the start of business and attended the session for 73 per cent of sittings. The following day, an alternative assessment listed Cornwallis as a certain opponent of the court. By 19 Dec. he was forecast as a probable opponent of the ministry in the Hamilton peerage vote due to take place the following day. On 20 Dec. Cornwallis duly joined the Whigs to vote against the right of Scottish peers (at the time of the Union) to sit in the House by right of post-Union British titles. There was a flurry of proxy-giving which reflected the heat of party division. On 14 Feb. and 7 Mar. Cornwallis received Grafton’s proxy (the latter vacated on 13 Mar. 1712) and on 1 Mar., 7 Apr. and 19 May the proxy of Richard Lumley, earl of Scarbrough (vacated on 14 Mar., 14 Apr. and 20 May respectively).
If Cornwallis’ loyalties had appeared uncertain at the beginning of the year, before the end of the session private necessity appears to have driven him into Oxford’s arms. On 13 Apr., in preparation for a journey back to Suffolk, he wrote to one of his colleagues seeking his intercession with Oxford ‘about the business I spoke to you of’. Should Oxford be willing to assist, Cornwallis conceded that it would ‘lay such an obligation on me that I shall be ready to serve his lordship in anything he will ask me’.
This was the only occasion on which Cornwallis abandoned the Whigs. He attended the House for the last time that session on 11 June; two days later he entered his proxy in favour of Grafton (vacated with the prorogation on 8 July). He attended further prorogations on four occasions in February and March 1713, by which time he had returned to the Whig fold: his name was appended by Oxford to one of Jonathan Swift’s calculations of support as an opponent.
Cornwallis took his seat at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr. 1713 after which he was present for over 60 per cent of sittings. In June he was thought likely to oppose the Eighth and Ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. He was then present throughout the Malt Tax crisis until five days before the prorogation of 11 July. Despite the national political trend, the Cornwallis interest ensured that Eye again returned Whig candidates in the general election: on the withdrawal of the veteran Member Joseph Jekyll, Cornwallis ensured that Edward Hopkins‡ (a young Junto Whig) was elected in his place.
Cornwallis took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, attending 63 per cent of sittings, though his attendance was punctuated with several periods of absence during which he entrusted his proxy to a variety of colleagues. In March he exchanged proxies with Grafton (receiving Grafton’s on 13 Mar. (vacated on the 31st) and entering his own in favour of Grafton later in the month). He returned to the House on 5 Apr., probably for the division on the perceived danger to the Protestant succession. Four days later, he registered his proxy in favour of Evelyn Pierrepont, marquess of Dorchester (vacated on 27 April). Cornwallis then entrusted his proxy to Dorset on 11 May (vacated on the 26th), almost certainly in readiness for the Schism bill. He was correctly forecast by Nottingham as an opponent of the measure. Entrusted with the proxy of George Booth, 2nd earl of Warrington, on 11 June (vacated at the end of the session), Cornwallis recorded his protest when the bill passed the House on 15 June. Tightly managed proxy-giving continued and on 28 June he received Dorchester’s proxy (which was vacated the following day). Attending the session for the last time on the same day, he duly registered his own proxy in favour of Henry Clinton, 7th earl of Lincoln.
Cornwallis attended just two days of the brief August session that met in the wake of the queen’s death. The Hanoverian accession ushered in a far more favourable period for him, reflected in his receipt of a Cambridge LLD in 1717, and his appointment as a privy councillor in 1721. His parliamentary career after 1715 will be examined in the next section of this work.
Cornwallis died at his house in New Bond Street on 20 Jan. 1722 of ‘gout in the stomach’. According to at least one contemporary he ‘killed himself with strong waters’, a vice of which none had apparently suspected him.