CORNWALL, George (by 1509-62), of Berrington, Herefs.; English Bicknor, Glos. and Stanage, Rad.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1509, o.s. of Sir Richard Cornwall. m. Mary, da. of Sir John Brydges, 1st Baron Chandos of Sudeley, d.s.p. suc. fa. 2 Sept. 1533. Kntd. 1544/45.2

Offices Held

J.p. Herefs. 1543-58/59, q. 1558/59; commr. musters 1546, relief 1550, goods of churches and fraternities 1553; sheriff 1547-8, 1559-60.3

Biography

George Cornwall first appears in September 1531 as a member of the household of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, with whom his father had served in France in 1523, but within a year Suffolk was to dismiss him for unruly behaviour and to ask Cromwell to have him bound over to keep the peace. This step, if taken, was ineffective, for early in 1533 Cornwall was responsible with John Stoughton (uncle of Thomas Stoughton) for the death in an affray of John Ode alias Wode, serjeant of the mace in the city of London. By the time he was pardoned for this crime in May 1534 Cornwall had succeeded to his inheritance in Herefordshire, Lincolnshire and elsewhere, and with it a position sufficient to offset his record and yield him the senior knighthood for Herefordshire in 1539.4

Cornwall’s temperament showed to better advantage in the French campaign of 1544, which gained him a knighthood (and perhaps also a wife, since he served on it with Sir John Brydges), and in the command of a ship in 1545. He is not known to have sat in Parliament again, but could have done so in 1545 or March 1553 when the names of the Herefordshire knights are lost. He sued out a pardon early in 1559. He was initially retained on the Herefordshire commission by Elizabeth and the absence of his name from it in 1561 was probably an oversight due to his shrievalty in the previous year. He was ‘diseased in body’ when he made his will on 8 Oct. 1562 and he died in the following month. Without a child of his own, he left lands in Herefordshire and Lincolnshire to his nephew William Nanfan and other properties or annuities to various relatives and friends including (Sir) James Baskerville, to whom he also left a house in Bristol. He named as two of his executors Sir James and John Baskerville, and as supervisors Sir Roger Vaughan and Thomas Herbert. On 22 Nov. 1562 the executors renounced in favour of Lady Cornwall, who afterwards married Francis Lovell.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: A. J. Edwards

Notes

  • 1. E159/319, brev. ret. Mich. r. [1-2].
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from age at fa.’s i.p.m., C142/55/33. Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 147; Vis. Glos. (Harl. Soc. xxi), 237; Ld. Liverpool and Compton Reade, House of Cornewall, 79, 265; Williams, Herefs. MPs, 36; LP Hen. VIII, xix, xx.
  • 3. LP Hen. VIII, xviii, xx, xxi; CPR, 1547-8, p. 84; 1550-3, p. 394; 1553, pp. 354, 414; 1553-4, p. 20.
  • 4. LP Hen. VIII, v, vii, viii, x.
  • 5. Ibid. xiv, xv, xix, xx; CPR, 1558-60, p. 222; 1560-3, p. 514; PCC 13 Chayre; C142/135/123, 137/28.