Sir Charles Cornwallis (d. 1629), was knighted in 1603, and in 1604 became M.P. for Norfolk. Early in 1605 he was sent as resident ambassador to Spain. He was from the first very active in attempting to protect English merchants from the persecution of the Inquisition. In 1610 he became treasurer of the household of Henry, prince of Wales, he 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. In 1614 Cornwallis was suspected of fanning the parliamentary opposition to the King and he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a year. Wing C6329.