The Beginning
On December 31, 1738, Charles Cornwallis was born the second Earl Cornwallis, since
his father, the fifth Baron Cornwallis, had been rewarded as a Viscount and the first Earl
Cornwallis. In 1661, Sir Frederick Cornwallis was rewarded a baron try by Charles II for
service to the Stuarts. His mother was the niece of Sir Robert Walpole. His uncle became
he Archbishop of Canterbury. Cornwallis was educated at Eton and moved in elite social
circles.
In 1756, about a month before his eighteenth birthday, Cornwallis purchased an ensign's
commission in the Grenadier Guards and then took the extraordinary measure of
attending a military school in Turin, Italy to actually study for the position. He actually
only stayed a few months, because he learned that his regiment had been called up to
serve in the Seven Years' War in the allied army under Prince Ferdinand in 1758. He
never caught up with his own regiment, but he soon became aide-de-camp......
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