David Cunningham of Auchenharvie

[1] Cunningham was a member of the circle of Sir Adam Newton, who lived at Charlton House, Kent.

[6] Nicholas Stone the master mason who worked with Inigo Jones recorded David Cunningham to be his "great good friend" and "very noble friend" when he paid for the monument of Sir Thomas Puckering, for Adam Newton's brother-in-law, at St. Mary's Warwick and for Adam Newton's own tomb at St. Luke's Charlton.

[8] One of Cunningham's letters describes with enthusiasm the formation of a secret brotherhood of courtiers, comprising the Scottish "cubicular" or bedchamber servants.

On 1 May 1633, Cunningham advised:"Sir, you needed not in your letter to instruct me to be lavish of your purse for I am apt enough to transgress that way, yet I will put you to as little charge as I can: but your honour and reputation being engaged at such an extraordinary time as this, (the like whereof I hope shall not be seen in my days) we must not stand too much on saving.

"[12]Several warrants authorizing Sir David to pay accounts for the education of the royal children survive.

[13] Cunningham was directly involved in the education of Scottish aristocrats, including Hugh Montogmerie, the future Earl of Eglinton, and his brothers who came to him and Sir John Seton to see London in November 1634 after a sojourn in Paris.

Cunningham came with the court to Oxford in 1636 and described a masque in another letter to his cousin, the spectacle represented (if his description can be trusted) the reconciliation of Catholic and Protestant interests in the form of baked pies:an invention of pyes walking, the one half representing English Bishops, with my lord's grace of Canterbury conducting them, th'other half foreign Cardinalls, with the Pope leading them, and both came to the King at table, one on his right hand and t'other on his left and both were received and made friends.

[19] A survey of rentals in the Cunninghame district of Ayrshire circa 1640 listed him at £1553, among the largest landowners in the county.

[20] In September 1651, after the Royalist defeat at the battle of Worcester, he was a prisoner in Chester Castle, with the Earl of Derby, the Duke of Lauderdale, and Mr Lane.