Alexander Cunningham (historian)

Alexander Cunningham (* 1654 probably in Ettrick , Selkirkshire County (now Scottish Borders ), † May 1737 in London ), was a British diplomat , historian and chess player . The Cunningham Gambit is attributed to him. A number of biographical parallels led to a temporary confusion with the scholar and chess player Alexander Cunningham of Block .

Life

Alexander Cunningham was the son of the pastor of Ettrick, Alexander Cunningham. He attended school in Selkirk and was also educated in the Netherlands . In 1688 he returned to the British Isles in the course of the Glorious Revolution , which marked the breakthrough to rule of parliament . He acted as traveling with a private tutor 1692-1695 James, subsequently Earl of Hyndford, and from 1697 to 1700 John, Marquis of Lorne , a member of the influential Scottish clan Campbell , and later Duke of Argyll and Greenwich .

During the reign of Wilhelm III. and Queen Anne , Cunningham worked in a subordinate political position for the Whigs party - during this time stays in various political centers, including Paris (1700–1702) and Hanover (1703), are documented. His political missions took place against the backdrop of the War of the Spanish Succession , in the events of which Great Britain and the other European powers were involved. The situation changed when the Whigs temporarily lost power in 1710. After the change of government, Cunningham worked again as a private tutor. When King George I came to power from the House of Hanover in 1714 , Cunningham was appointed British envoy to the Republic of Venice in recognition of earlier services . This was the high point of his career.

Equipped with a pension, he retired to London in 1720, where he mainly devoted himself to historical studies. Alexander Cunningham died in central London in Westminster and was buried on May 15, 1737 in the sanctuary of St. Martin's Church .

historian

In the last phase of his life, Cunningham wrote an extensive account of recent British history . The history of Great Britain (sic) from the revolution in 1688 to the accession to the throne of George the First , as the title of the German edition later read, focused on the epoch experienced by Cunningham since the Glorious Revolution (1688/89) and included the development on the Act of Union , the unification of the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland carried out in 1707 , until the aforementioned change of ruling house.

The historical work was completed as a Latin manuscript. A book in the English translation by William Thomson was not published until 1787, decades after Cunningham's death. Just two years later, a German edition (also in two volumes) appeared in Breslau . From then on, the presentation served as an informative source for the political events of the eventful historical section dealt with therein.

"Cunningham the historian" vs. "Cunningham the critic"

In the introduction to the historical work, the English translator Thomson had considered whether the author and the Scottish scholar ("the critic") Alexander Cunningham of Block (1650 / 60-1730) were one and the same person. The biographical parallels actually seemed too strange. Both were immediate contemporaries, the sons of Scottish pastors, some of them brought up in the Netherlands, private tutors of Scottish nobles (who were close to the Whigs), classical scholars and also known as chess players.

The ongoing confusion about the identity of both persons was only resolved when the different dates of life were documented independently in an article published in 1804 in Scots Magazine and in an investigation that appeared in Gentleman's Magazine in 1818 . However, this received so little attention that the error persisted in the literature for decades.

Chess player

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	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Cunningham's "Gambit of the Three Pawns"

The historian Cunningham was a well-known chess player, but was obviously inferior in skill level to the scholar and famous chess player of the same name, who was visited by chess friends from all over Europe. It therefore seemed natural that experts like Tassilo von Heydebrand and the Lasa would have to assume that Cunningham of Block was the namesake of the Cunningham Gambit.

Initially the " Gambit of the three pawns" was meant, which is now a sub-variant of the Cunningham Gambit . The three-pawn gambit determines the moves: 1. e2 – e4 e7 – e5 2. f2 – f4 e5xf4 3. Ng1 – f3 Bf8 – e7 4. Bf1 – c4 Be7 – h4 + 5. g2 – g3 f4xg3 6. 0–0 g3xh2 + 7. Kg1-h1. It was first mentioned in a manuscript by Caze in 1706, then in the chess book by Joseph Bertin published in 1735 . Who exactly Philipp Stamma and Philidor , who also gave the Gambit the name of its "inventor", meant, is ultimately unclear.

The historian Cunningham is known to have stayed in The Hague before 1710, where he played chess with the Earl of Sunderland . The aforementioned manuscript from 1706 was addressed to him. For the chess historian H. J. R. Murray it was clear that the historian was trying to popularize the gambit. Today it seems to be the predominant view in chess literature to regard him as the (original) namesake. However, when one takes into account that Cunningham of Block was regarded as an outstanding European chess player in the period from 1710 to 1730, doubts remain as to how far this influenced the spread of the Gambit.

Work editions

• Thomas Hollingbery (Ed.): The History of Great Britain: From the Revolution in 1688 to the Accession of George the First . Translated from the Latin manuscript of Alexander Cunningham Esq, Minister from George I to the Republic of Venice, 2 volumes, London 1788.
• Thomas Hollingbery (Ed.): History of Great Britain from the Revolution in 1688 to the accession of George the First to the throne . Translated from English according to Alexander Cunningham's Latin manuscript, Esq. Minister George I of the Republic of Venice by William Thomson, d. RD and its introduction to the circumstances and writings of the author, 2 volumes, Breslau 1789.

literature

• Review of the historical work of Alexander Cunningham. In: Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung , 1791, Volume 1, No. 59, February 22, 1791

Web links

• Significant Scots: Alexander Cunningham . ElectricScotland.com (English)
• WW (ayte): Who invented the Cunningham Gambit. Curious Case of Mistaken Identity . ( Memento of July 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: British Chess Magazine . March 1888 (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} H. JR Murray: A History of Chess . Oxford University Press, 1913 (Reprint 2002 edition), ISBN 0-19-827403-3 , pp. 844-845.
2. ^ William Beloe: Alexander Cunningham . In: Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books , 2 (1807), pp. 400-402.
3. ↑ Cf. for other chess lexicons Otto Borik , Joachim Petzold : Meyers Schachlexikon . Meyers Lexikonverlag, Mannheim 1993, ISBN 3-411-08811-7 , p. 58.