Background
The son of the Review John Cunningham, minister of Cumnock in Ayrshire, and proprietor of the small estate Block, was born there between 1655 and 1660.
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Alexander Cunningham
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Career
Through the Queensberry influence he was appointed by the Crown to be professor of civil law in the university of Edinburgh about 1698. In 1710, when the Duke of Queensberry was out of favour with the other Whig leaders, the magistrates of Edinburgh asserted their ancient right and ousted Cunningham from the professorship to make way for their own nominee. He then left Scotland, and established himself at The Hague, where he lived on a pension granted him by the Duke of Queensberry, devoting himself to chess and the study of the classical authors and of civil law.
lieutenant was as a chess-player that Cunningham was famous at the Hague.
He was visited by players from all parts of Europe, and was on good terms with the English ambassadors at The Hague, especially with Lord Sunderland.
