Career
The current scholarly view is that little can be said certainly about his early life: he was related to Henry Cunningham who was Governor of Jamaica, and so linked to the Glencairn family. He was travelling tutor to James Carmichael from 1692 to 1695. Cunningham visited Rome in 1700, after giving up a position as tutor to Lord Lorne.
The following year he was sent as agent to Paris, nominally on a mission to prepare a trade convention or commercial treaty, between France and Scotland, but in reality as a spy.
He gave William III of England an account of French military preparations. After William"s death, he continued to act on behalf of the Whig party.
Cunningham was frequently consulted by the framers of the union between England and Scotland. After the Whigs lost power in 1710, he returned to tutoring, in 1711 accompanying Lord Lonsdale to Italy.
The accession of George I brought Cunningham in 1715 the appointment as British envoy to Venice, where he remained till 1720, when he retired on a pension.
He then returned to London. He died in 1737, and was buried in the church of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields on 15 May 1737. By his will, he left a fortune of £12,000.