Dereham, Norfolk, was living in London, where he died 4 March 1599. In 1596 Cuttinge contributed several pieces to William Barley's ‘New Booke of Tabliture;’ other manuscript compositions by him are preserved in the British Museum (Eg. 2046, Add. MS. 31392) and the Oxford Music School Collection. On 9 March 1607 Anne of Denmark wrote to Arabella Stuart that ‘the king off denmarks gentleman haith insisted with us, for the licensing your seruant Thomas Cottings to depart from you but not without your permission to our brothers seruice,’ and the request was repeated in a letter from Prince Henry: ‘The queenes ma. hath commaunded me to signifie to your la. that shee would haue Cutting your la. seruant to send to the king of Denmark because he desyred the queen that shee would send him one that could play vpon the lute.’ It seems possible that this Thomas Cuttinge was the same as Francis, and that the queen mistook his christian as well as his surname. Arabella Stuart yielded, and it is to be presumed that Cuttinge went to Denmark, though if he did he must, like Dowland [q. v.], have returned before long, as the list of Prince Henry's household in 1610 contains the name of ‘Mr. Cuttynge’ as one of the musicians. After this there is no further trace of him.
[Harl. MSS. 252, 642, 6986; Add. MS. 32490, T. T. 49; Blomefield's Hist. of Norfolk, x. 219; Somerset House Gazette, ii. 27; Preface to Dowland's First Book of Airs (Mus. Ant. Society); Visitations of Cornwall and Devon (Harl. Soc.); information from Mr. W. R. Sims.]
CUTTS, JOHN, Baron Cutts of Gowran, Ireland (1661–1707), lieutenant-general, was second son of Richard Cutte or Cuttes of Woodhall, Arkesden, an Essex squire of an old family owning property at Arkesden and Matching in that county, by his wife Joan, daughter of Sir Richard Everard, baronet, of Much Waltham, Essex. Richard Cuttes about 1670 became devised of the Cambridgeshire estates of his collateral relative, Sir John Cutts, baronet, of Childerley, Cambridgeshire. His second son, John, was probably born in 1661, at Arkesden, not at Matching as often stated (for particulars and pedigree see Trans. Essex Archæol. Soc. iv. 31–42). He entered Catharine Hall, Cambridge, as a fellow-commoner in February 1676 (St. Cath. Coll. MSS. in Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. 424), but his name does not appear among the graduates until the date of his honorary degree in 1690. After the deaths of his father and elder brother Richard, who died unmarried, he succeeded to the paternal estates, which he states were then worth 2,000l. a year (Trans. Essex Archæol. Soc. ut supra), and appears to have been in the suite of the Duke of Monmouth at the Hague at the period described by Macaulay in ‘History of England,’ i. 531. Cutts states (ib.) that ‘in the year Charles II died’ (1685) he broke off an engagement with Mrs. Villiers, at the express desire of William, prince of Orange, conveyed through the Duke of Monmouth, with solemn assurance of high reward in the event of the prince ever coming to England. Which of the ladies whose names scandal associated with William of Orange (Strickland, Queens of England, vii. 49 et seq.) is here meant is not apparent from Cutts's hasty memoranda. Later in the same year Cutts, who had scholarly tastes and wrote flowing and not ungraceful verses, made his first appearance in print, in England, 10 Nov. 1685, in ‘La Muse de Cavalier; or an Apology for such Gentlemen as make Poetry their Diversion not their Business, in a letter by a scholar of Mars to one of Apollo.’ The letter, which is in rhyme, alludes to some anonymous critic, who had objected to soldiers wielding the pen, and accused Cutts of ‘railing against the stage and court,’ and to whom there is an indecent rejoinder appended. Next year Cutts was among the English volunteers serving under Charles, duke of Lorraine, against the Turks in Hungary. He greatly distinguished himself by his heroism at the siege and capture of Buda in July 1686, for which he received the appointment of ‘adjutant-general’ to the Duke of Lorraine, stated to have been the first military commission he ever held (Compleat Hist. of Europe, 1707, p. 455). A passage in Addison's ‘Musæ Anglicanæ’ is said to refer to Cutts having been the first to plant the imperialist flag on the walls of Buda. In March 1687 he published in London his ‘Poetical Exercises, written on several occasions,’ with a dedication to Mary, princess of Orange. Some extracts from this little book are given by Horace Walpole in ‘Royal and Noble Authors,’ v. 220–2. It also contains a piece dedicated to the Duchess of Monmouth, who had asked Cutts's opinion of Boileau's poems, and a few songs ‘set by His Majesty's Servants, Mr. Abel and Mr. King.’ In March 1688, Narcissus Luttrell records that ‘Mr. Cutts is gone to Holland, and made lieutenant-colonel of a regiment there’ (Relation of State Affairs (1857), i. 435). A small portrait of Cutts, taken by the court painter Wissing, somewhere about this time, is now in the National Portrait Gallery, and was engraved among Richardson's portraits. It represents a handsome young fellow, with dark hazel eyes, and features less aquiline
