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NOTES AND QUERIES. rio s. XL MAY is, 1009.
COTTON FAMILY OF WARBLETON,
HANTS.
(See 10 S. iv. 56, 114, under ' William Shelley.' ) As no pedigree of the Cotton family, except the incomplete one in Berry's ' Hampshire Genealogies,' has, so far as I know, been published, perhaps space may be found for a note on the subject.
Pp. 356-85 of the Report of the Historical MSS. Commissioners on Lord Ancaster's papers at Grimsthorpe (hereinafter referred to as ' Cal. Ancaster MSS.') are taken up with abstracts of documents relating to the arrest and imprisonment in the Tower of George Cotton's second son John on the charge of high treason. They throw much light on this staunch Catholic family, and to them I would refer any one interested in their history. Within the limits of a note in ' N. & Q.' it is impossible to summarize, even briefly, abstracts that run to twenty- nine pages.
George Cotton spent a good period of his life in prison for recusancy, as I pointed out at the first reference, and between 1587 and 1607 paid 260Z. a year in fines. He thus was mulcted in twenty years of a sum corresponding to about 50,000. of our money for refusing to attend Protestant services (see ' Victoria History of Hants,' ii. 86, 87) ; yet his younger brother Henry was Bishop of Salisbury from 1598 to 1615. I suspect that " Ma. Cotton " in the ' Cal. Ancaster MSS.' refers to his wife Mary, and not, as the editor supposes, to an unknown Matthew Cotton. If I am right, she had died before November, 1612.
1. Their eldest son Richard, who must have been born in or before 1559 and not, as Mr. EVEBITT suggests (10 S. iv. 56), " about 1570 " married Elizabeth, sister to Sir Christopher Blount (as to whom see 'D.N.B.,' v. 245) and Sir Edward Blount ('Cal. S.P. Dom., 1598-1601,' p. 565), both of whom were suspected of Papistry. The benefit of his recusancy was granted in 1609 to John Corbet, and in 1612 to the Earl of Montgomery. In 1616-17 he was living abroad, and had a son named Edward living in London ('Cal. S.P. Dom., 1603-10,' p. 561 ; 1611-18, pp. 120, 431, 442), who, how- ever, was not the eldest son. The eldest son, George, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir George Symonds, by whom he had an eldest son Richard, a recusant, who in 1666 married Elizabeth, sister of Richard, first Earl of Scarbrough, by whom he had issue. Richard Cotton, the eldest grandson of our Richard, died 28 March, 1695, leaving an only son
William, who died unmarried in 1736 (see
Longcroft's ' Bosmere,' p. 98). I suspect
that the above-mentioned Edward was the
Edward Cotton of Shelwood, Surrey, ta
whom, and to whose wife Mary, the King,
on 15 June, 1637, granted immunity from
prosecution for recusancy until further
notice ('Cal. S.P. Dom., 1637,' p. 215).
This Edward Cotton and Mary his wife
possessed lands in Cheshire (' Cal. Com-
mittee for Compounding, 1643-60,' p. 2270),
and also possessed the manor of Whitstanton,
Somerset, till they sold it (18 Car. I.) to Sir
B. Tichborne (ibid., p. 2943). Another son.
of Richard Cotton was Francis, of Penrose,
Monmouthshire (ibid., p. 2088).
2. John, the second son of George and Mary Cotton, was born in 1560. About the age of fifteen he went to the English College at Douay for six or nine months, and then to Paris for a year. He was arrested with Father Campion at Lyford 17 June, 1581, and sent to the Tower, whence he was liberated for three months 25 April, 1582, on bail given by his brother Richard and brother-in-law John Carrell. The time was extended on 23 June, 1582, for three months longer (' P.C.A.,' N.S. xiii. 396, 454) ; before this further period had expired, however, he went abroad, but was taken ill at Rouen and had to return to England. In 1590 he again went abroad, and visited Flanders and Italy, He was twice married. By his first wife Catherine he had one son, Richard, who died at St. Omer about 1611, aged sixteen or seventeen, and two daughters, Mary and Catherine. Mary was admitted 27 Sept. (O.S.) or 7 Oct. (N.S.), 1612, as a probationer at a convent of English Poor Clares at Gravelines. Of this convent Mary Stevens, probably a sister of Thomas Stephens, S.J. (as to whom see 10 S. ix. 208, 254), was abbess, and the Rev. Henry Chaderton (as to whom see 10 S. iv. 184> spiritual director. Catherine was born about 1596. By his second wife, a cousin of the above-mentioned Henry Chaderton, John Cotton had three daughters.
On Wednesday, 28 April, 1613, at 9 A.M., a book was found in the Court at Whitehall entitled ' Balaam's Asse,' the scope of which was to prove that his Majesty King James was Antichrist. It was in some sort an answer to the King's ' Premonitory Epistle * published 8 April, 1609. Suspicion fell on John Cotton, whose house at Soberton was raided on the afternoon of 10 1 May, and his MSS., books, and " implements for Mass- saying " were seized ; but there was no one in the house except Catherine and her
