Coteel’s ancestors were Flemish merchants living at Antwerp. His father Thomas was born there, but left around the time of the ‘Spanish Fury’ of 1576, arriving in London about three years later. Resident in St. Martin Orgar by 1583, he amassed a sizeable fortune by trading in such commodities as oil, tin and English cloth.
Coteel must have been born in England, since he never sought the grant of naturalization which he would otherwise have needed in order to serve in Parliament. Having a German mother and Flemish father who, in the 1580s, attended the Italian Protestant services held at Mercers’ Hall, his upbringing was presumably cosmopolitan. Although he seems not to have travelled abroad until 1608, he strongly commended the educational value of foreign tours. He certainly maintained ties with his relatives in Brabant, where his father apparently owned property.
In 1625 Coteel was elected for Camelford. His connection with Cornwall dated from 1609, when his sister Mary married Sir Richard Edgcumbe*, and he became a trustee of his brother-in-law’s estates. This role brought him into contact with Edgcumbe’s gentry relatives in the east of the county, such as the Speccotts and Manatons, and it was undoubtedly through this Cornish network, most probably with the assistance of Sir Richard’s cousin, Sir Nicholas Prideaux, that his nomination to Camelford was arranged. Coteel’s reasons for entering the Commons are unknown, and he left no trace on the Parliament’s records.
By the mid-1620s Coteel had begun to explore the property market. At first he acquired estates temporarily as security for loans, as in 1624, when he obtained a manor on the Isle of Wight from its debt-ridden owner, Sir Bowyer Worseley.
In November 1630 this concentration of estates resulted in Coteel being pricked as Hampshire’s sheriff. By law this appointment obliged him to reside permanently in the county during his term of office. Not surprisingly, Coteel immediately appealed against his selection, but the king merely conceded that he might absent himself from his duties when he needed to visit his father or attend to his business in London. Accordingly, Coteel relied on his under-sheriff to fulfil many of his local functions, but it was soon apparent that the Crown had made a poor choice.
In 1633 Coteel sold Steventon back to its original vendor, but he kept his other Hampshire properties and continued to invest in land in the county, particularly in the Isle of Wight. Nevertheless he held no further offices there after his shrievalty ended, and apparently remained primarily a London resident until his final years.
In early 1640 Coteel prepared inventories of his books at Litchfield which shed considerable light on his cultural horizons. He is known to have spoken both French and Dutch, but he was presumably also fluent in Italian, for out of nearly 70 books listed, over 40 were in this language. He may of course have been introduced to Italian as a child through his parents’ church. Coteel possibly acquired his copies of popular authors such as Aretino and Machiavelli in London, though he would have had to import other more obscure works, or purchase them while abroad. Several of the books, such as Petrarch’s Sonnets, represent typical humanist taste of the period. A discernible bias towards classical Roman literature, more modern letters and history, and scientific topics, also bears comparison with the taste of other contemporary collectors. Nevertheless, it was unusual for someone of Coteel’s background to own this quantity of books, and indeed the virtual absence of religious works from these lists may indicate that he kept other volumes elsewhere. Not all his purchases followed mainstream tastes. His possession of two tomes on the Low Countries naturally reflects his family background. However, his collection of Roman historians appears to have omitted obvious figures such as Livy and Tacitus in favour of minor names like Dio Cassius and Eutropius, while his interest in classical literature extended to the Greek comedies of Aristophanes. Since Coteel collected all these works in Italian translation, it is unclear whether he mastered either Latin or Greek. More conventionally, he also acquired English books on the gentry pursuits of hawking and hunting, publications for the lute, and the predictable volumes on ‘discoveries, travels, [and] plantations’, presumably by authors such as Hakluyt and Purchas.
On 31 Aug. 1640 Coteel formally designated Piers Edgcumbe as his heir, his brother Daniel having died in the previous year, and made over to him the bulk of his property. He died a few days later at Litchfield. Although his will left his burial-place to the discretion of Piers, his executor, he undoubtedly intended his body to rest in the vault at St. Martin Orgar assigned to his family when his father died five years earlier. However, when Piers attempted to arrange this, a dispute erupted between the parson and churchwardens over their respective fees. The funeral finally went ahead on 9 Oct., after the London diocesan chancellor ruled that the corpse should be interred before the fees were agreed. Fortunately, under the circumstances, Coteel had left instructions for his body to be embalmed and sealed in lead pending his obsequies.