COOTE, Thomas (d.1671), of Coote Hill, co. Cavan.

Thomas Coote was the fourth son of the Elizabethan soldier and Connaught planter, Sir Charles Coote senior, and the younger brother of Sir Charles Coote*, lord president of Connaught during the civil war and interregnum.15Signature: SP28/62/2, f. 371: 1 Sept. 1649. Little is known of Thomas Coote’s early career, although he was probably born and brought up in Ireland, where his father held extensive estates in Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon. In the early stages of the Irish rebellion of 1641, Coote accompanied his father on his punitive expeditions from Dublin, and he was present at Trim when Sir Charles senior was killed. The lords justices sent him to Westminster with news of his father’s death, and recommended him for a commission in the army.16Irish Rebellion ed. Hogan, 78. After his return to Ireland, Coote served with his brothers in defending the family’s castles in Connaught. Appropriately enough, he was returned for the borough of Trim in a by-election for the Irish Parliament in March 1643.

In February 1644, shortly after the cessation of arms between the king and the Irish rebels had supposedly taken effect, the royalist commander in the west, the 5th earl of Clanricarde, had reason to complain of the ‘high humours’ of ‘Sir Charles Coote’s brothers’, who ‘with disobedience and contempt of those that should govern over them, do entertain a far greater number than either themselves or the country joined with them is able to maintain’. Clanricarde also had suspicions that the Cootes were already in close contact with the Ulster Scots.17Letterbk. of the earl of Clanricarde, 1643-7 ed. J. Lowe (Dublin, 1983), 49. When the truce broke down locally, Thomas Coote continued to defend Castle Coote and Roscommon, and in early 1645 he became notorious for his harassment of the surrounding area.18Brereton letter Bks. i. 250-1. He was captured at Roscommon when General Preston’s Confederate army took the castle in the summer of 1646.19CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 466. Coote was incarcerated until April 1647, when his old adversary, Clanricarde, interceded on his behalf, being ‘very sensible of your long sufferings by the long restraint you have endured’, and signing himself ‘your loving friend’.20Clanricarde Letterbk. ed. Lowe, 395-6.

Thomas Coote joined his elder brother in supporting the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, and he went on to serve under the protectorate. From the autumn of 1649 until June 1653, he was colonel of a foot regiment, acting as governor of Coleraine and commander of the Laggan forces garrisoned in western Ulster, and sent forces to support Henry Ireton’s* siege of Limerick in 1650-1.21SP28/67/2, f. 253; SP28/68/3, ff. 510, 513; SP28/70/3, ff. 742, 770, 776, 782; SP28/71/2, f. 190; Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 640-1; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. ii. 620. Edmund Ludlowe II* later claimed that Coote’s appointment as colonel was at the instigation of his brother, Sir Charles, who had assigned commands to his three brothers and a cousin.22Ludlow, Mems. ii. 230. The Cootes certainly seemed to act as a coherent unit throughout this period. In September 1649 Thomas Coote was receiving money for the forces under his elder brother’s command; his three brothers collaborated in the government of Ulster in the early 1650s; and in 1654 all four Coote brothers acted in concert when petitioning the council of state for the speedy settlement of their land grants.23SP28/62/2, f. 371; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 800. The disbandment of his regiment in the summer of 1653 – which was part of a general reduction of the Connaught and Ulster forces which affected all the Coote brothers – seems to have undermined Thomas Coote’s confidence in the military regime which governed Ireland.24SP28/93/1, ff. 100-1. By late 1654 Coote was implicated (with the former royalists, Viscount Conway and George Rawden*) in an attempt to remove the lord deputy, Charles Fleetwood*, and to replace him with Henry Cromwell*, who was seen as a friend of the Old Protestant interest in Ireland.25TSP, iii. 29. Such allegations did not overly concern the Irish council, and Coote was appointed assessment commissioner for cos. Antrim, Cavan and Monaghan in October 1654 and January 1655.26An Assessment for Ire. The arrival of Henry Cromwell as acting governor of Ireland eased Coote’s position further, and he was made sheriff of Cavan, Fermanagh and Monaghan in 1656.27NAI, Ferguson MS 10, p. 164. It was presumably his own local influence as much as his brother’s regional interest that resulted in Coote’s election as MP for the same three counties in 1659. There is no record of his having attended the short-lived session at Westminster.

Coote joined his three brothers in signing the Connaught officers’ declaration against military rule and in favour of the Rump Parliament in December 1659, and in the General Convention that met at Dublin in March 1660 he represented co. Cavan.28Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 116, 185. After the restoration of the king, Coote continued to enjoy the protection of his elder brother, who was created earl of Mountrath in October 1660, and who arranged royal pardons for Thomas and his other brothers soon afterwards.29CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 188. Mountrath also secured all Thomas Coote’s landholdings, settled or promised to be settled ‘by any gift, grant or order of any power or usurped power’ – in other words, all the lands gained under Cromwell as well as those he had held before 1649.30CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 189; Eg. 2542, f. 407. Coote’s military career continued after the Restoration. In 1660 he was appointed colonel in the Irish army, but in November, in a politically expedient move, he was demoted to lieutenant-colonel by the earl of Orrery (Roger Boyle*), to make room for the duke of Ormond’s son, the earl of Ossory, who then became Coote’s commanding officer.31CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 103. After Mountrath’s death in late 1661, Thomas Coote continued to represent the family interest in the Irish Parliament (which he had attended as MP for co. Cavan since May 1661).32CJI, i. 589. One of the most active members of this Parliament, Coote was closely involved in legislation, and in the raising and apportioning of taxes in particular.33CJI, i. 603 and passim; ii. 1-496. After the dissolution of the Irish Parliament in the summer of 1666, Coote seems to have retired from public life. Thereafter he was involved in financial transactions with Thomas Juxon*, who had married the sister of the dowager countess of Mountrath, and borrowed money from him.34Juxon Jnl. 189. By his will, dated 22 November 1671, Coote left £200 to build a church on the bowling green at Coote Hill in co. Cavan, and a further £100 for the use of the hospital which he had already founded at Oxmantown Green. He died three days later, without heirs, and was buried at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.35Lodge, Peerage, i. 304; Juxon Jnl. 4n.