COTTON, William (c.1550-1621)

The eldest son of an obscure London merchant, Cotton was educated at Guildford grammar school and Queen’s College, Oxford. A protégé of John Aylmer^†, bishop of London, who ordained him and made him his chaplain, he nevertheless felt neglected, and eventually lost his patron’s favour through indolence. In 1598, four years after Aylmer’s death, he accepted the offer of the far from wealthy bishopric of Exeter.14 Vage; 250; Cott., Julius C.III, f. 121; Oxford DNB, xiii. 633. The promise of a swift translation to another, more profitable see was never fulfilled, and soon he was on the lookout for additional benefices to augment his meagre income. In April 1600, after failing to secure the west Devon parsonage of Brent, estimated to be worth more than £200 p.a., he obtained the rectory of St. Mary, Silverton, perhaps assisted by the queen’s chief minister Sir Robert Cecil^* (later 1st earl of Salisbury), whom he evidently regarded as his patron.15 HMC Hatfield, x. 9, 17.

Cotton subsequently settled with his family at Silverton, seven miles north of Exeter, rather than at the bishop’s palace, which was so dilapidated that he sued his predecessor, Gervase Babington^*, bishop of Worcester, for the cost of repairs.16 R.J.E. Boggis, Hist. of the Dioc. of Exeter, 388. Silverton, however, may have proved too small for his requirements, for during the early seventeenth century it was extended. Nonetheless, not until 1607 did Cotton reside at the bishop’s palace for any length of time.17 Trans. Devonshire Assoc. xciii. 261; Devon RO, Chanter 21, ff. 84v-5.

Following his arrival in his new diocese Cotton, who complained of ‘the intolerable wildness and wickedness of this country’, discovered that the south-west was a hotbed of nonconformity. He therefore set about attempting to impose his will on the local puritans. His efforts so impressed William Bourchier^*, 3rd earl of Bath that, towards the end of the 1601 Parliament, Bath sought an assurance from Cecil that Cotton would return to his diocese immediately after the dissolution, the bishop having ‘made a good beginning’ by bringing to heel many local puritans, who were ‘far out of order’.18 HMC Hatfield, xi. 443. Nevertheless, Cotton felt the need for additional authority, and in 1602, after much effort, he persuaded Cecil and the archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift^†, to grant him a local ecclesiastical commission.19 Ibid. 26, 182; Devon RO, Chanter 761, p. 284.

One of the major centres of nonconformity within the diocese was the city of Exeter, whose corporation was notoriously inclined to puritanism. In the spring of 1600 the dean and chapter of Exeter Cathedral accused the city of exercising civic authority within the Bishop’s Fee.20 C.F. Patterson, Urban Patronage in Early Modern Eng. 132. This area, also called St Stephen’s Fee because it included the centrally-located church of St Stephen’s, was not a compact holding but consisted of all the tenements held by the bishop in the city and its suburbs.21 M.E. Curtis, Some Disputes bet. the City and Cathedral Authorities of Exeter, 11. Cotton not only sided with the dean and chapter in their dispute, but evidently also tried to undermine the city’s status as a county borough. Certainly the corporation later complained that the bishop, dean and chapter had attempted ‘to plant the jurisdiction of the justices of the county of Devon within the heart of this city’, which had its own magistrates. This charge may well be justified, for if Devon’s magistrates were allowed to exercise jurisdiction in the city, Cotton’s own authority in Exeter would have been enhanced, since he himself was appointed to the Devon bench in May 1600.22 SP14/7/51.

As bishop of Exeter, Cotton owned half of the manor of St Germans, in south-east Cornwall. Consequently, when a Parliament was summoned in 1604, he used his influence there to secure a seat in the Commons for his son-in-law John Trott^‡, who lived at Colney Hatch, in Middlesex. Trott was almost certainly a friend of long standing, as Cotton had been raised at nearby Finchley23 T. Fuller, Worthies of Eng. ed. J. Freeman, 366. and both his father and Trott’s had been London Drapers. Cotton himself attended the opening of the first Jacobean Parliament on 19 Mar. 1604, having reached London at least five days earlier.24 LJ, ii. 264a; Devon RO, Chanter 21, f. 79v. He played no recorded part in its proceedings until 21 Apr., when he was added to the committee that was to confer with the Commons that afternoon about the Union. In the interim he evidently spent his time lobbying behind the scenes to succeed Richard Bancroft^* as bishop of London, it being expected that Bancroft would soon be promoted to the now vacant archbishopric of Canterbury.25 LJ, ii. 284a; Trevelyan Pprs. ed. V.C. and C.E. Trevelyan (Cam. Soc. cv), 67.

On 21 Apr. 1604 a bill to explain a statute of 1550 concerning the boundaries of the city of Exeter received its first reading in the Lords. Drafted at the behest of Cotton and the dean and chapter, this measure was regarded as ‘very dangerous, inconvenient and tending to the utter confusion of ... the whole estate of this city’ by the corporation, which had already ordered its representatives in the Commons to block any legislation preferred ‘against the city’s liberties’.26 LJ, ii. 283b; SP14/7/51; Devon RO, ECA Act Bk. 6, p. 126. Following a second reading on 30 Apr. the bill was placed in committee, which was instructed to assemble in three days time. However this meeting was subsequently postponed, apparently for five days. Sometime before the session ended the House halted the proceedings, though no order to this effect was entered in the Lords Journal.27 LJ, ii. 287a, 290a; Devon RO, ECA, receivers’ vouchers, box 1, 1603-4 file, doc. headed ‘Payments made for the City’.

On the day that the Exeter city boundaries bill committee was originally instructed to meet, Cotton was appointed to help consider a bill to prevent the import, printing, buying or selling of seditious, popish or lascivious books. Five days later, on 8 May, the new date on which the boundaries committee was assigned to meet, he was appointed to the committee on a bill introduced by the Painter-Stainers’ Company of London, which sought to prevent others from exercising their trade. His sole remaining appointments before the end of the session occurred on 19 May, when he was reappointed to the popish books bill committee, and on 18 June, when he was named to help confer with the Commons the following morning on the subject of tunnage and poundage.28 LJ, ii. 290a, 294b, 301b, 323a. On 2 June Cotton and two other bishops were excused attendance by the Lords ‘in regard they were employed at this time about very necessary occasions concerning the Convocation House’. As Convocation did not meet on that day, Cotton and his two colleagues, the bishop of London, Richard Bancroft, and the bishop of Lincoln, William Barlow^*, probably withdrew in order to draft on behalf of Convocation the Instrument of Inhibition, which forbade the bishops from conferring with the Commons about the Church’s recently drafted Canons.29 Ibid. 311b; Recs. of Convocation VIII: Canterbury 1603-1700 ed. G. Bray (Church of Eng. Rec. Soc.), 6. Cotton’s other recorded absences were modest in number: three consecutive working days in late May and early July respectively; two consecutive working days in mid May; four odd days in March, April and May; and two afternoon sittings, one in May, the other in June. Cotton attended the final day of the session on 7 July, but did not linger long in London thereafter, as he had returned to Silverton by 24 July.30 LJ, ii. 343a, 344b; Devon RO, Chanter 21, f. 80.

Over the winter of 1604/5 the corporation of Exeter attempted to reach agreement with Cotton. These negotiations, brokered by the earl of Bath, initially proved inconclusive, but were revived at Bath’s suggestion in September 1605, by which time a fresh session of Parliament was imminent. Following two meetings a solution was evidently reached, whereby the corporation offered to exempt from arrest the officers and servants of the bishop, dean and chapter within the cathedral close. However, the corporation declined to be legally bound by the decision reached by Bath, who had acted as arbitrator, ‘fearing lest ... the commoners shall exclaim upon their governors for their so doing’.31 Devon RO, ECA Act Bk. 6, pp. 156, 158, 180, 182, 184-7. Nevertheless Cotton was evidently satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations, as the boundaries bill was not reintroduced when Parliament reconvened in November.

Cotton was still in Exeter on 26 Oct. 1605, and consequently missed the opening of Parliament on 5 November. However, he attended both the morning and afternoon sittings of the Lords on the 9th, when the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot caused Parliament to be adjourned till January. Rather than return to Devon, Cotton spent December in Finchley, where he still owned and rented property. He therefore had no difficulty in attending Parliament when it reopened on 21 Jan. 1606.32 Devon RO, Chanter 21, f. 83; VCH Mdx. vi. 83; PROB 11/138, f. 117; LJ, ii. 360a. During the course of the following session he was named to 15 committees (out of a total of 72), three of them to confer with the Commons. One of these appointments was for a bill similar to the one he had been twice asked to consider in the previous session, on the import, printing and sale of seditious, popish and lascivious books (24 February). Another was of direct interest to the earl of Bath, who was absent that session. It concerned an apparently innocuous private bill to allow timber to be conveyed down the river Taw to Barnstaple. Bath was vehemently opposed to this measure as it threatened to ruin his fishing on the river.33 LJ, ii. 397b; SP14/19/75, 77. Cotton almost certainly knew this and, in view of Bath’s efforts in mediating a settlement between himself and the corporation of Exeter the previous year, doubtless did his best to halt the bill in its tracks. Another of Cotton’s appointments was to the committee for the bill to allow free trade to Spain, Portugal and France (25 Mar.), a measure of interest to many West Country merchants, as the lack of free trade was a common complaint of the outports.34 LJ, ii. 399b.

During the session Cotton learned that the ecclesiastical commission he had obtained for Exeter diocese four years earlier was the target of criticism in the lower House. This was ironic, as Cotton had adopted a conciliatory view towards those who had refused to subscribe to the 1604 Canons, depriving only four ministers and suspending a further three. Opposition in the Commons to the commission was led by Sir William Strode^‡, who sat for Plympton Erle and was the patron of Samuel Hieron, rector of the Devon parish of Modbury. Hieron not only helped organize the Millenary Petition in the West County but also spearheaded clerical opposition to subscription to the 1604 Canons locally.35 Vage, 253-4; M. Wolffe, Gentry Leaders in Peace and War, 14; K. Fincham, Prelate as Pastor, 215. During the course of his episcopate, Cotton threatened Hieron with suspension on five separate occasions, but Hieron was protected by Strode, whose friends included Cotton’s own powerful patron, the earl of Salisbury.36 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 297-8; Oxford DNB, xiii. 634. It was against this backdrop that Cotton was appointed to speak on the multiplication of ecclesiastical commissions when the Lords conferred with the Commons on 17 April.37 LJ, ii. 416b.

Like his fellow bishops, Cotton attended Convocation on days when the Lords were not sitting, and on 19 Mar. was one of three prelates to whom Convocation committed its draft of a grant of clerical subsidies.38 Recs. of Convocation VIII, 92. In the Lords his attendance was assiduous, at least until 26 April. Thereafter, aside from a brief return to the chamber on 5 May, he absented himself for the rest of the session, which ended on 27 May. When Parliament reassembled later that year, he remained in Devon, obtaining a licence of absence and assigning his proxy to the archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Bancroft.39 SO3/3, unfol. (17 Dec. 1606); LJ, ii. 449a; Devon RO, Chanter 21, ff. 84v-5. His unwillingness to attend Parliament may have reflected his bitterness that he had not yet been promoted. Writing to his distant cousin Sir Robert Cotton^‡ in December 1608, he complained that ‘I sit still as one nailed to this stool’, condemned to live ‘amongst many clamorous and malicious rattle-heads’. Unless Sir Robert used his influence with the lord privy seal, Henry Howard^*, earl of Northampton, he feared that he would continue to be overlooked.40 Cott., Julius C.III, f. 121.

Cotton attended neither of the parliamentary sessions of 1610. However, he procured a licence of absence and appointed a proxy (Bancroft) only for the first.41 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 585; LJ, ii. 548a. When Parliament met again, in 1614, he journeyed to Westminster, having first used his interest at St Germans to secure a seat for his son-in-law, John Trott. He was doubtless accompanied by his son William, who had been elected to Convocation, and by his brother George, who had obtained a seat at Camelford on the younger William’s interest.42 Exeter Cathedral ms D&C 3553, f. 41; HP Commons 1604-29, ii. 53. Despite regularly attending the Lords, Cotton played little recorded part in the House’s proceedings. Indeed, there is no evidence that he ever addressed the chamber, and he was nominated to just two committees, out of a total of nine, one to consider a bill to prevent the wasteful consumption of gold and silver (11 Apr.) and the other on a measure to avoid the need for lawsuits concerning certain sorts of wills (16 April). However, he was present on 24 May, when all the bishops except Tobie Matthew^*, archbishop of York, voted not to confer with the Commons over impositions.43 LJ, ii. 706b; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 533. Chamberlain incorrectly implies that the vote took place on 23 May. On 2 May Cotton’s absence was excused by the lord chancellor, who declared that he was detained by ‘special business’.44 LJ, ii. 691a; HMC Hastings, iv. 246. Perhaps sensing that the assembly was doomed to failure, Cotton absented himself from the final four days of the Parliament (4-7 June). He did not return home immediately, however, but spent July at Finchley and Colney Hatch.45 Devon RO, Chanter 21, f. 102v.

Cotton and his wife seem to have enjoyed an unenviable reputation in Exeter diocese, at least among the godly. In 1610 a man was bound over at the Exeter assizes for saying that Cotton ‘did lie with one Anne Denys’. At the same time it was rumoured that Cotton’s wife had extorted £10 from a petitioner who desired the ear of her husband.46 Diary of Walter Yonge ed. G. Roberts (Cam. Soc. xli), 21. We are grateful to Ken Fincham for this reference. Whether these allegations of adultery and bribery were well-founded is unknown. However, Cotton was certainly a shameless nepotist, who exploited his position as bishop of Exeter to promote the interests of his sons, William and Edward, both of whom had entered the Church. Initially he surrendered to them various offices which he himself had previously accumulated to augment his meagre income as bishop. In 1606, for instance, he resigned the precentorship of Exeter Cathedral in favour of William, whom he also made rector of Silverton in August 1613 (though he continued to live in the rectory himself). However, in June 1613 the bishop went one stage further, securing for William the chancellorship of Exeter diocese, even though William was neither a civil nor an ecclesiastical lawyer, and despite canon law, which prohibited a son from serving as his father’s chancellor. Not surprisingly, when the archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot^*, learned of this appointment in January 1615 the dean and chapter were instructed to withhold their consent, whereupon William was forced to resign.47 Exeter Cathedral ms D&C 3601, f. 6r-v; Vage, 287; Fincham, 164.

The bishop encountered more success in defending his younger son Edward, whom he appointed chancellor of Exeter Cathedral in September 1614. His principal antagonist was William Helyar, archdeacon of Barnstaple, who, in 1604, had challenged his possession of Silverton rectory.48 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 99. As one of James’s chaplains, Helyar persuaded James in February 1616 to appoint Roger Bates as cathedral chancellor and to refuse to allow any appeal to the archbishop’s court.49 Fasti. xii. 17; Surr. Arch. Soc. xxi. 176. However, on 13 July, the day after Bates was formally admitted as chancellor by the dean and chapter, Edward publicly declared that his rival’s appointment was invalid, the position having already been filled.50 Exeter Cathedral ms D&C 3553, ff. 61v, 62. Subsequent attempts by the dean and chapter to unseat Edward proved unavailing.51 Ibid. f. 63. Having already been humiliated once, the bishop did everything within his power to uphold Edward’s claim against Bates, even though Helyar tried ‘to purchase all the favour he can’. In May 1617, during the course of a lengthy visit to the capital, Cotton wrote to the lord keeper (Francis Bacon^*, later Viscount St Alban) in an attempt to influence the outcome of a lawsuit between Edward and Bates, which was then being heard in Chancery.52 SP14/92/34.

At around the same time, Cotton sought to fend off criticism of Edward from another quarter. While he was in London, the corporation of Exeter complained to Archbishop Abbot that Edward had delivered a ‘scandalous’ sermon. This complaint, which was vigorously pursued, constituted an indirect attack on Cotton himself, relations between the bishop and the corporation having now broken down due to the fact that the dormant dispute between Cotton and the corporation over the extent of the bishop’s jurisdiction in Exeter had finally reawakened. The city authorities believed that St Stephen’s Fee included only about half the houses considered by the bishop to be within his jurisdiction, and that Cotton had encouraged his bailiff to resort to extortion.53 Curtis, 47, 86; Devon RO, ECA Law Pprs. Box 60, no. 1, pp. 6-7, 19-20; no. 3, pp. 3-4, 12. As late as April 1618 both sides were trying to negotiate an end to the dispute, which had resulted in an Exchequer lawsuit.54 Devon RO, ECA Act Bk. 7, pp. 266, 268, 298.

Cotton’s poor relations with Exeter’s municipal authorities continued until the end of his episcopate. In 1619 a further dispute arose after the corporation established two lectureships for the cathedral. Cotton insisted upon the right to appoint the incumbents himself, but the corporation dissented and refused to budge. A few months later Cotton and the corporation were again at loggerheads, this time over the rector of Marley, as the feoffees for the rectory included members of the city council. As no amicable settlement could be reached, the matter was referred to arbitration.55 Ibid. 14-15, 329, 330, 339, 343-4.

Cotton did not attend the 1621 Parliament but instead assigned his proxy to Archbishop Abbot and Lancelot Andrewes^*, bishop of Winchester. He nevertheless continued to exercise his electoral interest at St Germans, where he returned John Trott’s friend Richard Tisdall^‡, who rented land belonging to Cotton in Middlesex.56 PROB 11/138, f. 117. Over the spring and summer of 1621 Cotton presided over the bishop’s court at Silverton, but sometime after 11 Aug., when he sat for the last time, he suffered an apoplectic fit which rendered him incapable of saying anything other than ‘Amen, Amen’ repeatedly.57 Devon RO, Chanter 42, p. 293, 295, 296, 298, 300, 302; Fuller, 366. He died at Silverton on 26 Aug., and was buried five days later in the south quire of Exeter Cathedral, where a monument which included a painted alabaster effigy, was erected in his memory.58 T. Westcote, View of Devonshire, 175; J. Prince, Worthies of Devon, 242. In his will, drafted on 23 Apr. 1618, Cotton bequeathed to his widow the land he leased in Finchley from John Trott, to whose son William he gave the reversionary interest. Trott himself was left ‘my best gilt cup with a cover’. The poor of the parish of Silverton were bequeathed £10, and £2 was left to the paupers of every parish of which he had been the incumbent. Execution of the will was assigned to Cotton’s widow, with oversight of its enforcement being shared between Cotton’s two sons and Trott.59 PROB 11/138, f. 117r-v. Edward Cotton clung to the chancellorship until at least 3 Nov. 1621, but had resigned by 22 Apr. 1622, when his father’s successor as bishop, Valentine Carey^*, accepted the office in commendam.60 Exeter Cathedral ms 3553, f. 100v; Fasti, xii. 18.