Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/315

Cotton, Sir John Davies, Speed, Richard Carew of Antony, and other men of learning. The meetings of the society were held at Cotton's house at the end of Elizabeth's reign, and many proofs are extant of his liberal treatment of his antiquarian guests. Dr. Dee enjoyed good cheer there in 1596; Sir John Davies, who writes to him as ‘Sweet Robin,’ sent him a present of sweetmeats in 1602, and arranged for a joint visit to Cambridge (, Queen Elizabeth, ii. 493). In June 1601 Sir Thomas Bodley received a contribution of manuscripts ‘to furnish the university library’ at Oxford. Before the Antiquarian Society, which ceased to meet regularly after 1604, Cotton read many papers. Eight of them have been published, and treat of the antiquity in England of castles, towns, heraldry, the offices of high steward and constable, the ceremonies of lawful combat, and the introduction of christianity. All show much heterogeneous learning, chiefly derived from manuscript sources. Other readers of papers are profuse in their acknowledgment of indebtedness to Cotton's library, and they spread his fame as a master of precedents so far that in 1600 the queen's advisers referred to him a question of precedency which had arisen between Sir Henry Neville, an English ambassador, and an ambassador from Spain, who were together at Calais discussing the terms of an Anglo-Spanish treaty. Cotton in an elaborate paper decided in favour of his own countryman. On 25 Nov. 1602 Henry Howard, lord Northampton, invited him to supply a list of precedents respecting the office of earl marshal. In 1600 Cotton accompanied Camden on an antiquarian tour to Carlisle, and brought back many Pictish and Roman monuments and inscriptions, some of which a descendant deposited at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1753 (, Memoirs, i. 52). Camden was benefiting at the time by Cotton's assistance in preparing a fifth edition of his ‘Britannia,’ which was duly acknowledged in print. No account of Cotton's travels to the continent is preserved, but he speaks in one of his early tracts of having visited Italy, and it seems probable that he undertook a foreign tour before the close of the sixteenth century.

At the time of James I's accession Cotton was intimate with most of the leading statesmen as well as the leading writers. Bacon and Ben Jonson were often in his library. The former entered in his notebook in 1608 the advisability of making himself better acquainted with its contents, and in 1604 sought a private interview to learn Cotton's opinion about the union of Scotland and England. When the king arrived in England the antiquary was at his country house at Connington, and Ben Jonson and Camden were his guests ( and, Conversation Shakspeare Soc. p. 20). He had just completed the rebuilding of Connington House; had purchased the whole room in which Mary Stuart had been beheaded in Fotheringay Castle, and had fitted it up in his mansion. On presenting himself at court he was knighted (11 May 1603), and was complimented by the king, who called him ‘cousin,’ on his descent from the Bruces. Henceforward Cotton signed himself ‘Robert Cotton Bruceus,’ and designated himself Robert Bruce Cotton.

James's tastes lay somewhat in the same direction as Cotton's. The antiquary was taken immediately into the royal favour, and became very friendly with the favourite Somerset. On 18 Feb. 1603–4 he re-entered parliamentary life as M.P. for Huntingdon. On 26 March following he drew up a pedigree of James from the Saxon kings, and a few years later wrote for Prince Henry, at the king's request, a history of Henry III, and ‘An Answer to such motives as were offered by certain military men to Prince Henry to incite him to affect arms more than peace.’ In 1608 he was appointed to inquire into abuses in the administration of the navy. His report was approved by the king, and although it was not adopted he was invited to attend the privy council when it was under discussion. In 1613 his influence led to a renewal of the investigation, but with little result. In 1611 James seems to have discussed with Cotton the question of increasing the royal revenues, and the antiquary wrote a tract on the various means adopted by former kings in raising money (Cottoni Posth. 163–200). He at the same time strongly supported, if he did not originate, the proposal to create the new rank of baronets. He argued in vain that baronets should have precedence of barons' sons, but was one of the second batch upon whom the honour was conferred (29 June 1611), and his was the thirty-sixth baronetcy created. In 1612 he carried a ‘bannerol’ at Prince Henry's funeral.

Meanwhile Cotton was giving very much assistance to two of his friends, John Speed and Camden, both of whom were engaged on elaborate historical treatises. Speed's ‘History of England,’ which was published in 1611, was revised in the proof-sheets by Cotton in 1609, and Cotton supplied for it the lists of the revenues of the abbeys and full notes on Henry VIII's reign, besides lending innumerable manuscripts and the many valuable coins which are engraved in the volume. His association with Camden's ‘History of Elizabeth’ involves matters of