Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/51

 12 S. X. JAN. 14, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 37 Sir George Cotton, a younger grandson of Sir Richard, was a coronation knight one of the 400 persons in 1603 who, being possessed of a rental of 40 per annum were compelled to be dubbed knights or to pay a fine at the coronation of James I. At the coronation of Charles I. some 200 persons preferred to be fined the fines ranging from 10 to 40. Sir George Cotton married Cassandra, the youngest but one of the five sisters of Henry Mackwilliam, of Stambourne, Co. Essex, who was killed in a duel in 1599. The eldest sister, Margaret, married Sir John Stanhope, Lord Harrington ; the third sister, Ambrosia, was the wife of Sir William Kingswell of Shalden, Hants, in whose will, dated 1613, reference is made to Cas- sandra, daughter of Sir George and Dame Cassandra Cotton ; and the youngest sister, Cicely, sometime maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, married Sir Thomas Ridgway, Treasurer of Ireland, afterwards Earl of Londonderry. Sir George Cotton was first cousin to Henry, Earl of Kent, his aunt Susan having married Charles Grey, who succeeded to the earldom on the death of his brother in 1615. John Selden was steward and legal adviser to the Earl of Kent, and is said to have married the Countess after the Earl's death in 1639. Possibly the Cottons became friendly with Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, and other notable people of the period, through Selden. In Wotton's ' Baronetage ' (i. 300) it is stated that Charles Cotton (the poet) was " son and heir of Charles, son of Sir George Cotton, knight " ; and in ' Staffordshire Pedigrees ' (Harl. Soc., p. 59) he is called " Charles Cotton of Beresford esquire (grand- son of Sir George, a younger son of Cotton of Warblinton and Bedhampton in Southamp.)." Charles Cotton the elder married Olive, only d. and h. of Sir John Stanhope of Elvaston, Co. Derby. Anne Stanhope, sister of Sir John, married Thomas Cokayne, and was mother of Sir Aston Cokayne, the poet. Another sister, Catherine Stan- hope, married Sir Thomas Hutchinson, and their daughter Isabel was the first wife of Charles Cotton the younger. By her he had issue : Beresford, b. 1657/6 (in 1694 Captain in Sir Richard Atkins's Regiment of Foot) ; Wingfield and Charles, who both died young ; Olive, who married, in January, 1690, Dr. George Stanhope, Dean of Canterbury, and died in June, 1707 ; Catherine (d. June, 1740), the wife of Sir Berkeley Lucy, Bart. ; Jane and Mary. Col. John Hutchinson, the regicide, was brother of Isabel Cotton. The poet's second wife was Mary, daughter of Sir William Russell, widow of Wingfield Cromwell, Earl of Ardglass, by whom he had no issue. ALFRED T. EVERITT. Admiralty Road, Portsmouth. THE HOUSE OF HARCOURT (12 S. ix. 409, 453, 495, 514 ; x. 15). I am greatly obliged to your correspondent, MR. G. H. WHITE, for the trouble he has taken in answering my queries, but it leaves me with the impression that I ought to regard the works of Burke, Cleveland, Freeman and others as composed largely of fiction. However, I am not competent to judge in the matter, as I haven't access to any original sources of information, so am com- pelled to use my own judgment what to accept and what to reject in regard to the early history of this family. I should much like to know, however, what Dan le Noir says about it in his work, ' Preuves genealogiques et historiques de la Maison de Harcourt ' (Paris, 1907). Mr. White says that Wace is the only authority for a Harcourt being present at the Battle of Hastings. How about M. Leopold Delisle, stated to be " the greatest antiquarian authority in France," who was responsible for the insertion of Robert de Harcourt in the " Dives Roll " ? He professed to give no name that is not vouched for by some deed or document of the period. What was his authority ? Mr. White also states that the family " has become extinct in the male line " (in Eng- land), whereas Burke's ' Landed Gentry,' vol. i., 1898, states that the Harcourts of Ankerwyke are lineal descendants in the male line. Which is correct ? The numerous Harcourts who are descended from Edward Vernon, Archbishop of York, are, of course, only descended in the female line from this family. Is there a record of any grant of land to any Harcourt when it was parcelled out to the companions of William the Conqueror ; the presence of a Harcourt in the Pipe Roll as early as 1130 is in support of this supposition ? WILLIAM HARCOURT-BATH. Is it quite certain that MR. WHITE is right in stating that this family is extinct in the