Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/306

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. N 15, APRH, 12. '56.

rates, viz. the eagle, "41s. sterling; half-eagle, 20s. 6d. ; quarter-eagle, 10s. 3d. ; and the gold dollar at the rate of 4s. Id. W. C.

COTTON FAMILY.

(2 na S. i. 250.)

CUTHBERT BEDE will find the fullest particulars of all he requires in Wotton's Baronetage, ed. 1741, vol. i. p. 137. It is so common a book that it would be encroaching on the valuable space of " N. & Q." to repeat them here, but he will dis- cover also that he has made some wrong de- ductions, which his own information does not warrant.

He supposes Dame Alice to be the first wife, and as she had given birth to a daughter in 1642, if Dame Margaret were the second, and born in 1593, the earliest period she could have been married would have been at the age of fifty, and this is rather late to become the mother (as the epitaph assures us) of four sons and two daughters. I name/OMr, for though CUTHBERT BEDE imagines there were only three, the epitaph does not in truth oppose the pedigree. The " uno prajrepto " is not included in the three. This was Thomas, who died set. seventeen, and was buried (CUTH- BERT BEDE says) at Steeple Gidding.

The argument deduced from the date of Jan- sen's picture will, on consideration, be found of no value. CUTHBEKT BEDE says that Margaret, born 1593, was painted at the age of seventy-three by Cornelius Jansen, and consequently in the year 1666 ; but this would be eighteen years after Jansen had given up painting in England and re- tired to Holland, and what is a still stronger ob- jection, a year after Jansen's death, which took place in 1665. The error is probably not in the date of her birth, but rather of her age when painted. As Alice was a wife and mother in 1642, the latest period to affix to the picture is 1640, and Margaret, if then seventy-three, must nave been born in 1567 ; consequently, at the birth of her son John in 1621, she was fifty-four ! Is this likely ?

On the other hand the statement in Wotton, that Margaret was first, and Alice second, wife of Sir Thomas Cotton, does not militate against any fact advanced by CUTHBERT BEDE, except that of Jansen painting Margaret in 1666, which is proved erroneous on other grounds.

The entry in the register, 1688, to Mrs. Mar- garet Cotton, could not possibly mean Lady or Dame Margaret. It was probably that of one of Sir John's daughters, of whom many died young. CUTHBERT BEDE is aware that at that period the term Mistress was applied more to single than married ladies, the latter being called Madam.

I hope CUTHBERT BEDE will excuse the liberty I have taken in enforcing the necessity of carefully sifting deductive evidence, for upon this depends its value or its danger to a genealogist. May I now add a Query of my own : Of what family was Thomas Cotton, a member of Gray's Inn, who in 1632 married, at Kensington, Magdalen, a daugh- ter of Sir Thomas' Monson ? MONSON.

Gattou Park.

In reply to CUTHBERT BEDE I have the plea- sure of sending an extract from an ancient pedi- gree of the family of Cotton, which was given to me by one of the descendants and representatives of Sir Robert the antiquary. The first wife of Sir Thomas was " Margaret, daughter of Lord William Howard, third son of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk. He was K. G., and ancestor of the Earls of Carlisle : married June 17, 1617 ; died March 5, 1625." His second wife was " Alice, daughter and heir of John Constable of Dro- monby, in Yorkshire. She was relict of Edward Anderson of Stretton, Bedfordshire, Esq. ; he died April 4, 1638. Quarterly gules and vaire, over all a bend or, thereon an annulet sa. for difference." By his first wife he had " Sir John Cotton, Bart., of Stretton, in right of his wife member for the town of Hunts, 13 Car. II., and for the county, 1 Jac. II.; died Sept. 12, 1702, aged eighty-one." This Sir John married two wives, " Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Honeywood, of Markshall in Essex, Knight ; " and "Dorothy, daughter and heir of Edmond Anderson, of Stretton, Esq., by Alice his wife. Argent, a chevron between three crosses, patonce sable." The other children of Sir Thomas by his first wife were "Lucy, born 1618 (who married Sir Philip Wodehouse, of Kiinberley, Norfolk, Bart.); and Frances, born 1619," who died 1636, unmarried. By his second wife, Alice, he had "Thomas, ob. s.p., jet. seventeen;" Sir Robert Cotton, Knt., married " Gertrude, daughter of Sir William Morice, of Werrington, Devon, Bart ; " "Phillip, of Conington, died s.p.;" "William, of Cotton Holme, Cheshire," who married Mary, daughter of Robert Pulleyn, Rector of Thurleston, Leicestershire ; " Frances Cotton," who married Sir Thomas Proby, of Elton, Hunts ; and " Alice Cotton," who married Sir Humphrey Marnonx, of Wotton, in Beds, Bart. L. B. L.

Sir Thomas Cotton's first, wife was Margaret Howard, eldest daughter of Lord William Howard, of Naworth Castle, married June 17, 1617; she died March 3, 1621.

His second wife was Alice, only daughter and heir of Sir John Constable, Knt., of Dromonby, York. She had married for her first husband