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SIR ROBERT BRUCE COTTON

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 256 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SIR ROBERT BRUCE COTTON  , Bart . (1571-1631),
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English
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antiquary, the founder of the Cottonian library, born at
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Denton in Huntingdonshire on the 22nd of
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January 1571, was a descendant, as he delighted to boast, of Robert Bruce . He was educated at Westminster school under William Camden the antiquary, and at Jesus College, Cambridge . His antiquarian tastes were early displayed in the collection of ancient records, charters and other
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manuscripts, which had been dispersed from the monastic
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libraries in the reign of Henry VIII.; and through-out the whole of his
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life he was an energetic
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collector of antiquities from all parts of England and the continent . His house at Westminster had a garden going down to the
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river and occupied
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part of the site of the
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present House of Lords . It was the meeting-place in the last years of Elizabeth's reign of the antiquarian society founded by Archbishop Parker . In 1600 Cotton visited the north of England with Camden in search of Pictish and
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Roman monuments and inscriptions . His reputation as an expert in
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heraldry led to his being asked by Queen Elizabeth to discuss the question of precedence between the English ambassador and the envoy of Spain, then in treaty at
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Calais . He drew up an elaborate paper establishing the precedence of the English ambassador . On the accession of James I. he was knighted, and in 16o8 he wrote a Memorial on Abuses in the
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Navy, that resulted in a navy commission, of which he was made a member . He also presented to the king an
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historical Inquiry into the
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Crown Revenues, in which he speaks freely about the expenses of the royal household, and asserts that
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tonnage and poundage are only to be levied in war time, and to " proceed out of good will, not of duty." In this paper he supported the creation of the order of baronets, each of whom was to pay the crown £i000; and in 1611 he himself received the title . Cotton helped john Speed in the compilation of his
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History of England (1611), and was regarded by contemporaries as the compiler of Camden's History of Elizabeth .

It seems more likely that it was executed by Camden, but that Cotton exercised a

general supervision, especially with regard to the story of Mary queen of Scots . The presentation of his
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mother's history was naturally important to James I., and Cotton himself took a keen
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interest in the
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matter . He had had the
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room in Fotheringay where Mary was executed transferred to his
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family seat at Connington . Meanwhile he was enlarging his collection of documents . In 1614 Arthur Agarde (q.v.)
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left his papers to him, and Camden's manuscripts came to him in 1623 . In 1615 Cotton, as the intimate of the
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earl of Somerset, whose innocence he always maintained, was placed in confinement on the charge of being implicated in the
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murder of
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Sir Thomas Overbury; he confessed that he had acted as intermediary between Sarmiento, the
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Spanish ambassador, and Somerset, and had altered the
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dates of Somerset's correspondence . He was released after about eight months' imprisonment without formal trial, and obtained a pardon on payment of £500 . His friendship with Gondomar, Spanish ambassador in England from 1613 to 1621,brought further suspicion, probably undeserved, upon Cotton, of unduly favouring the Catholic party . From Charles I. and Buckingham Cotton received no favour; his attitude towards the court had begun to change, and he became the intimate friend of Sir John Eliot, Sir Simonds d'Ewes and John Selden . He had entered parliament in 1604 as member for Huntingdon; in 1624 he sat for Old Sarum; in 1625 for
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Thetford; and in 1628 for Castle Rising, Norfolk . In the debate on supply in 1625 Cotton provided Eliot with full notes defending the
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action of the opposition in parliament, and in 1628 the leaders of the party met at Cotton's house to decide on their policy . In 1626 he gave advice before the council against debasing the standard of the coinage; and in January 1628 he was again before the council, urging the summons of a. parliament .

His arguments on the latter occasion are contained in his

tract entitled The Danger in which the
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Kingdom now standeth and the Remedy . In
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October of the next
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year he was arrested, together with the earls of
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Bedford, Somerset, and Clare, for having circulated, with ironical purpose, a tract known as the Proposition to bridle Parliament, which had been addressed some fifteen years before by Sir Robert Dudley to James I., advising him to govern by force; the circulation of this by Parliamentarians was regarded as intended to insinuate that Charles's government was arbitrary and unconstitutional . Cotton denied knowledge of the matter, but the
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original was discovered in his house, and the copies had been put in circulation by a young man who lived after him and was said to be his natural son . Cotton was himself released the next month; but the proceedings in the
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star chamber continued, and, to his intense vexation, his library was sealed up by the king . He died on the 6th of May 1631, and was buried in Connington church, Huntingdonshire, where there is a monument to his memory . Many of Cotton's
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pamphlets were widely read in
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manuscript during his lifetime, but only two of his
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works were printed, The Reign of Henry III . (1627) and The Danger in which the Kingdom now Standeth (1628) . His son, Sir Thomas (1594=1662), added considerably to the Cottonian library; and Sir John, the
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fourth
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baronet, presented it to the nation in 1700 . In 1I the collection, which had in the
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interval been removed to the Strand, and thence to Ashburnham House, was seriously damaged by fire . In 1753 it was transferred to the
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British Museum . See the article LIBRARIES, and Edwards's Lives of the Founders of the British Museum, vol. i . Several of Cotton's papers have been printedunder the title Cottoni Posthuma; others were published by Thomas Hearne .

End of Article: SIR ROBERT BRUCE COTTON
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