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Sir Robert Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Connington
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Sir Robert Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Connington
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, 1st Baronet (22 January 1570/71 – 6 May 1631) of Conington Hall in the parish of Conington in Huntingdonshire, England, was a Member of Parliament and an antiquarian who founded the Cotton library.
Sir Robert Cotton was born on 22 January 1571 in Denton, Huntingdonshire, the son and heir of Thomas Cotton (1544–1592) of Conington (son of Thomas Cotton of Conington, Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire in 1547.) by his first wife, Elizabeth Shirley, a daughter of Francis Shirley of Staunton Harold, Leicestershire. His family claimed descent from the Bruce line of Scotland, and Cotton took considerable pride in this supposed connection with the Scottish royal line, and often styled himself as Robert Bruce Cotton.
The Cotton family originated at the manor of Cotton, Cheshire, from where they took their surname. They were prominent in Shropshire by the 16th century with centres of power at Alkington and Norton in Hales where a member of the family, Rowland Cotton, gave one of the first architectural commissions to Inigo Jones. The family was close to polymath and antiquarian Sir Rowland Hill, publisher of the Geneva Bible.
Cotton was educated at King's School, Peterborough and Westminster School where he was a pupil of the antiquarian William Camden, under whose influence he began to study antiquarian topics. He began collecting rare manuscripts as well as collecting notes on the history of Huntingdonshire when he was seventeen. He proceeded to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1585 and in 1589 entered the Middle Temple to study law. He began to amass a library in which the documents and manuscripts rivalled, then surpassed, the royal manuscript collections. One of the most valuable documents he collected is the Lindisfarne Gospels.
Cotton was elected a Member of Parliament for Newtown, Isle of Wight in 1601 and as Knight of the Shire for Huntingdonshire in 1604.
He helped to devise the institution of the title of baronet as a means for King James I to raise funds: like a peerage, a baronetcy was heritable but, like a knighthood, it gave the holder no seat in the House of Lords.
One of his scarce monographs, Twenty-Four Arguments, proposed the bolstering of royal powers to suppress Catholic elements in England in the wake of the Popery Act 1627. His public anti-Catholicism brought him short-lived favour with the king.
Despite this early period of goodwill with King James I, his approach to public life, based on his immersion in the study of old documents, was essentially based on that "sacred obligation of the king to put his trust in parliaments" which in 1628 was expressed in his monograph The Dangers wherein the Kingdom now Standeth, and the Remedye.
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Sir Robert Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Connington
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, 1st Baronet (22 January 1570/71 – 6 May 1631) of Conington Hall in the parish of Conington in Huntingdonshire, England, was a Member of Parliament and an antiquarian who founded the Cotton library.
Sir Robert Cotton was born on 22 January 1571 in Denton, Huntingdonshire, the son and heir of Thomas Cotton (1544–1592) of Conington (son of Thomas Cotton of Conington, Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire in 1547.) by his first wife, Elizabeth Shirley, a daughter of Francis Shirley of Staunton Harold, Leicestershire. His family claimed descent from the Bruce line of Scotland, and Cotton took considerable pride in this supposed connection with the Scottish royal line, and often styled himself as Robert Bruce Cotton.
The Cotton family originated at the manor of Cotton, Cheshire, from where they took their surname. They were prominent in Shropshire by the 16th century with centres of power at Alkington and Norton in Hales where a member of the family, Rowland Cotton, gave one of the first architectural commissions to Inigo Jones. The family was close to polymath and antiquarian Sir Rowland Hill, publisher of the Geneva Bible.
Cotton was educated at King's School, Peterborough and Westminster School where he was a pupil of the antiquarian William Camden, under whose influence he began to study antiquarian topics. He began collecting rare manuscripts as well as collecting notes on the history of Huntingdonshire when he was seventeen. He proceeded to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1585 and in 1589 entered the Middle Temple to study law. He began to amass a library in which the documents and manuscripts rivalled, then surpassed, the royal manuscript collections. One of the most valuable documents he collected is the Lindisfarne Gospels.
Cotton was elected a Member of Parliament for Newtown, Isle of Wight in 1601 and as Knight of the Shire for Huntingdonshire in 1604.
He helped to devise the institution of the title of baronet as a means for King James I to raise funds: like a peerage, a baronetcy was heritable but, like a knighthood, it gave the holder no seat in the House of Lords.
One of his scarce monographs, Twenty-Four Arguments, proposed the bolstering of royal powers to suppress Catholic elements in England in the wake of the Popery Act 1627. His public anti-Catholicism brought him short-lived favour with the king.
Despite this early period of goodwill with King James I, his approach to public life, based on his immersion in the study of old documents, was essentially based on that "sacred obligation of the king to put his trust in parliaments" which in 1628 was expressed in his monograph The Dangers wherein the Kingdom now Standeth, and the Remedye.
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