SIR ROBERT COTTON AND THE COMMEMORATION OF FAMOUS MEN DAVID HOWARTH THIS article is concerned with the interest Sir Robert Cotton took in the funerary monument as shown by a group of tombs and epitaphs which he had erected in All Saints, Conington, Huntingdonshire, probably circa 1613-15. The appearance and placing of these were infiuenced by Cotton's views on the use of the stele and cippus in antiquity. It will be suggested that Sir Robert has a distinguished if modest place in developing the repertoire of Jacobean sculptors, whilst his close involvement with the Conington monuments, encourages the view that he had wider concerns than has been appreciated. The article ends with a consideration of a monument to Sir Robert himself, also in All Saints, erected by his son. Sir Thomas Cotton. One of Sir Robert's abiding interests was the culture of the antique world, something he shared with his teacher William Camden. Camden was the greatest of the Elizabethan antiquaries whose Britannia (1586) was the first attempt at a systematic account of early Britain. In 1599 Cotton and Camden travelled in search of inscriptions to the Roman Wall, or as it was then considered the Picts Wall, and so began Cotton's collection of Roman antiquities. Thereafter, the northern antiquaries Reginald Bainbridge and Lord William Howard offered him stones on separate occasions,^ while within two years of Cotton's death in May 1631, the Essex antiquary John Barkham arranged to send him some Roman relics: a bronze dish from an altar found at Bocking in Essex and a brick of'ancient cemented work' which Barkham asked Cotton to pass on to John Tradescant in Lambeth." Barkham's letter suggests that Sir Robert's interest in the artefacts of the ancient world may have extended beyond the antiquary's fascination for archaeological remains, to include a virtuoso's interest in free-standing sculpture, a view encouraged from a reading of other letters to Cotton. After writing about the 'ancient cemented work' referred to above, Barkham concluded by asking Cotton to let him know whether Cotton wanted him to acquire some statues on Cotton's behalf which, it appears from another letter from Barkham to Cotton, had belonged to a certain Mr Herlakenden to whom Barkham had sent his minister 'to know his mynde for parting with them'.^ We glean nothing more about these statues but the possibility remains that besides the well-known sarcophagi and inscriptions, the remnant of which can still be seen in the Museum of Archaeology at Cambridge,* and in addition to the cabinet of curiosities. Cotton also had Fig. I. The Cecil Altar. Cotton MS. Fragments XXV, f. 25V cmduf. Itrptttt^ttf annotar jpttertna. felomotirf Cotton's donation inscription to the Bodleian Library in the form of a votive altar. BL, Harl. MS. 988, f i (detail) a collection of free-standing statuary. What is certain, however, is that Sir Robert sustained an interest in sculpture, as well as epigraphy and numismatics. One of the earliest letters from his son, the future Sir Thomas, is dated 1621 and in it he promises to send some heads from Conington to his father in London: 'Sr my humble duty remembred I have sent up the three marble heads you writt for and packd them up as carfuUy as I could. '^ The meetings of the Society of Antiquaries in the Summer and Autumn of 1600 were taken up with discussions of burial customs perhaps because Camden and Cotton, by then its leading luminaries, had just returned to London from the Picts Wall. There is amongst Cotton's manuscripts a free-hand sketch of a Roman altar, with a long inscription in Cotton's hand, dedicated to the 'Genio Ceciliano', that is to say, to the genius of Robert, first Earl of Salisbury (fig. i; cf. fig. 2).^ There is no record of the erection of this 'altar', nor can it be dated precisely, but, since it refers to Salisbury as Sir Robert, it must date before 13 May 1603, when he was created Baron Cecil of Essendine. It is most likely that the design relates to Cotton's journey to the Picts Wall of 1599-1600, in which case it was probably executed after Cotton returned to London in 1600. In order to understand the local context of the Conington funerary monuments which will constitute the main focus of this article, it will be useful to begin with a brief survey of the family estate and the various building works which Sir Robert and his son undertook there in the first half of the seventeenth century. Conington Castle, the ancestral honie of the Cotton family, lay deep in the fens of Huntingdonshire, eight miles south-east of Peterborough. The estate was substantial enough to provide the means to enable Sir Robert to acquire his house in Westminster and pursue his cultural interests, as well as to keep the Cottons on a footing with other leading Huntingdonshire families: the Cromwells, Montagus, Wingfields and St Johns. It appears from an agreement dated 23 April 1632 between Sir Robert Naunton, Master of the Court of Wards, and Cotton's son Sir Thomas, whereby auditors should be appointed to value all manors, lands and other holdings at Conington, following Sir Robert's death the previous May, that Sir Robert's agricultural wealth had comprised: 3 messauges: 200 acres land, 100 acres meadow, 100 acres pasture and a free fishery in Whittlesmere formerly purchased of Sir Richard Williams alias Cromwell and of John Parris by Thos. Cotton Esq., Grandfather of the aforesaid Robt. Cotton. And 10 messauges, 6 tofts, 200 acres land, 40 acres meadow, and 40 acres pasture with apps. in Conington which were formerly purchased of the Master, Fellows and Scholars of Trinity College, Cambridge by the aforesaid Thos Cotton, the Grandfather, And i windmill, 2 dovecotes, 8 gardens, 500 acres meadow, acres pasture, iioo acres marsh with apps. in Connington Yearly value £1^ i6s. 8d.' Doubtless Sir Thomas was to add to this since, like his father before him, he became an energetic commissioner for the draining of the Fens.^ Despite its financial value, Conington had drawbacks. It was remote from London where Sir Robert was at the centre of intellectual life and, even on those rare occasions when the flimily lived at Conington, it was considered a melancholy place. As will be seen, however, when we come to discuss the Cotton monuments in the church, it exercised a powerful sentimental influence on the family and both Sir Robert and his son Thomas undertook extensive improvements there. At the Castle, Sir Robert constructed a long gallery, and a terrace with octagonal summer houses at either end to accommodate his collection of inscriptions. There is a tradition that for the building of the long gallery. Sir Robert bought panelling from the hall at Fotheringhay Castle in which Mary Queen of Scots had been executed and stone trom the same source.'* The evidence suggests, however, that this is unlikely since there is no reference to stone or panelling from Fotheringhay in two detailed rental and disbursement books which cover work at Conington Castle from 1603 until 1612 and from 1617 until the death of Sir Robert in 1631.^" However, the account book which includes the period from Sir Robert's death until the Civil War, does show that Fotheringhay stone was indeed acquired for Conington but not until 1638, when Sir Thomas undertook an extensive programme of embellishments to the church: battlements, oculi and buttresses for the tower.^^ Since the purchase of the Fotheringhay stone was accounted for at Michaelmas 1638, and Sir Thomas's steward paid out ;£i2 for battlementing the church at the same time, it would appear that the '200 load of ston from fodringhay' was for church and not castle as has been assumed.^^ But although there would appear to be more romance than truth in the supposed connection between Sir Robert and Fotheringhay Castle, he did indeed use stone from Maxey Castle, Northamptonshire.^^ At first glance, it might appear that Sir Robert was a conventional enough patron.^* His long gallery seems to have been decidedly old-fashioned. Here he followed a practice which had become prevalent among builders since the Reformation, the recycling of stone from a disused or demolished structure; in this case, probably for the building of an arcade beneath the long gallery. However it may be that Cotton was not merely driven by reasons of economy in adapting parts of an earlier structure for incorporation into his new building. It is possible that he thought that the arches from Maxey represented twelfth-century architecture; that is to say, the style of the period when his Scottish ancestors first became lords of Conington. If that was Sir Robert's thinking, his purchase of the Maxey stone would have been undertaken in a revivalist, even romantic spirit, and should not therefore be viewed simply as evidence of good housekeeping. Such a gesture on his part would have been entirely in keeping with attitudes prevalent amongst the antiquarian circle in which he moved. For example. Sir Robert's close friend, Lord William Howard, with whom he had visited Roman sites in 1599-1600, certainly promoted a revival of Gothic architecture. After Lord William had been restored to favour by James I, he took up residence at Naworth Castle in Cumberland which 'he restored in a conservative Gothic style introducing genuine carved and painted medieval ceilings from nearby Kirkoswald Castle. '^^ As for Sir Robert's octagonal buildings in the environs of Conington Castle, they had more in common with a chapter house than a temple.