On a June morning in 1630 Sir Robert Cotton received an urgent letter from an elderly woman—one Amphyllis Ferrers—who had the claim upon him of distant kinship, and upon whom, in that character, he had bestowed many kindnesses. The letter made a new appeal to his compassion; told him of the distresses of the writer’s daughter—married not long before to a needy man—and besought him to pay them a visit; that he might judge of their necessities with his own eyes. Both mother and daughter lived together in Westminster, at no great distance from Cotton House.
Sir Robert paid the invited visit; was told of various family plans connected with the recent marriage, and, amongst other things, of a pressing need for some household furniture. When the talk turned upon furniture, he was asked to look, himself, at an upstairs room, and form his own opinion about the request. Both mother and daughter went up with him; but the three had hardly entered the room, when a loud battering noise was heard on the other side of the thin wall which separated them from the neighbouring house. And, presently a still greater noise was heard from the rush of footsteps upon the stairs.
The daughter, it seems, was not in the plot. Her husband had ostentatiously ridden away from the door on the previous morning, to go into the country, for an absence of some days;—exactly like a hero in Boccaccio. At night, he quietly returned, and took up his abode, by preconcert with his neighbours, next door. In the morning he lay with those neighbours in ambush. When they all tumultuously rushed up stairs—into the man’s own abode—they were full of indignation at Sir Robert’s wantonness; but,—unfortunately for their story—in their eager haste they entered the room almost as soon as he himself had entered it, with his two companions. Nevertheless, they persisted in their accusation; permitting, however, when the first burst of virtuous wrath had somewhat subsided, the appearance of a sufficient indication that they were not wholly averse from listening to a reasonable proposal. There was a way, and one way only, in which that fierce wrath might be appeased. Sir Robert, however, was indignant in his turn. The purse of the intended victim remained stubbornly closed.
1630. July—Decr.
There is no need to pursue the unsavoury narrative. Nor would so much of the story have here been told, but for the suggestion which lies within it that the rapid breaking up of Sir Robert’s vigorous constitution was not perhaps due, quite exclusively,—as has been commonly believed[[15]]—to the malicious privation inflicted upon him by King Charles. For though he was successful in extracting, from the chief accuser himself, a confession of the falsehood of the charge, and an acknowledgment that the object of the conspirators was to extort money, yet the matter brought him much toil and vexation of spirit. One of the latest acts of his life was to arrange the proofs of the conspiracy in due and formal array.[[16]] |Cottonian Charters, &c., i, 3, seqq.; MS. Addit., 14049, ff. 21–43. (B. M.)| When he had done that, and had once again made an effort—as fruitless as the efforts which had been made before—for the recovery of his library, he seems to have prepared himself for death.
Domestic Corresp., Charles I, vol. clxvii, § 45, seqq. (R. H.).
Sir Robert’s repeated efforts to regain his Library were not unseconded by friends powerful at Court. But the King’s stubbornness would not give way—till concession was too late. The Lord Privy Seal (the newly-appointed successor of Worcester, recently dead), was amongst those who interceded with Charles. |Cotton’s Death.| A little before Sir Robert’s death his Lordship sent to him John Rowland—one of his officers—to tell him that, at length, his mediation had been successful, and the King was reconciled to him. |Rowland, in Pref. to the Political Satire entitled Gondomar’s Transactions, &c.| Cotton answered, ‘You come too late. My heart is broken.’
Cotton, when he came to lie on the bed of death, had certain topics of reflection—of a secular sort—on which he might well look back with some measure of complacency. As a student of Antiquity he had been conspicuously successful. |Cotton’s Deathbed Reflections.| He had won the respect and reverence of every man in Europe who had proved himself competent to judge of such studies. And he had not been a selfish student. He had made his own researches and collections seed plots for Posterity. If, as a Statesman, he had missed his immediate aims more frequently than he had reached them, he had none the less rendered, on some salient occasions, brilliant public service. He had shewn, incontestably, that the true greatness of England lay near his heart.
One of his contemporaries presently said of him—when told of his death—‘If you could look at Sir Robert Cotton’s heart “My Library” would be found inscribed there;—just as Queen Mary said “Calais” was printed deeply on hers.’ But the character impressed on every volume of that large collection which he so loved is ‘England.’ To illustrate the history, and to enlighten the policy, of Englishmen was the object which made Cotton, from his youth, a Collector.
On the other hand, when the inevitable deathbed reflections passed from things secular to things sacred,—and also from Past to Future,—there was very little room for complacency of any sort. A few years before, when a better and more famous man than Cotton lay in like circumstances, this thought came into his mind:—‘Godly men, in time of extreme afflictions, did comfort themselves with the remembrance of their former life, in which they had glorified God. It is not so in me. I have no comfort that way. All things in my former life have been vain,—vain,—vain.’