COTTINGHAM is a well-built, picturesque village, midway between Hull and Beverley, on the ancient road, but a quarter of a mile distant from the modern highway. It is a place of great antiquity, dating from the ancient British period, and deriving its name from Ket, a Celtic female deity, with the Saxon suffixes of ing and ham. In the days of Edward the Confessor, it belonged to one Gamel, who is supposed to have held a Thursday market there; and at the time of the Domesday Book, the manor, four miles in length, with five fisheries of 8,000 eels, was held by Hugh, son of Baldrick.
It was granted by William the Conqueror to Robert de Stuteville, surnamed Front de Bœuf, from whom it descended to Robert de Stuteville, or d'Estoteville, who was Sheriff of Yorkshire, twenty-first Henry II., and from him to William de Stuteville, temp. John, who, for some offence, was excommunicated by the Archbishop of York. He appealed to the King, who came to Cottingham to investigate the matter, and in the sequel compelled the prelate to give him absolution. Moreover, he granted to de Stuteville a charter empowering him to castellate his manor-house, and hold a weekly market and annual fair.
Nicholas de Stuteville died seventeenth Henry III., leaving two daughters, Joan and Margaret, as his co-heiresses, the former of whom married Hugh de Wake, descended from Leofric, viceroy Earl of Mercia, and his wife the famous Godiva, and from Hereward le Wac (the Wake), Lord of Brunne, the last, and one of the most formidable, opponents of the Norman Duke William, in his conquest of England. John, his grandson, was summoned as a baron twenty-third Edward I., whose daughter, Margaret, married Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, third son of King Edward I., and had issue, Joan, "the fair maid of Kent," who inherited the Barony of Wake, which she transmitted to her issue by her first husband, Thomas de Holand, and which fell in abeyance in 1497, as it still continues. She married, secondly, Edward, the Black Prince, and by him was mother of King Richard II.
King Edward I. was celebrating Christmas with the Wakes at Cottingham, when, being out hunting, he came to Wyke-super-Hull, and, struck with its capabilities as a port, granted the charter which laid the foundation of its future greatness, and changed its name to Kingstown-upon-Hull; and at the same time gave his host a charter of free warren over his manor, and authority to erect a gallows for the execution of criminals. Thomas, his son, in the following reign, obtained a charter of confirmation, with the privilege of holding a weekly market and two annual fairs, and authority to convert his residence into a castle of defence, and to garrison it with armed men. This Thomas founded, adjacent to the castle, a monastery of Austin Friars, on a site with a defective title, in consequence of which it was removed to Haltemprice, on another part of the estate.
The feudal barony was held in capite by the service of one barony, and consisted of 4,000 acres, with £200 yearly rental from free tenants.
It was a beautiful August day in the year 1540. The reapers were in the fields about Cottingham, sickle in hand, cutting down the golden corn, and lumbering wains with solid wooden wheels, and drawn by oxen, were carrying away the sheaves to garner in the homesteads; the fruit of a thousand trees in the orchards surrounding the village hung, rich and luscious, pendant from the boughs, and ripening to perfection under the bright sunshine. The village consisted of a scattering of cross-timbered houses with wattled and mud-walled frames, latticed windows, and thatched roofs. From the midst thereof rose in proud and lofty dignity the majestic walls, turrets, and bastions of the Stutevilles, the Wakes, and now of the Holands, surrounded by a moat, which was crossed by a drawbridge, and the entrance defended by a barbican and a portcullis. Upon its battlements might be seen three or four men-at-arms, lounging lazily about, and amusing themselves by watching the passage of vessels and boats up and down the Humber. The pleasant clack of the baronial mill, and the occasional uplifted voices of the denizens of the farm-yards and pastures, alone broke the silence of the slumberous summer afternoon. In a hamlet within ken of the out-lookers on the parapets of the castle might be seen the now deserted house of the Augustinian Friars, at Haltemprice; for here no longer the Canons dropped their beads, muttered their prayers, or chanted their anthems; the ruthless hand of Henry had driven them forth upon the wide world to become supplicants for charity, alongside those who had erstwhile found succour at their gate. The priory and site had in the present year been granted to Thomas Culpepper, but he had not yet taken possession, and it lay desolate and silent, as did, at the same time, many another noble abbey and priory, scattered over the face of England.
Lord Wake, as he was called by courtesy, although he was only a tenure Baron, had been out in the direction of the now thriving town of Kingston-upon-Hull, and about the middle of the afternoon he came riding over the drawbridge, and passed through the arched gateway into the courtyard of his castle. Upon his fist he carried a favourite hawk, and he was accompanied by his falconer, and three or four liveried retainers. He leaped agilely from his horse, which was taken charge of by a groom, and, handing his hawk to the falconer, he passed through a portal to the domestic apartments, where he was met by his wife, a singularly beautiful woman, not much past the bloom of girlhood, and as modest, chaste, and pious as she was charming in feature, person, and demeanour. "What sport have you had this morning, husband mine?" inquired she, after an affectionate embrace. "Excellent," he replied; "my falcon has done wonders, he brought down a heron, who, from his size, must have been the patriarch of the shaw; but, dearest life! sport of that kind, brave as it may be, is as naught to the happiness I experience in thy dear society." Other expressions of endearment of a similar kind passed as they sat down to dinner, composed chiefly of venison and boar's flesh. Lord Wake was a great hunter in the surrounding woods of his domain, and as he sat at dinner he was surrounded by half a dozen petted boar and stag hounds, who gambolled at will about the apartment, or sat on their haunches, looking up at their master in anxious expectation of stray bones, which were thrown to them with no niggard hand.
The meal passed over almost in silence, which was only broken occasionally by remarks and discussion on domestic topics; but when it was finished, and Lady Wake had taken up her embroidery-frame, her husband told her that his sport had brought him to the gates of Kingstown, where he learnt that the King was in the town, who had arrived there unexpectedly. He was on his progress to York to meet his nephew, James V. of Scotland, and had come by a circuitous route "for fear of the enraged people," who, exasperated at the dissolution of the religious houses, and the King's assumption of supremacy over the Church, had two or three years previously raised a formidable insurrection, which they denominated the "Pilgrimage of Grace." The Mayor (Henry Thurcross), Lord Wake said, had sent the Sheriff to meet his Highness at the "boarded bridge" of Newland, on the confines of the county of Hull; had himself, with the aldermen, received him with great obeisance and due formalities at Beverley-gate, and had conducted him to the Manor Hall, the usual residence of Royalty when in the town, where he now was enjoying the splendid hospitality of the Corporation.
"The caitiff," exclaimed Lady Wake, "what does he want down here? His presence betokens no good, and woe betide those with whom he sojourns."