Sir Rowland Cotton

Sir Rowland Cotton (1581 – 1634) of Alkington Hall, Whitechurch and Bellaport Hall, Shropshire.

The doublet he is wearing is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Kept in the family and then bequeathed to the museum.

Rowland was born in 1581, Crooked Lane, St Michael’s, London, just two streets away from Pudding Lane where the Great Fire of London would start, years later in 1666. In the proceedings in the Court of Request files William Cotton is listed with a request relating to tenements in St Clement’s Lane, Cannon Street and the parish of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, London. When Rowland and his brother William were very young they were educated by a family friend and lodger Hugh Broughton.

In 1596, Rowland went to study at St John’s College Cambridge. When he was 18 years old he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, Holborn, London. When Rowland was 22 years old, he became a courtier to Prince Henry Frederick.

On the 3rd March 1605, aged 24, Rowland married Frances Needham of Shavington Hall at St. Mary Magdelen Church, Milk Street, London. Frances was the daughter of Robert Needham, 1st Viscount Kilmorey, of Shavington Hall.

Following the death of Sir John Bowyer in 1605, Rowland was elected as MP for Newcastle under Lyme. Rowland would have been in the House of Commons for the opening of Parliament on the 5th November and if the Gun Powder Plot had succeeded he would most likely have lost his life.

Aged 25, Rowland’s wife Frances died shortly after giving birth to their daughter, who also died on the same day, 23rd November 1606.

When William Cotton, Rowland’s father died, calling himself a Citizen and Draper of London, in his Will he gave all of his lands and property in the counties of Shropshire and Staffordshire to his eldest son Rowland Cotton.

13th November 1608 – Rowland Cotton is knighted at Whitehall.

In 1609 Rowland commissioned Inigo Jones to design a monument for his late wife Frances Cotton. It is around this time that Inigo was also producing drawings for the New Exchange in the Strand and the central tower of St Paul’s Cathedral. Inigo’s original design would later be adapted to include Rowland, beside Frances and their child. In 1610, now aged 29 Rowland took part in ‘Prince Henry’s Barriers’. Barriers was a stylized martial combat, conducted on foot with swords and pikes; it was like jousting without horses. This elaborate indoor tournament was preceded by a theatrical entertainment known as a masque. Masques were vastly expensive performances, staged just once, in which scenes whose aim was the glorification of the Stuart dynasty were acted out by courtiers and members of the royal family. Written by playwright Ben Jonson, it was accompanied by music and dance performed by magnificently costumed participants on spectacular sets designed by the court architect Inigo Jones. The prince himself commissioned Oberon, the Faery Prince, for the Christmas celebrations in 1610–11; he took the lead role, and was presented as an amalgamation of Roman hero and Arthurian knight.

On the 22nd August 1634, aged 53, Sir Rowland Cotton died.

This portrait transports us back to the grandeur and opulence of Jacobean England. The subject stands proudly dressed in exquisite court attire, he epitomises the elegance and refinement that characterised this era. The artist’s meticulous attention to detail is evident in every aspect of this masterpiece. From the elaborate collar to his finely crafted shoes, no element has been overlooked. As one explores its intricate details and vibrant colours, it becomes clear that this portrait was not simply meant for private admiration but also served as a symbol of status and power.

In the top right hand corner there is a small window depicted, that shows the house and surrounding grounds that we can assume is owned by the gentleman’s family. There is also a latin emblem – ‘nec somnolentus, nec officiosus’ which roughly translates as ‘neither sleepy or dutiful’. Whilst to a modern ear this seems a peculiar saying, at the time it would have perfectly described a balanced and equable person who could be steadily relied upon.

By the middle of the decade, the collar now appears weightless. He lifts his shoulders which he lets appear. This is the collar montage, a starched collar mounted on a metal frame. This is the main novelty and characteristic of the 1600s: the collar is suspended.

Black silk embroidery creates a rich effect on Sir Cotton’s soft kid leather doublet of 1625 to 1630. Very few early 17th-century leather garments of such high quality survive. This doublet has a fine suede finish which was popular for fashionable leather items in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The skirt tab in the detail illustrates the various embroidery stitches which have been used; these include raised satin stitch, French knots, couching and stem stitch. The compact design of stylised floral and leaf shapes is divided into panels which are bordered with couched black silk. Giving an added dimension, the larger motifs are worked in raised satin stitch and the ground scattered with French knots reinforces the dense nature of the impressive design. The entire design had first been worked in brown linen thread. This doublet originally belonged to the Cotton family of Etwall Hall, Derbyshire. A man’s doublet of embroidered leather. English, 1625-1630. Given by Lady Spickernell. T.146-1937. The doublet now resides in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Credit to Hannah Hague, The History Detective.

Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger

Marcus Gheeraerts was born in Bruges in 1561 or 1562, and was brought to England in 1568 by his father, a painter of whose work hardly anything is known. Trained by his father and perhaps also a pupil of Lucas de Heere, Marcus produced his first surviving inscribed portrait in 1593; by this date, however, he was already under the powerful patronage of the royal pageant master, Sir Henry Lee. In 1590 Gheeraerts married Magdalena, the sister of the painter John De Critz. The couple had six children, only two of whom seemed to have survived.

Gheeraerts was the most distinguished and most fashionable portraitist of the 1590s, and continued to be after Elizabeth’s death, becoming the favorite painter of James I’s queen, Anne of Denmark. He received a grant of naturalization in 1618, and was still royal “picture drawer” in that year, when he received his last recorded payments for royal portraits. During the second half of the 1610s, however, Gheeraert’s position declined as the result of competition from a new generation of immigrants. For the last twenty years of his life he was supported chiefly by the lesser gentry and by academic sitters. Gheeraerts was a member of the Court of the Painter-Stainers’ Company in the 1620s and had an apprentice, Ferdinando Clifton, who was made free of the Company in 1627. Gheeraerts died on 19 January 1636.