{"id":8235,"date":"2026-04-28T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/?p=8235"},"modified":"2026-04-27T14:26:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T14:26:58","slug":"will-of-the-month-an-english-catholic-convert-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/2026\/04\/28\/will-of-the-month-an-english-catholic-convert-in-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"Will of the Month: An English Catholic convert in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This month\u2019s post explores the will of Sir Francis Cottington (c.1579-1652), described as \u2018Ambassador extraordinary to His Catholic Majesty the King of Spain\u2019. He made his will a few days before his death in Valladolid in 1652 \u2018beeing sick of a sicknes which God my Saviour hath pleased to lay on mee\u2019.[1]<\/a> As was often the case with testators who died abroad, Cottington\u2019s will was not proved before the Prerogative Court of Canterbury for several years, eventually being registered in 1666.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Francis Cottington, 1st Baron Cottington, by unknown artist, National Portrait Gallery.<\/em> https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Francis_Cottington,_1st_Baron_Cottington_from_NPG.jpg <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Cottington the diplomat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a young man, Cottington was employed in the service of the English ambassador at Madrid, Sir Charles Cornwallis.[2]<\/a> This set him up for a lifetime career of diplomacy and moving between England and Spain, and involvement in some high-profile foreign affairs, including, in the 1610s, discussions with the Spanish Ambassador Gondomar regarding a marriage between the infanta<\/em> Maria Anna and Prince Charles (the future King Charles I). Some years later, when Cottington\u2019s wife Anne died in 1634 aged just 33, he would express his displeasure that the now King Charles had failed to offer any form of condolence.[3]<\/a> Anne was buried in Westminster Abbey, and Cottington arranged for her grave to be marked with an elaborate black marble monument, featuring a bronze bust. All their children, four daughters and a son, predeceased Cottington, and he did not remarry after Anne\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cottington the Catholic?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was ostensibly later in life, and indeed, perhaps shortly before his death, that Cottington converted to Catholicism, although he had previously been targeted for conversion by Jesuits earlier in his Spanish career. While Edward Hyde had suggested that his conversion was more a matter of practicality than any great strength of devotion, the character of his will complicates this.[4]<\/a> Evidently aware that his illness was serious, Cottington proclaimed that he was:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018in my sound understanding<\/p>\n\n\n\n

that the things in this world are perishable and that all the Catheliq<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christians ought to prepare their soules to discover the way of salvati=<\/p>\n\n\n\n

=on beleiveing as I most firmely ^believe in the mistery of the Holy Trinity<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Father sonne and Holy Ghost and in all I beleive and confesse in<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the Holy and Romane Catholique Church under which beleife<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and ffaith I professe to live and dye\u2019.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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A photograph of the English College at Valladolid, established 1589: <\/em>https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Valladolid_Colegio_Ingleses_fachada_02_lou.jpg<\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The bequests that followed this seemingly unequivocal statement also appear to speak to the strength of his faith. He referred to a piece of paper, made before he left England for the final time in 1649, in which he disposed of all his English estate \u2018in favour of my Catholique Nephewe and [his] sonnes\u2019. Regarding burial, he asked that \u2018my body bee buryed and deposited in the English Colledge Churcts of this Citty in the Chappell and place where my Executors please to dispose it\u2019. The English College in Valladolid is a Catholic seminary that was established for the training of English priests by the Jesuit Robert Persons in 1589. Cottington\u2019s burial wishes were paired with his request for masses for his soul: \u2018I order that my funerall day and the next day after be said for my Soule all the masses of my Soule in the privilidge Altars in the Church and Convents in the Citty\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018A Jewell of Diamonds\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cottington also left money to four convents in Valladolid, as well as a \u2018Jewell of Diamonds\u2019 to the image of \u2018our Blessed Lady\u2019 in the English College. This probably refers to a statue of the \u2018Virgen Vulnerata\u2019, or \u2018The Wounded One\u2019, a \u2018mutilated\u2019 statue or Our Lady that was damaged by Sir Walter Raleigh\u2019s troops during the sack of C\u00e1diz in 1596.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 The \u2018Virgen Vulnerata\u2019 \u2013 a mutilated statue of Our Lady at the English College in Valladolid: <\/em>https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Virgen_Vulnerata_de_Valladolid_(2024).jpg<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cottington made bequests of other objects, but none quite so fine as the jewels bestowed upon the statue of the Virgin. Gabriel Sedgwicke, his servant, received \u2018a paire of my best sheetes that I leave\u2019. He gave to \u2018John Wardner English Student which hath assisted mee in this Citty a silver bowle guilt with its Cover and of my cloathes what my Executors please\u2019. This was probably the Jesuit John Warner, who was educated in Spain and ordained there in 1653, the year after Cottington\u2019s death.[6]<\/a> With no surviving close relatives, and far displaced from his nephews in England, his personal effects of clothing and silverware were instead left to those who \u2018assisted\u2019 him in his final months in Valladolid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018in due time may have [my body] remooved thither\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Cottington had requested to be buried in the English College, he also asked that his body would only stay \u2018till it please the Almighty God to settle [?the dew] differences of the Kingdome of England that my Nephews and Executors in due time may have [my body] remooved thither\u2019. By the \u2018differences of the Kingdome of England\u2019 Cottington referred to the turmoil of the Interregnum, which had followed the years marked by the Civil Wars. Cottington, a Royalist, and close advisor to Charles I while the Court was based in Oxford, had some of his English wealth and property confiscated by parliament before his final journey to Spain. He had hoped for his body to eventually be repatriated to England, but only once stability, and perhaps, monarchy, had been fully restored. His wishes were eventually realised after the Restoration: in 1678 his last living relative, his great-nephew Charles Cottington, also a Catholic, had his body removed from Valladolid, and re-buried in the elaborate tomb in Westminster Abbey, alongside his wife Anne.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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The monument to Francis and Anne Cottington in Westminster Abbey: <\/em>https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Monument_to_Francis_%26_Ann_Cottington,_Westminster_Abbey.jpg<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Cottington\u2019s life and will encapsulates in many ways the political, social, and religious turmoil of the first half of the seventeenth century. Early in his career, Cottington had been well-regarded by King James, he had been granted a Baronetcy and had also made an advantageous marriage. Later in life he lost his family to childbirth and plague, he lost political favour during the Interregnum, and he ended his days in exile in Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what can we make of Cottington\u2019s expressions of Catholic faith, articulated strongly, but only at the very end of his life? It had been alleged that Cottington had considered converting to Catholicism some years earlier in Spain, during a previous illness, but apparently only because he feared that the Spanish would deny Protestants a Christian burial.[8]<\/a> His English contemporaries certainly denied that his conversion was dictated by his zeal for the Catholic faith, but this was perhaps an attempt to limit damage to his reputation after death, and perhaps also to increase the chances of his final wish\u2014the return of his body to England\u2014being realised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, we could interpret Cottington\u2019s written declaration of faith as an attempt to \u2018hedge his bets\u2019 and secure a Christian burial, and perhaps his awareness of the differing conventions of will-making in Spain. But the extent of his bequests\u2014not only requesting masses for his soul, but singling out his English Catholic nephews as beneficiaries, leaving money and a \u2018Jewell of Diamonds\u2019 to the English College, and giving special mention to a young Jesuit student who had assisted him\u2014this all seems to go beyond lip service, and to denote a deeper expression of piety. Cottington was a skilled and careful diplomat who found himself in exile at the end of his life. We cannot determine for certain whether his will reflected the true nature of his heart or his beliefs about the fate of the soul, or if it merely sought to steer to the most practical and safe course for both his body and his legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n