Sir Charles Coote, 1st Baronet Coote of Castle Cuffe

From Darryl Lundy's Peerage page on Charles Coote:

http://thepeerage.com/p26.htm#i253

Sir Charles Coote, 1st Bt.[1]

• M, #253,
• b. 1581,
• d. May 1642
• Last Edited=17 Feb 2011

Sir Charles Coote, 1st Bt. was born in 1581.[3] He was the son of Sir Nicholas Coote and Anne Cooper.[2]

He married Dorothea Cuffe, daughter of Hugh Cuffe, circa 1604.[3] He married Dorothea Cuffe, daughter of Hugh Cuffe, before 1617.[4]

He died in May 1642 at Trim, County Meath, Ireland, shot dead by the rebel Irish.[1]

Career:

• In 1600 he went to Ireland as Captain of 100 Foot under 8th Lord Mountjoy, Queen Elizabeth I's Lord Deputy of Ireland.[3]
• He fought in the siege of Kingsale in 1602.[4]
• He held the office of Provost Marshal of Connaught between 1605 and 1642, for life.[1],[4]
• He held the office of General Collector and Receiver of the King's Composition Money for Connaught in 1613, for life.[3]
• He held the office of Vice-President of Connaught in 1620.[3]
• He was invested as a Privy Counsellor (P.C.) in 1620.[3]
• He was created 1st Baronet Coote, of Castle Cuffe, Queen's Co. [Ireland] on 2 April 1621.[3]
• He held the office of Custos Rotulorum of Queen's County in 1634.[3]
• He held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) for Queen's County [Ireland] in 1639.[3]
• Before 1641 he held Irish lands, mostly in Conaught, worth £4,000 a year.[3]
• He held the office of Governor of Dublin in 1641.[3]
• In 1642 he helped relieve Birr, King's County (now County Offaly), during the Uprising by the Confederation of Kilkenny, his successful operations there and elsewhere in the area, which was called Mountrath, suggesting the title by which his son was ennobled.[3]

Children of Sir Charles Coote, 1st Bt. and Dorothea Cuffe

• 1. Laetitia Coote+[5]
• 2. unknown son Coote [3]
• 3. Charles Coote, 1st Earl of Mountrath+[1] b. c 1605, d. 18 Dec 1661
• 4. Chidley Coote+[6] b. c 1608, d. 19 Nov 1668
• 5. Richard Coote, 1st Lord Coote, Baron of Coloony+[1] b. 1620, d. 10 Jul 1683

Citations

• 1. [S6] G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume III, page 415. Hereinafter cited as The Complete Peerage.
• 2. [S15] George Edward Cokayne, editor, The Complete Baronetage, 5 volumes (no date (c. 1900); reprint, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1983), volume I, page 226. Hereinafter cited as The Complete Baronetage.
• 3. [S37] Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003), volume 1, page 891. Hereinafter cited as Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th edition.
• 4. [S15] George Edward Cokayne, The Complete Baronetage, volume I, page 227.
• 5. [S15] George Edward Cokayne, The Complete Baronetage, volume II, page 361.
• 6. [S37] Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th edition, volume 1, page 892.

---

From Sir Charles Coote, the 1st and 2nd Baronets by Turtle Bunbury:

http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_family/hist_family_cuf...

Despite his brother's execution in 1601, Hugh Cuffe's fortunes improved considerably following the 1604 marriage of his daughter Dorothea to Charles Coote. Coote was a young officer who joined the English army in Ireland shortly after Lord Mountjoy replaced the disgraced Earl of Essex in 1600. He was to become one of the most powerful and reviled military leaders in Ireland over the course of the next forty years.

The marriage of Dorothea Cuffe and Sir Charles Coote helped to align these two families in successive generations. Both families were New English settlers, attracted to Ireland by the prospect of gaining estates and high office through service to the crown. The goals of both families must have been much the same, namely to secure their land-holdings, and advance their family's prestige, but they could only succeed by displacing the Old English. In so doing, they alienated the old ruling elite, and this in turn reinforced the shared interests of the New English as a group.

The Cootes were prominent landowners in Norfolk and Suffolk during the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1596, Charles's father, Sir Nicholas Coote, was heavily fined and sentenced to prison in Fleet Street for his support of the rebellious Duke of Norfolk.

At the age of 19, Charles sold the family estates in Norfolk to pay his father's debts and, with his brothers, joined Mountjoy's army in Ireland. He was present at the battle of Kinsale in 1601 when the Earl of Tyrone and Lord O'Donnell, assisted by a Spanish expeditionary force, were routed by Mountjoy's forces. Kinsale proved the decisive battle of the Nine Years War; the subsequent reassertion of crown authority in Ireland during the next generation paved the way for the wholesale plantation of the country.

In 1605, King James I appointed Charles Coote as Provost Marshal of the province of Connaught. Coote and his wife Dorothea Cuffe then settled in County Roscommon and built Castle Coote. In 1606 Coote was appointed Sheriff for County Cork.

Over the next ten years, Charles and Dorothea had five children - three sons, all of whom were later appointed Colonels, and two daughters.

In 1616 Charles Coote was knighted and, in 1621, James I appointed him a Privy Councilor and created him one of the first Baronets of Ireland "in consideration of his good and faithful services in the province of Ulster". Coote founded the towns of Carrick-on-Shannon (then Jamestown), County Leitrim in 1623 and Mountrath, County Laoise, in 1628.

By 1640, the increasingly Puritanical Sir Charles possessed a considerable fortune in Ireland, principally in Connaught, and he used some of this to commence the construction of a semi-fortified mansion in the Slieve Bloom Mountains at Ballintaggard, near Clonaslee, County Laoise, which he named Castle Cuffe in tribute to his wife's family.

The outbreak of rebellion in Scotland in 1638, spread to Ireland by 1641, and then to England, tipping the United Kingdom into civil war by 1642. The Irish rebels in particular targeted the English planters and the still uncompleted Castle Cuffe was burned to the ground - the mortar that the masons used was so strong that much of the ruin still stands today. For more, see The Siege of Castlecuffe.

Ireland in the mid-17th century was a desperately unhappy land. With religious divisions ever deepening throughout Europe, it was inevitable that a people so predominantly Catholic would be plunged into further conflict. The rebellion of 1641 ignited a ferocious civil war that dragged on for nearly 14 years, pitting a fragile confederation of Irish and Anglo-Norman Catholic against the militant forces of English Protestant Republicanism. Head-quartered in Kilkenny, the Confederates produced many admirable victories but were ultimately unable to sustain the pressure.

Chief amongst those fighting for the Republican cause was Sir Charles Coote and his kinsmen. Castle Cuffe had not been his only loss. The same year, his son and eventual heir, another Charles, was besieged at Castle Coote, while his nephew Maurice Cuffe fought off a rebel force outside his County Clare stronghold, Ballyalley Castle.

In 1642, the then 60 year old Sir Charles Coote mounted his steed and set forth at the head of a force of 1500 men, to wipe out rebel activity in the Wicklow Mountains. In his subsequent campaign, he earned a reputation as a fearless, bloody-minded commander. He apparently lusted ‘to hang, to racke, to kill, to burne, to spoil / untill I make this land a barren soile.’

In the spring of 1642 Coote's militia were attacked at Trim by a force of some 3,000 rebels; Sir Charles was shot dead while he led a cavalry charge.

The ominous epitaph above his tomb in Christ Church Cathedral reads "England's honour, Scotland's wonder, Ireland's terror here lies under".

Contemporaries regarded him as "a hot headed and bloody man" (Lord Castlehaven), "very rough and sour in his temper".

After his death, his estates were divided amongst his four sons establishing ‘an affinity that stretched through Queen’s County, Roscommon, Galway, Sligo and Leitrim.' Tradition claims it was once possible to walk from one side of Ireland to the other without ever leaving Coote lands.

---

From The Siege of Castlecuffe page by Turtle Bunbury:

http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_wai/ulster/history_wai...

The following was kindly transcribed by Máirtín D'Alton from Seosamh MacCába's book, 'Dúthaí Uí Ríagáin' (Imperial Print, 1967)

'In the early 1640's during the confederate wars 1641-49 the O Dunnes of Ui Riagain led by Captain Daniel Dunne (Dónal óg) and Edward Dunne were up in arms for Owen Roe and Ireland. Daniel on whose head was a price of £400 no small sum in those days, took by strategem the castle of Baile na Sagart. He brought from a distance a straight well trimmed and suitable coloured tree trunk drawn by eight horses, placed it on a strategic hillock, and directed on the castle, demanded of the Cooteites immediate unconditional surrender or else he would show no mercy.

After a short parley Daniel chivalrously granted their urgent request to be allowed depart peacefully unarmed to Birr where they could find refuge in that town, then Governed by Sydney Coote, a relation of Charles.

The O Dunnes took possession of the castle, also a great booty of arms and ammunition household goods harnesses and anything worth taking. They then burned the castle whose ruins are there to tell the tale.

Locally it used to be said that Castle Cuffe was blown up by Cromwell. No, Donal Og Dunne, guerilla leader, bombarded it with his powerful four yoke home manufactured piece of artillery about seven years before Cromwell set foot in Erin about 1649. That big gun must have caused great explosions of Irish laughter still in fact reverberating, while the welkin rang to the ancient resounding war cry 'Mullach Abú'.

Turtle Bunbury's Notes on Above.

Seosamh Mac Caba was principal of Clonad National school from 1907 to 1948 and compiled the book from a variety of sources, including local. Ballynasaggart was the old name of the district. It seems that a memory of the resentment caused by Sir Charles Coote erecting his ultra-modern house in the middle of O Dunne lands, which were not part of the Plantation of Leix and Offaly, and had survived relatively intact as a Gaelic tuath, still lingered in Mac Cabas' time. The broad mullioned windows of Castle Cuffe would have been unlikely to survive a cannon assault for any length of time.

It would have been customary to allow the garrison to depart with their arms, not unarmed as mentioned above. It would be interesting to check the Commonwealth lists of 1650-51 to see what happenned to Donal Og Dunne, Mac Caba doesnt say, but given the £400 bounty, and the character of Sir Charles Coote, it was unlikely Donal Og would have survived to boast about his actions.

---

Charles Coote was a young officer who joined the English army in Ireland shortly after Lord Mountjoy replaced the disgraced Earl of Essex in 1600. He was to become one of the most powerful and reviled military leaders in Ireland over the course of the next forty years. The marriage of Dorothea Cuffe and Sir Charles Coote helped to align these two families in successive generations. Both families were New English settlers, attracted to Ireland by the prospect of gaining estates and high office through service to the crown. The goals of both families must have been much the same, namely to secure their land-holdings, and advance their family's prestige, but they could only succeed by displacing the Old English. In so doing, they alienated the old ruling elite, and this in turn reinforced the shared interests of the New English as a group. The Cootes were prominent landowners in Norfolk and Suffolk during the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1596, Charles's father, Sir Nicholas Coote, was heavily fined and sentenced to prison in Fleet Street for his support of the rebellious Duke of Norfolk. At the age of 19, Charles sold the family estates in Norfolk to pay his father's debts and, with his brothers, joined Mountjoy's army in Ireland. He was present at the battle of Kinsale in 1601 when the Earl of Tyrone (O'Neile) and Lord O'Donnell, assisted by a Spanish expeditionary force, were routed by Mountjoy's forces. Kinsale proved the decisive battle of the Nine Years War; the subsequent reassertion of crown authority in Ireland during the next generation paved the way for the wholesale plantation of the country. He married Dorothea Cuffe in 1604. In 1605, King James I appointed Charles Coote as Provost Marshal of the province of Connaught. Coote and his wife Dorothea Cuffe then settled in County Roscommon and built Castle Coote. In 1606 Coote was appointed Sheriff for County Cork. Over the next ten years, Charles and Dorothea had five children - three sons, all of whom were later appointed Colonels, and two daughters. In 1616 Charles Coote was knighted and, in 1621, James I appointed him a Privy Councilor and created him one of the first Baronets of Ireland "in consideration of his good and faithful services in the province of Ulster". Coote founded the towns of Carrick-on-Shannon (then Jamestown), County Leitrim in 1623 and Mountrath, County Laoise, in 1628. By 1640, the increasingly Puritanical Sir Charles possessed a considerable fortune in Ireland, principally in Connaught, and he used some of this to commence the construction of a semi-fortified mansion in the Slieve Bloom Mountains at Ballintaggard, near Clonaslee, County Laoise, which he named Castle Cuffe in tribute to his wife's family. The outbreak of rebellion in Scotland in 1638, spread to Ireland by 1641, and then to England, tipping the United Kingdom into civil war by 1642. The Irish rebels in particular targeted the English planters and the still uncompleted Castle Cuffe was burned to the ground - the mortar that the masons used was so strong that much of the ruin still stands today.

The Siege of Castlecuffe - The following was kindly trasncribed by Máirtín D'Alton from Seosamh MacCába's book, 'Dúthaí Uí Ríagáin' (Imperial Print, 1967)

'In the early 1640's during the confederate wars 1641 -49 the O Dunnes of Ui Riagain led by Captain Daniel Dunne (Dónal óg) and Edward Dunne were up in arms for Owen Roe and Ireland. Daniel on whose head was a price of £400 no small sum in those days, took by strategem the castle of Baile na Sagart. He brought from a distance a straight well trimmed and suitable coloured tree trunk drawn by eight horses, placed it on a strategic hillock, and directed on the castle, demanded of the Cooteites immediate unconditional surrender or else he would show no mercy. After a short parley Daniel chivalrously granted thier urgent request to be allowed depart peacefully unarmed to Birr where they could find refuge in that town, then Governed by Sydney Coote a relation of Charles. The O Dunnes took possession of the castle also a great booty of arms and ammunition household goods harnesses and anything worth taking. They then burned the castle whose ruins are there to tell the tale. Locally it used to be said that Castle Cuffe was blown up by Cromwell. No, Donal Og Dunne, guerilla leader, bombarded it with his powerful four yoke home manufactured piece of artillery about seven years before Cromwell set foot in Erin about 1649. That big gun must have caused great explosions of Irish laughter still in fact reverberating, while the welkin rang to the ancient resounding war cry 'Mullach Abú'.

Ireland in the mid-17th century was a desperately unhappy land. With religious divisions ever deepening throughout Europe, it was inevitable that a people so predominantly Catholic would be plunged into further conflict. The rebellion of 1641 ignited a ferocious civil war that dragged on for nearly 14 years, pitting a fragile confederation of Irish and Anglo-Norman Catholic against the militant forces of English Protestant Republicanism. Head-quartered in Kilkenny, the Confederates produced many admirable victories but were ultimately unable to sustain the pressure. Chief amongst those fighting for the Republican cause was Sir Charles Coote and his kinsmen. Castle Cuffe had not been his only loss. The same year, his son and eventual heir, another Charles, was besieged at Castle Coote, while his nephew Maurice Cuffe fought off a rebel force outside his County Clare stronghold, Ballyalley Castle. In 1642, the then 60 year old Sir Charles Coote mounted his steed and set forth at the head of a force of 1500 men, to wipe out rebel activity in the Wicklow Mountains. In his subsequent campaign, he earned a reputation as a fearless, bloody-minded commander. He apparently lusted ‘to hang, to racke, to kill, to burne, to spoil / untill I make this land a barren soile.’ In the spring of 1642 Coote's militia were attacked at Trim by a force of some 3000 rebels; Sir Charles was shot dead while he led a cavalry charge. The ominous epitaph above his tomb in Christ Church Cathedral reads "England's honour, Scotland's wonder, Ireland's terror here lies under". Contemporaries regarded him as "a hot headed and bloody man" (Lord Castlehaven), "very rough and sour in his temper". After his death, his estates were divided amongst his four sons establishing ‘an affinity that stretched through Queen’s County, Roscommon, Galway, Sligo and Leitrim.' Tradition claims it was once possible to walk from one side of Ireland to the other without ever leaving Coote lands.

For comprehensive historical/biographical information on him see:

"Lives of Illustrious & Distinguished Irishmen" James Wills, 1843-47.

"Dictionary of National Biography" OUP. "Dictionary of Irish Biography"

"Hist.of the Irish Rebellion" Borlase, 1680.

"Hist.of the Rebellion" Lord Clarendon, 1731.

"British Family Antiquity" William Playfair, 1811.

"Coote Family" A.de Vlieger, 1900, with "Coote Family Notes" C.J.Coote.

"Complete Baronetage" G.E.Cokayne.

"Peerage of Ireland" John Lodge, 1754 & 1789.

"Hell or Connaught" Peter Berresford Ellis, 1975.

Residence, Castle Coote, Co.Roscommon.

Castle Cuffe, Queens Co.(destroyed by rebels before completed)

(named after his wife)

The historical details of his career are well covered in the above reference books, so the following is added as supplementary commentary.

1600 Feb.Landed in Ireland very young (19?), with Charles Blount Lord Mountjoy's army of 20,000 men, and served in wars against O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone.

1601 Dec. At Battle of Kinsale, under Mountjoy, and became Capt.of 100 Foot.

1602 Dec..List of Queen's forces in Munster shows him as Capt. of 100 Foot.

1603 Irish rebellion finally suppressed by Mountjoy.

1605 4 Jun. Appointed by James I, for good and faithful service rendered to Queen Elizabeth, Provost Marshal of Connaught for life, with fee of 5sh.7pence halfpenny per diem, and 12 horsemen of the army.

1605 Built Castle Coote, Co.Roscommon.

1606 Sheriff for Cork.

1607 High Sheriff of Kerry.

1613 23 Nov. Made Collector-general and receiver of the King's composition money for Connaught for life, with Robert Cressie.

1616 5 Nov. Knighted by Sir Oliver St.John, Lord Deputy of Ireland.

1617 12 Dec. Granted a Saturday market and 2 fairs, on the festivals of St.James and St.Martin, at Fuerty, Co.Roscommon.

1620 Vice-President of Connaught, under Sir Charles Willmot.

1620 24 Jan. PC.

1621 2 Apr. Created Baronet of Ireland, the 5th. of such creations, by James I. (see footnote on Baronetage).

1621 1 Feb. Incorporated as first Sovereign of Jamestown on the Shannon.

1622 14 Aug. Letters from the King directing the Lord Deputy to assist and countenance him in the building of the walls and fortifications of Jamestown, and grant him the necessary warrants for timber, stone and other materials, and for hiring workmen. The letters give the building specifications for the works, 160 perches of wall at £18 per perch, plus 2 large gates and a water-gate, total cost £4880, all to be completed in 6 years. He entered into an indenture dated 6th.Oct. for these works, against a recognizance for £5000, in consideration of receiving the fines or purchase money of the settlers in Leitrim.

1627 28 Jun. Commissioned to try sundry offences committed by the soldiery.

1628 5 Dec. Granted a Saturday market and 2 fairs, on the Thursday before the feasts of St.Philip and St.Jacob and All Saints, at Mountrath, and a Friday market at Castle Cuffe.

1631 In England for a time.

1634 7 May. Custos Rotulorum Pacis for Queens Co.

1637 Contributed £50 for the encouragement of the College of Dublin (TCD)

1639 9 Sep. Confirmed in the manor of Castle Cuffe, with 500 acres and free warren.

1639 MP for Queens Co., until his death in 1642. Knight of the Shire for Queens Co.

1640 Colonel of Foot, pay 20/- per day (some accounts say 30/-).

1640 Built Castle Cuffe, but destroyed by the rebels before completion.

1641 In possession of property , chiefly in Connaught, valued at £4000 a year.

1641 His linen works at Mountrath pillaged and all his property in the town destroyed by the rebels. For full details of his losses, not only at Mountrath, but also elsewhere in Queens Co., Kings Co., Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan, and Sligo, (stock losses alone total £8800 let alone buildings and loss of profits), see Lodge's report in "Coote Family" p.18. His estates were so injured as to remain unprofitable till the end of the rebellion. His ironworks were destroyed, but resumed during the Interregnum with contracts to supply the army with ordnance.

1641 Nov. In the rebellion, raised 1000 men. Appointed Governor of Dublin.

1641 29 Nov. The rebels having seized Cary's Fort, Arklow, and Chichester Fort, and beseiged the houses of the local gentry slaughtering many people, he relieved Wicklow Castle with 500 foot and 80 horse. Seized and executed with wanton cruelty many rebels in Wicklow. On his way back to Dublin, defeated Luke O'Toole and 1000 rebels.

"The expedition to Wicklow, by contrast, was led with expert efficiency and ruthless decisiveness by Sir Charles Coote. ...... Coote marched throughout the night to reach Dublin on the morning of the following day, where he was at once appointed governor of the city " ("The Old English in Ireland, 1625-42" p.177). It was this Wicklow expedition that struck terror into the Irish and made him dreaded and cursed thereafter.

1641 Marched to strengthen garrison of Drogheda.

1641 8 Dec. Treasury warrant for pay as Colonel, 20/- per day. (CSPI)

18 Dec. ditto for pay as Governor of Dublin £2 per day. (CSPI)

1641 15 Dec. 200 armed rebels having plundered a barque arrived from England and deposited the pillage in Mr.King's house at Clontarf, he took 400 foot and 100 horse and burnt the house and the village, taking a number of prisoners. Returned to Dublin with no loss.

Accused of suggesting a general massacre of Catholics, but cleared of the imputation by the Lords Justices.

1641 8 Dec. Treasury Warrant for his pay as Colonel, 20/- a day. (CSPI)

1641 18 Dec. Treasury warrant for his pay as Governor of Dublin City, £2 a day. (CSPI).

1642 11 Jan. Sent with 2000 foot and 200 horse to dislodge 1400 rebels from Swords, Co.Dublin. Slaughtered 200 rebels.

1642 23 Feb. With Earl of Ormonde, routed the rebels at Kilsallaghan, Co.Dublin.

1642 6 Apr. Relieved Ballylivan Castle, Co.Kildare.

1642 10 Apr. Sent with Sir Thomas Lucas to relieve Birr, Kings Co., and Borris and Knocknamease, with six troops of horse. He led 30 dragoons on foot to beat off the enemy, who lost their captain and 40 men. After 48 hours on horseback, returned to camp without losing one man.

1642 Accompanied Earl of Ormonde to Battle of Kilrush, against the rebels commanded by Lord Mountgarret.

Left with his regiment and 300 horse in garrison at Naas.

Attended Lord Lisle at relief of Geashill Castle, held by Lettice Fitzgerald (Baroness Offaly) with 350 horse and 150 foot.

Captured Philipstown and returned to take Trim, which he turned into a garrison.

1642 7 May. Attacked at Trim by 3000 rebels, and killed in a sally at the head of 17 troopers (all he could muster in a hurry), some say shot by one of his own soldiers, who were tired of his hard driving.

His body was sent to Dublin next day, under guard, and buried in Christ Church Cathedral with much ceremony.

1642 16 May. In consideration of his death, and the great sufferings of his family thereby, the House of Commons, upon the desire of the Lords Justices, declared their intention that the estate of Florence Fitz-Patrick, a rebel in the Queens County, of about £500 a year, who had possessed himself of a great part of Sir Charles' estate, should be bestowed upon his children. This not having been done, the Protector, 27 Jul.1654 ordered them to be put in possession thereof till Parliament should take further order therein.

Having had to sell Blo' Norton Hall and estates to pay his father's fine, he had joined Lord Mountjoy's Irish expedition in 1600. His brothers Thomas and William apparently decided to go too, but not as soldiers.

He turned out to have a flair for soldiering, but he acquired a reputation for gratuitous violence, even in excess of contemporary norms.

By all accounts he was a brilliant soldier, tough and efficient. It is noticeable that throughout the accounts of his operations, there is no record of him ever having been defeated. He was occasionally besieged, but was always relieved or fought his way out. He never slept when on a foray, and 48 hours in the saddle was nothing to him.

He also had a keen entrepreneurial streak, started ironworks all over Ireland, and fostered the emerging linen industry.

He was mean and grasping and neglected no opportunity to enlarge his lands and exchequer at the expense of others.

He was outspoken in his views, and cared little what effect his opinions had on others, but he was careful to trim his sails to suit the prevailing political climate.

A hot headed and bloody man (Daniel O'Connell, MP 'A Memoir on Ireland')

A sample of contemporary comments;

"A man of rough, stern, and inflammable temper" "Intolerant of disloyalty" "Known character for decision and unflinching intrepidity"

"A man of courage and experience, but very rough and sour in his temper"

"Acts of revenge, violence, and cruelty which he exercised on all occasions with too little distinction between the innocent and the guilty".

"Sir Charles Coote, in revenge for the depredations of the Irish, committed such unprovoked, such ruthless, and indiscriminate carnage in the town of Wicklow, as rivalled the utmost extravagances of the northerns" (Leland's History of Ireland, Bk.5, Ch.4.). It was largely this episode that enshrined his name with execration in Irish contemporary history, and made him the most hated and feared man in Ireland.

Bishop Lynch referred to him as "the Raven".

In the course of the rebellion he wrote to Lord Cork "your sonne my Lord Kynalmeaky hath done wonderful good work in the West; hee hath taken the Castle of Carygnass and burned all in it, man, woman, and chylde"

He died leading a sally at the siege of Trim, some say shot by one of his own troopers.

"His body was brought to Dublin and there interred with great solemnity, floods of English tears accompanying him to the grave" (Borlase).

His epitaph: "England's honour, Scotland's wonder,

Ireland's terror, here lies under"

In consideration of his death, and the great sufferings of his family thereby, The House of Commons, 16 May 1642, (upon the desire of the Lord Justice) declared their intention that the estate of Florence FitzPatrick a Queens Co.rebel, of about £500 a year, who had possessed himself of much of Sir Charles's estate, should be bestowed upon his children. This was never done, but the Protector, 27 July 1654, ordered them to be put in possession thereof, till the Parliament should take further order therein.

Portrait by Cornelis Janssen (Cornelius Johnson).

(Note re: Baronetcy, 1621) :

The Order of the Baronetage of England was instituted in 1611 by James I, to raise finance for the Plantation of Ulster. In 1619 the Baronetage of Ireland was instituted, and the Coote baronetcy of 1621 was the 5th.of these creations. Of these first five, the 1st., 3rd., and 4th. are extinct, and the 2nd.(Annesley) is held by Viscount Valentia but is merged with the senior title, so the Coote baronetcy is the oldest Irish baronetcy in actual use, though the Annesleys are technically Premier Baronets of Ireland.

The requirements for the first baronets were that they should have an income from landed estates of £1000 a year (which in 1611 would have required considerable territorial possessions), and their paternal grand-father should have borne Arms. They also had to pay 30 soldiers, at 8d a day, for 3 years (total £1095, but this could have been spread over the 3 years). Also, they had to pay the huge sum of £1200 to the Heralds for their Patent (in Latin). The original 1621 Patent of the Coote baronetcy is still in family possession with the present baronet.

[Coote.ftw

---

Sir Charles Coote, 1st Baronet Coote of Castle Cuffe

%E2%80%94%E2%80%94%E2%80%94%E2%80%94%E2%80%94%E2%80%94%E2%80%94 https://www.propertyobserver.com.au/finding/location/expat-and-inte...

---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Coote,_1st_Baronet

Sir Charles Coote, 1st Baronet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
For other people named Charles Coote, see Charles Coote (disambiguation).
Charles Coote
Baronet Coote of Castle Cuffe
A painted portrait of Donough MacCarty, 1st Earl of Clancarty, showing a clean-shaven man with long curly hair or such a wig, clad in armour, standing in front of some drapery giving a view on a distant landscape
Tenure 1621–1642
Successor Charles Coote, 1st Earl of Mountrath
Born 1581
Died 7 May 1642
Spouse(s) Dorothea Cuffe
Issue
Detail Charles & others
Father Nicholas Coote
Sir Charles Coote, 1st Baronet (1581–1642) was an English soldier, administrator and landowner who lived in Ireland.

Contents
1 Birth and origins
2 Early life
3 Marriage and children
4 Honours
5 Irish rebellion and death
6 Citations
7 Sources
8 External links
Birth and origins
He was born into a Devonshire family, the son of Sir Nicholas Coote.

Early life
In 1600 he moved to Ireland as a captain of the 100th Foot Regiment in the army of Lord Mountjoy, Lord Deputy of Ireland, where he fought in the last few years of the Nine Years War and was at the Siege of Kinsale in 1601–02, which ultimately led to the defeat of the O'Neills.

In 1605 he was appointed Provost-Marshal of Connaught for life and in 1613 was appointed to the office of General Collector and Receiver of the King's Composition Money for Connaught, also for life. In 1620 he was promoted to vice-President of Connaught.

Marriage and children
Before 1617 he married Dorothea younger daughter and coheir of Hugh Cuffe of Cuffe's Wood, County Cork.[1]

Charles and Dorothea had five children, four sons:

Charles, who would be created Earl of Mountrath.
Chidley
Richard, became Baron Coote of Coloony
Thomas (died 1671)
—and one daughter Laetitia, married Sir Francis Hamilton, 1st Baronet, of Killock, also called of Killeshandra, County Cavan[2]

Circle of Cornelius Johnson, Sir Charles Coote, 1st Baronet, ca. 1630
Honours
On 2 April 1621 he was made a baronet (of Castle Cuffe in Queen's County).[3]

He became a substantial landowner and served as a commissioner to examine and contest Irish land titles. In 1634 he was appointed Custos Rotulorum of Queen's County, again for life. He was elected Member of Parliament (M.P.) in the Parliament of Ireland for Queen's County in 1639.

Irish rebellion and death
When the Irish Uprising of 1641 began, Coote was appointed Governor of Dublin and instructed to raise a regiment. He then marched south to secure Wicklow, marching north in 1642 to defeat the rebels at Swords and Kilsallaghan. In April 1642, he was ordered by James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde to relieve the beleaguered garrisons at Birr, Burris, and Knocknamease, after which he rejoined Ormonde's main force to defeat the Irish Confederates at the Battle of Kilrush in April, 1642. In early May of that year, he helped capture the garrisons of Philipstown and Trim, but was killed at Trim on 7 May 1642 during a Confederate counter-attack.

Citations

Burke 1866, p. 133, right column: "Sir Charles Coote m. [married] prior to 1617, Dorothea younger dau. [daughter] and co-heir of Hugh Cuffe, Esq. of Cuffe's Wood, co. Cork ..."

Burke 1866, p. 134, left column: "Letitia, m. to Sir Francis Hamilton of Killeshandra."

Cokayne 1900, p. 226: "Coote: cr. 2 April 1621 ..."