Cambridge, Pepys was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1804. Practising at the chancery bar, his progress was extremely slow, and it was not till twenty-two years after his call that he was made a king’s counsel. He sat in parliament, successively, for Higham Ferrars and Malton, was appointed solicitor-general in 1834, and in the same year became master of the rolls. On the formation of Lord Melbourne’s second administration in April 1835, the great seal was for a time in commission, but eventually Pepys, who had been one of the commissioners, was appointed lord chancellor (January 1836) with the title of Baron Cottenham. He held office until the defeat of the ministry in 1841. In 1846 he again became lord chancellor in Lord John Russell’s administration. His health, however, had been gradually failing, and he resigned in 1850. Shortly before his retirement he had been created Viscount Crowhurst and earl of Cottenham. He died at Pietra Santa, in the duchy of Lucca, on the 29th of April 1851.
Both as a lawyer and as a judge, Lord Cottenham was remarkable for his mastery of the principles of equity. An indifferent speaker, he nevertheless adorned the bench by the soundness of his law and the excellence of his judgments. As a politician he was somewhat of a failure, while his only important contribution to the statute-book was the Judgments Act 1838, which amended the law for the relief of insolvent debtors.
The title of earl of Cottenham descended in turn to two of the earl’s sons, Charles Edward (1824–1863), and William John (1825–1881), and then to the latter’s son, Kenelm Charles Edward (b. 1874).
Authorities.—Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors (1869); E. Foss, The Judges of England (1848–1864); E. Manson, Builders of our Law (1904); J. B. Atlay, The Victorian Chancellors (1906).
COTTER, Cottar, or Cottier, a word derived from the Latin cota, a cot or cottage, and used to describe a man who occupies a cottage and cultivates a small plot of land. This word is often employed to translate the cotarius of Domesday Book, a class whose exact status has been the subject of some discussion, and is still a matter of doubt. According to Domesday the cotarii were comparatively few, numbering less than seven thousand, and were scattered unevenly throughout England, being principally in the southern counties; they were occupied either in cultivating a small plot of land, or in working on the holdings of the villani. Like the villani, among whom they were frequently classed, their economic condition may be described as “free in relation to every one except their lord.”
See F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (Cambridge, 1897); and P. Vinogradoff, Villainage in England (Oxford, 1892).
COTTESWOLD HILLS, or Cotswolds, a range of hills in the western midlands of England. The greater part lies in Gloucestershire, but the system covered by the name also extends into Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Somersetshire. It extends on a line from N.E. to S.W., forming a part of the great Oolitic belt extending through the English midlands. On the west the hills overlook the vales of Evesham, Gloucester and Berkeley (valleys of the Worcestershire Avon and the Severn), with a bold escarpment broken only by a few abrupt spurs, such as Bredon hill, between Tewkesbury and Evesham. On the east they slope more gently towards the basins of the upper Thames and the Bristol Avon. The watershed lies close to the western line, except where the Stroud valley, with the Frome, draining to the Severn, strikes deep into the heart of the hills. The principal valleys are those of the Windrush, Lech, Coln and Churn, feeders of the Thames, the Thames itself, and the Bristol Avon. The last, wherein lie Bath and Bristol, forms the southern boundary of the Cotteswolds; the northern is formed by the valleys of the Evenlode (draining to the Thames) and the Stour (to the Worcestershire Avon), with the low divide between them. The crest-line from Bath at the south to Meon Hill at the north measures 57 m. The breadth varies from 6 m. in the south to 28 towards the north, and the area is some 300 sq. m. The features are those of a pleasant sequestered pastoral region, rolling plateaus or wolds and bare uplands alternating with deep narrow valleys, well wooded and traversed by shallow, rapid streams. The average elevation is about 600 ft., but Cleeve Cloud above Cheltenham in the Vale of Gloucester reaches 1134 ft., and Broadway Hill, in the north, 1086 ft. These heights command splendid views over the rich vales towards the distant hills of Herefordshire and the Forest of Dean. The picturesque village of Broadway at the foot of the hill of that name is much in favour with artists.
In the soil of the hill country is so much lime that a liberal supply of manure is required. With this good crops of barley and oats are obtained, and even of wheat, if the soil is mixed with clay. But the poorest land of the hill country affords excellent pasturage for sheep, the staple commodity of the district; and the sainfoin, which grows wild, yields abundantly under cultivation. The Cotteswolds have been famous for the breed of sheep named from them since the early part of the 15th century, a breed hardy and prolific, with lambs that quickly put on fleece, and become hardened to the bracing cold of the hills, where vegetation is a month later than in the vales. Improved by judicious crossing with the Leicester sheep, the modern Cotteswold has attained high perfection of weight, shape, fleece and quality. An impulse was given to Cotteswold farming by the chartering in 1845 of the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester.
A number of small market-towns or large villages lie on the outskirts of the hills, but in the inner parts of the district villages are few. The “capital of the Cotteswolds” is Cirencester, in the east. In the north is Chipping Campden, its great Perpendicular church and the picturesque houses of its wide street commemorating the wealth of its wool-merchants between the 14th and 17th centuries. Near this town, in the parish of Weston-sub-Edge, Robert Dover, an attorney, founded the once famous Cotteswold games early in the 17th century. Horse-racing and coursing were included with every sort of athletic exercise from quoits and skittles to wrestling, cudgels and singlestick. The games were suppressed by act of parliament in 1851.
See Proceedings of the Cotteswold Naturalists’ Field Club, passim; W. H. Hutton, By Thames and Cotswold (London, 1903).
COTTET, CHARLES (1863– ), French painter, was born at Puy. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and under Puvis de Chavannes and Roll. He travelled and painted in Egypt, Italy, and on the Lake of Geneva, but he made his name with his sombre and gloomy, firmly designed, severe and impressive scenes of life on the Brittany coast. His signal success was achieved by his painting of the triptych, “Au pays de la mer,” now at the Luxembourg museum. The Lille gallery has his “Burial in Brittany.”
COTTII REGNUM, a district in the north of Liguria, including a considerable part of the important road which led over the pass (6119 ft.) of the Alpis Cottia (Mont Genèvre) into Gaul. Whether Hannibal crossed the Alps by this route is disputed, but it was certainly in use about 100 B.C. (see Punic Wars). In 58 B.C. Caesar met with some resistance on crossing it, but seems afterwards to have entered into friendly relations with Donnus, the king of the district; he must have used it frequently, and refers to it as the shortest route. Donnus’s son Cottius erected the triumphal arch at his capital Segusio, the modern Susa, in honour of Augustus. Under Nero, after the death of the last Cottius, it became a province under the title of “Alpes Cottiae,” being governed by a procurator Augusti, though it still kept its old name also.
COTTIN, MARIE [called Sophie] (1770–1807), French novelist, née Risteau (not Ristaud), was born in Paris in 1770. At seventeen she married a Bordeaux banker, who died three years after, when she retired to a house in the country at Champlan, where she spent the rest of her life. In 1799 she published anonymously her Claire d’Albe. Malvina (1801) was also anonymous; but the success of Amélie Mansfield (1803) induced her to reveal her identity. In 1805 appeared Mathilde, an extravagant crusading story, and in 1806 she produced her last tale, the famous Élisabeth, ou les exilés de Sibérie, the subject of which was treated later with an admirable simplicity by Xavier de Maistre. Sainte-Beuve asserted that she committed suicide on account of an unfortunate attachment. This story is, however,
