Family Tree Welborn » Hugh de Cotton of Hodnet (± 1255-< 1310)

Personal data Hugh de Cotton of Hodnet 

• He was born about 1255 in Hodnet, Market Drayton, Shropshire, England.
• He died before 1310 in Rudheath, Cheshire, England.
• This information was last updated on October 23, 2020.

Household of Hugh de Cotton of Hodnet

He is married to Elizabeth de Tittenleigh.

They got married

Child(ren):

1. Alan de Cotton  1290-1320 

Notes about Hugh de Cotton of Hodnet

Hugh de Cotton of Hodnet is your 20th great grandfather.
You
¬â€  ·Üí Geneva Allene Welborn (Smith)
your mother ·Üí Henry Loyd Smith, R1b1a2a1a1b
her father ·Üí Edith Lucinda Smith (Lee)
his mother ·Üí William "Will" M Lee
her father ·Üí Martha Lee (Collier)
his mother ·Üí Stephen T Collier
her father ·Üí Catherine Collier
his mother ·Üí Sarah Katherine Roberts
her mother ·Üí John Turner, Sr.
her father ·Üí William Thomas Turner
his father ·Üí Mary Turner
his mother ·Üí Richard Sanford
her father ·Üí Thomas Sanford
his father ·Üí Richard Sanford, II
his father ·Üí Maud Sanford (Manwaring)
his mother ·Üí John Mainwaring
her father ·Üí William de Mainwaring
his father ·Üí Margery de Venables
his mother ·Üí Margery Cotton, of Rudheth
her mother ·Üí Hugh de Cotton, of Rudheth
her father ·Üí Alan de Cotton of Hodnet
his father ·Üí Hugh de Cotton of Hodnet
his father

https://www.geni.com/people/Hugh-de-Cotton-of-Hodnet/6000000002351098686

Hugh de Cotton
Gender:
Male
Birth:
1255
Hodnet, Market Drayton, Shropshire, England (United Kingdom)
Death:
Rudheath, Cheshire, England
Immediate Family:
Son of Sir Hugh de Coton
Husband of Elizabeth de Tittenleigh
Father of Alan de Cotton of Hodnet

http://www.combermere-restoration.co.uk/1500s-to-present-day/

The Cotton family owned Combermere Abbey from the Dissolution of the Monasteries until 1919. The family originated in north Shropshire, with many familial links in that county, and may, perhaps, have been Anglo-Saxon rather than Norman.
The surname Cotton could well pre-date the Norman invasion. It is probably related to the Anglo-Saxon word ·Äòcotum·Äô from which cottage is derived. As a place name, a version of it appears in Nottinghamshire, North Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, and Northamptonshire. There are two places in Shropshire called Coton; the more relevant of these is a hamlet near Wem ·Äì which is undoubtedly the home of the earliest known Cottons. With one ·ÄòT·Äô the place name is correctly pronounced ·ÄòCoe-Ton·Äô, which confirms its Anglo Saxon origin (ton being a homestead or small village).
·ÄòCoton in Wem·Äô is mentioned in Domesday Book (spelled ·ÄòCote·Äô), and its ownership had passed from a un-named Anglo-Saxon to the Norman lord William Pantulf, Baron of Wem (or Wemme), as a tenant of the prominent Norman, Earl Roger of Shrewsbury. Coton was in the hundred of Hodnet, which is why, when members of the Cotton family are said to be from Hodnet, they might be ·Äì more precisely ·Äì from Coton. In Domesday Coton comprised eight households and had a taxation value of two gelds. Its value to its lord in 1066 was said to be four shillings, and in 1086 it was worth double that.
There is a Coton Hall just west of the B5476, which was mentioned in Domesday Book. Nowadays there is a Coton Hall Cricket Club.
Certainly, neither the name Cotton nor any obvious variation of it appears in the list of Norman knights present at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. All Anglo-Saxon land holdings were seized by the conquerors, and there is no evidence of Cottons owning land prior to Sir George Cotton being gifted Combermere after the Dissolution. They might have owned land in Coton, and possibly Coton Hall, or ·Äì more likely ·Äì held land as sub-tenants, especially if they were of Anglo-Saxon rather than Norman descent.
The family members are recorded as being in a very small number of places between the middle of the Thirteenth century and the middle of the Sixteenth; primarily Hodnet (possibly meaning Coton, as stated above), but also Rudheath, south of Northwich, in Cheshire. It is possible that apart from one excursion in Cheshire the family lives and died in a tiny area for generations, as the vast majority of the population did.
The furthest back we have been able to trace the Cottons who came to own Combermere is Hugh of Hodnet, who was born around 1255, during the reign of King Henry III. His wife, Elizabeth is noted as being a daughter of Hamon de Tittenleigh, who lived in Coton ·Äì which is both fascinating and very useful. This union may have given the family its name, possibly as a result of moving to the new father-in-law·Äôs lands. The father·Äôs name tells us conclusively that he was a Norman descent, and this may have been a union of the two cultures, two centuries after the Conquest.
There is nothing remarkable about this. By this time the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons were considerably inter-bred. There is evidence of intermarriage between Anglo-Saxons and Normans very soon after the Conquest. Many Anglo-Saxons were pragmatic and accepted the fait accompli of the new rulers; others must have regarded one over-lord as being very much the same as any other. Certainly many families made their peace with the Normans very quickly, which the invaders were often keen to accept ·Äì with a relatively small force in the country the fewer areas which had to be kept under martial law, the better.
The situation in Cheshire and Shropshire was made rather different by the Anglo-Saxon revolt in the border counties a few years after the Conquest. Following rebellion in the north and east of England, and then in the south-west, the border shires rose up against the Normans. It should be borne in mind that the incomers had a far from easy time in subjugating the natives; many Normans grew tired of the rebellions and returned to their own country, and under a less determined ruler than King William it was not impossible that the occupation would have been abandoned.
The ·ÄòHarrying of the North·Äô was King William·Äôs response. He adopted an absolute scorched earth policy, burning homes and crops, and killing livestock. Huge numbers of Anglo-Saxons died of starvation, and even by the compilation of the Domesday Book twenty years after the invasion huge areas of the country, including most of Cheshire and Shropshire were described as ·Äòwaste·Äô and were of very little value. Chester was briefly a stronghold of Anglo-Saxon resistance, before it was taken and razed by the Normans. This operation showed the invaders·Äô ferocity; they undertook it ruthlessly, despite the fact that they were destroying what was now a source of their own wealth. It was two or three generations before both Anglo-Saxons and Normans could really begin cultivating much of the land again.
So, the union of Hugh of Coton and Elizabeth de Tittenleigh in the second half of the Thirteenth century may have been the point where an otherwise obscure Anglo-Saxon family married well and thus were worth documenting. The first of many good marriages for the men of the Cotton line. Unfortunately no other reference to the de Tittenleighs can be found at present.
Other families with the surname of Cotton emerged from the Cotons of Wem, particularly the Cotons of Bellaport (some of whom migrated to Nottinghamshire), but there is neither space nor time to concern ourselves with them.
With just that one geographical change ·Äì Hugh Cotton (born circa 1335) being known as ·Äòof Rudheath·Äô (Rudheath is a village south of Northwich in Cheshire, sixty miles north of Cotton) ·Äì eight generations of Cottons lived in north Shropshire.
One marriage of interest is that of Margery Cotton (died 1398) in 1364, daughter of Hugh Cotton of Rudheath, to Sir Hugh de Venables of Kinderton (or Kynderton), born circa 1330. Their eldest son, Richard (1365 ·Äì 1403), became Baron of Kinderton and his daughter Joan (circa 1384 ·Äì 1420) married into the Grosvenor family (Thomas). The Venables of Kinderton were based close to Rudheath.
Hugh Cotton of Rudheath had no sons and the line passed to his younger brother, Richard. Richard seems to have lived to be 95 years old. He was recorded as being of ·ÄòCoton in Shropshire·Äô, and his son, Roger, married into the Grymelond family of Alkington, north of Wem; halfway to Whitchurch. His son, William (born 1400), was also of Alkington.
The family·Äôs path through English history might have remained anonymous and provincial had it not been for the brothers George and Richard. They took the family on to a national stage as courtiers to both Henry VIII and his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond. Sir George and Sir Robert married sisters; Mary and Jane Onsley (several spellings available) of Catesby Castle in Northamptonshire, daughters of John Onsley, who ·Äì interestingly, died on November 11 1537 at Cotton near Wem, and his wife Jane died at Albrighton in Shropshire (in either or both cases while visiting his daughter, perhaps?). Gifting Combermere Abbey, just a few miles to the north east, to Sir George Cotton in 1539 made geographical sense ·Äì and it rocketed the family up the social ladder. They were then major landowners and solid members of the gentry.
John Cotton (1464 ·Äì 1558) is recorded as being of Alkington, and though the Tudor years were ones of great social mobility, it is unlikely that the brothers rose to national prominence from the very lowest levels of society. In some sources John is described as ·Äògentleman·Äô, suggested some level of social status, and it is likely that George and Richard were well educated. If the brothers·Äô in-laws visited Coton (and possibly died there) there must have been a family seat, and presumably one worth of gentle folk used to sleeping in a castle.
There was a Ralph Cotton of Alkington, who married Jane Smith of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire (daughter of one John Smith ·Äì unhelpfully) in the middle of the Sixteenth century. They had eleven children (Alan, Joan, Roger, Catherine, John, Ellen, unknown name, Margaret, Alice, William, and Eleanor), of whom the eldest was born in 1558, and became Sir Allan Cotton. He was recorded as being born in Whitchurch, and held the office of Lord Mayor of London 1625-6. At the time of his death in 1628 he was living in Edgware in London, and was buried in the church of Saint Martin Orgar in the City of London. His occupation was given as draper; a very successful one, one imagines. He had thirteen children by his first wife, Eleanor More (daughter of Edmund More, or Moor, also a draper), and none by his second, Lucy. The last child of Allan and Eleanor was Sir Rowland Cotton. There is no obvious relationship with the Cottons of Combermere, but more research may uncover one.
The earlier coats of arms, as seen in the coving in The Library at Combermere, created by the first Viscount may well be suspect and should be approached with a little caution. Some Victorian genealogists credit every head of the house of Coton with a knighthood, right back to Hugh Coton. These titles do not appear in other sources ·Äì only in volumes which were created for subscribers, and the temptation to aggrandise one·Äôs subscribers·Äô ancestors might well have been one which the authors could not resist.
There is a Cotton family in Suffolk which definitely dates back to the Normans ·Äì and beyond that to one Ivo Bellomontensis (1026 ·Äì 1059) of Cotentin in Normandy. The invading member of the family was John de Cotentin (1042 ·Äì 1105), who was born and died in Normandy (as was his wife, Marie de Normandie). Their surname derives from the place name, Cotentin, which is a peninsula near Cherbourg. There is no connection between the Suffolk Cottons and the Shropshire Cottons.
Hugh of Hodnet
BORN: Circa 1255
MARRIED: Elizabeth de Tittenleigh (born circa 1270), daughter of Hamon de Tittenleigh (born circa 1240 at Coton in Shropshire)

CHILDREN:
Alan, heir
Alan de Cotton of Hodnet
BORN: 1290
DIED: 1320
MARRIED: 1319, Margaret of Acton (born c. 1295), daughter of Roger Hellesby of Acton, born c. 1273. Possibly the Acton south west of Shrewsbury, but as to be likely the Acton just north of Nantwich.

CHILDREN:
Hugh, heir
Edmund, married Katherine (c. 1325 ·Äì ?); one child, William, married Agnes de Ridware
Hugh de Cotton
BORN: c. 1313
MARRIED: Isabel de Heyton (or Hayton)

CHILDREN:
Hugh, heir
Richard
Perkin, married Margery

Hugh Cotton of Rudheath
BORN: c. 1335
CHILDREN:
Margery, married Sir Hugh de Venables of Kinderton, four or six children
HEIR: Richard, brother

Richard Cotton of Coton in Shropshire
BORN: 1336
DIED: 1431

Roger Cotton
BORN: 1368 at Alkington
MARRIED: Elen (or Ellen) Grymelond (1373 ·Äì 1464), daughter of John Grymelond (1341 ·Äì ?) of Alkington, Shropshire
CHILDREN: William¬â€ 

Do you have supplementary information, corrections or questions with regards to Hugh de Cotton of Hodnet?
The author of this publication would love to hear from you!