Sir John COTTON survived till nearly the close of the seventeenth century. He was succeeded in the baronetcy and estates by John, the son of the last-mentioned John COTTON, who had married Frances, daughter and heir of Sir George DOWNING of East Hatley in Cambridgeshire. Sir John, fourth baronet, married Elizabeth HERBERT, one of the grand-daughters of Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. Like his ancestors of many generations, this Sir John COTTON sat in Parliament for Huntingdonshire. His chief claim to honourable memory is that he settled the Cottonian Library on the British nation for ever, and thus made its founder, Sir Robert, the virtual and first FOUNDER OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. This was done by Act of Parliament, in the year 1700. This eminent public benefactor died, in 1731, without surviving issue. The baronetcy then reverted to Robert the eldest son of the second marriage of the first Sir John COTTON, grandson of the Founder. From Sir Robert, fifth baronet, the dignity came, in 1749, to a fourth ‘John COTTON’ who then became sixth baronet and who was the last surviving male heir of his honoured line. Sir John had lost his only son—a fifth John—many years before his accession to the baronetcy, which, on his own death (27 March, 1752), became extinct. Conington had long previously passed to a younger son of Sir Thomas COTTON, second baronet; as shown in the following— +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | CONCLUSION OF THE PEDIGREE OF COTTON OF CONINGTON, | | SHOWING ALSO THE DESCENT OF THE COTTONIAN TRUSTEESHIP | | OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. | | | | | | Sir Robert (BRUCE) COTTON = Elizabeth BROCAS. | | Founder of the | | | Cottonian Library. | | | | | | | | | Alice CONSTABLE, = Sir Thomas COTTON, = Margaret HOWARD, | | daughter and sole heir | (2nd Bart.) | daughter of William, | | of Sir John CONSTABLE, | of Conington, Hunts, | Lord HOWARD of | | of Dromondley, in | and of Eyworth, | Naworth [First Wife]. | | Yorkshire; Relict | Bedfordshire. | | | of Edmund ANDERSON, | [X] | | of Eyworth and of | | | Stratton, in | | | Bedfordshire.