Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Coote, Charles (d.1642)
COOTE, Sir CHARLES (d. 1642), military commander in Ireland, was the elder son of Sir Nicholas Coote of an old Devonshire family, and first landed in Ireland in 1600 as captain in Mountjoy's army, and served in the wars against O'Neill earl of Tyrone. He was present at the siege of Kinsale in 1602, and on 4 June 1605 was appointed provost-marshal of the province of Connaught for life with the fee of 5s. 7½d. per day, and twelve horsemen of the army. On 23 Nov. 1613 he was appointed general collector and receiver of the king's composition money in Connaught for life. In 1620 he was promoted vice-president of Connaught, and sworn a member of the privy council, and on 2 April 1621 was created a baronet of Ireland. On 7 May 1634 he was made ‘custos rotulorum’ of Queen's County, which he represented in the parliament of 1639. At the outbreak of the rebellion in 1641 he was in the possession of property, chiefly in Connaught, valued at 4,000l. a year. In November after it commenced he had a commission to raise a thousand men, and was appointed governor of Dublin. On the 29th he marched towards Wicklow with five hundred foot and eighty horse for the relief of the castle, and, having effected his purpose, returned in haste to place Dublin in a state of defence, defeating on the way Luke O'Toole at the head of a thousand native troops. Cox (History of Ireland) states that he was ‘very rough and sour in his temper,’ and committed ‘acts of revenge and violence with too little discrimination.’ In December he was accused by the lords of the Pale of having thrown out suggestions for a general massacre of the Irish catholics; but the lords justices cleared him of the imputation (Sir John Temple's Irish Rebellion, pp. 23–4). On the 15th of this month he sent a party of horse and foot to fall upon the rebels in the king's house at Clontarf, and on 11 Jan. he dislodged fourteen hundred men out of Swords. On 23 Feb. he accompanied the Earl of Ormonde to Kilsaghlan, and drove the Irish out of their entrenchments. On 10 April he was despatched with Sir Thomas Lucas and six troops of horse to relieve Birr. On the way he had to pass a causeway which the rebels had broken, and at the end of which they had cast up entrenchments, which were defended by a large force, but advancing at the head of thirty dragoons he compelled them to retreat with a loss of forty men. He then relieved in succession Birr, Burris, and Knocknamease, and after forty-eight hours on horseback returned to camp late on the 11th without the loss of a single man. From this successful dash through the district of Mountrath, the title of earl of Mountrath was taken by his eldest son when he was raised to the peerage. After taking part in the battle of Kilrush under the Earl of Ormonde against Lord Mountganet, Coote assisted Lord Lisle, lieutenant-general of horse, to capture Philipstown and Trim. At the break of day that town was, however, surprised by the Irish with three thousand men, when Coote issued out of the gate with seventeen horsemen and routed them, but was shot dead, 7 May 1642. By his marriage with Dorothea, younger daughter and coheiress of Hugh Cuffe of Cuffe's Wood in the county of Cork, he had four sons and one daughter, his eldest son being Charles, lord Mountrath [q. v.]
[Cox's History of Ireland; Carte's Life of Ormonde; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland (Archdall), ii. 63–8; Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerage (1883), pp. 133–4; Gilbert's History of the Irish Confederation (1882); Cal. State Papers, Irish Series.]