George Cotes Explained

Type:Bishop
Honorific Prefix:The Right Reverend
Bishop of Chester
Church:Roman Catholic
Consecration:1 April 1554
Consecrated By:Edmund Bonner
Term Start:6 July 1554
Term End:1556
Predecessor:John Bird
Successor:Cuthbert Scott
Coat Of Arms:George Cotes Escutcheon.png
Death Date:1556

George Cotes (or Cotys, Coates) (died 1556) was an English academic and Catholic Bishop of Chester during the English Reformation.

He had been a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford in 1522,[1] and then became a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1527.[2] He was Junior Proctor of Oxford University in 1531.[3] It was some years before he was elected Master of Balliol College, in which post he served in the years 1539–1545.[2]

With the accession of Queen Mary, he was chosen to succeed the former Carmelite John Bird, who had been deprived because he was married, as Bishop of Chester.[4] Cotes was consecrated on 1 April 1554 by bishops Stephen Gardiner of Winchester, Edmund Bonner of London, and Cuthbert Tunstall of Durham, and received papal provision on 6 July 1554.[4] However, he held the post for only a short period of time before he died in c. January 1556.[4]

During the Marian Persecutions he had Protestant George Marsh burnt at the stake as a heretic.[5]

References

Notes and References

  1. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/alumni-oxon/1500-1714/pp304-337 Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714, Colericke-Coverley
  2. http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/History/masters.asp Masters of Balliol
  3. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/alumni-oxon/1500-1714/pp304-337 Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714, Colericke-Coverley
  4. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol11/pp37-42 Bishops of Chester
  5. http://www.johnfoxe.org/index.php?realm=text&gototype=modern&edition=1583&pageid=1585 John Foxe's Book of Martyrs