Philip Chesney Yorke

“ His Spanish experience rendered him useful to the king, and his bias in favour of Spain was always marked. He seems to have promoted the Spanish policy from the first, and pressed on Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, the proposal for the Spanish in opposition to the French marriage for Prince Charles. ”

“ His opposition greatly incensed Buckingham, and still more his perseverance in the Spanish policy after the failure of the expedition, and on Charles’s accession Cottington was through his means dismissed from all his employments and forbidden to appear at court. The duke’s assassination, however, enabled him to return. On the 12th of November 1628 he was made a privy councillor, and in March 1629 appointed chancellor of the exchequer. In the autumn he was again sent ambassador to Spain ”

“ He was a Roman Catholic at least at heart, becoming a member of that communion in 1623, returning to Protestantism, and again declaring himself a Roman Catholic in 1636, and supporting the cause of the Roman Catholics in England. ”