ll twenty-two years after his call that he was made a
king's counsel. He sat in parliament, successively, for Higham Ferrars
and Malton, was appointed solicitor-general in 1834, and in the same
year became master of the rolls. On the formation of Lord Melbourne's
second administration in April 1835, the great seal was for a time in
commission, but eventually Pepys, who had been one of the commissioners,
was appointed lord chancellor (January 1836) with the title of Baron
Cottenham. He held office until the defeat of the ministry in 1841. In
1846 he again became lord chancellor in Lord John Russell's
administration. His health, however, had been gradually failing, and he
resigned in 1850. Shortly before his retirement he had been created
Viscount Crowhurst and earl of Cottenham. He died at Pietra Santa, in
the duchy of Lucca, on the 29th of April 1851.

Both as a lawyer and as a judge, Lord Cottenham was remarkable for his
mastery of the principles of equity. An indifferent speaker, he
nevertheless adorned the bench by the soundness of his law and the
excellence of his judgments. As a politician he was somewhat of a
failure, while his only important contribution to the statute-book was
the Judgments Act 1838, which amended the law for the relief of
insolvent debtors.

The title of earl of Cottenham descended in turn to two of the earl's
sons, Charles Edward (1824-1863), and William John (1825-1881), and then
to the latter's son, Kenelm Charles Edward (b. 1874).

AUTHORITIES.--Campbell, _Lives of the Lord Chancellors_ (1869); E.
Foss, _The Judges of England_ (1848-1864); E. Manson, _Builders of our
Law_ (1904); J. B. Atlay, _The Victorian Chancellors_ (1906).

COTTER, COTTAR, or COTTIER, a word derived from the Latin _cota_, a cot
or cottage, and used to describe a man who occupies a cottage and
cultivates a small plot of land. This word is often employed to
translate the _cotarius_ of Domesday Book, a class whose exact status
has been the subject of some discussion, and is still a matter of doubt.
According to Domesday the _cotarii_ were comparatively few, numbering
less than seven thousand, and were scattered unevenly throughout
England, being principally in the southern counties; they were occupied
either in cultivating a small plot of land, or in working on the
holdings of the _villani_. Like the _villani_, among whom they were
frequently classed, their economic condition may be described as "free
in r