Pierre Coton

Coton, Pierre, père (1564-1626). French Jesuit preacher who attracted Henri IV's attention by his vigour in controversy with the Huguenots. He worked for the Edict of Rouen (1603), which relaxed the ban imposed on the Jesuits in 1595, and was appointed royal confessor in 1608. But in 1610 the king's assassin Ravaillac was widely rumoured to have been influenced by Jesuit political theory epitomized in Mariana's defence of tyrannicide. Coton wrote an open letter to Henri's widow, Marie de Mèdicis, rebutting these reports. Widely translated, it attracted a flood of international reaction known as the ‘Anti-Coton’. He continued as Louis XIII's confessor until falling from favour in 1617.

[Peter Bayley]