Cutts, John, Baron Cutts Of Gowran

(1661-1707)

   Lieutenant-general, son of an Essex squire, entered Catharine Hall, Cambridge, at the age of fifteen, but did not graduate. A passage in Addison's Musae Anglicanæ; History of Anglo-Latin Poetry (2 volumes, 1691-1699) is said to refer to Cutts having been the first to plant the imperialist flag on the walls of Buda in the war against the Turks in 1686. He fought on the side of William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne (1690) and at both Sieges of Limerick (1690 and 1691). He was given the honorary degree of LL.D. by Cambridge University in 1690 and appointed governor of the Isle of Wight in 1693. Many of his poems are songs set to music. He died in poverty in Dublin. Some of his poems and songs: "Farewel to Love," "La Muse de Cavalier," "On the Death of the Queen," "Poetical Exercises," "The Innocent Gazer," "The Original and Excellence of the Muses," "The Tyranny of Phillis," "To a Lady, Who Desired Me Not to Be in Love with Her," "To Her Royal Highness the Princess of Orange," "Wisdom."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Sieges of Limerick (http://members.tripod.com/Preachan/sieges1.html). Stanford University libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk).