Fortescue, who was throughout his life a zealous Roman Catholic, for several years harboured at Cookhill the Benedictine monk, Augustine Baker. In 1605, after the Gunpowder Plot and the rising of the Roman Catholics of Warwickshire, Fortescue underwent several examinations, and fell under some suspicion on account of a large quantity of armour found in his house. His name appears twice in the Calendar of State Papers in connection with the plot. A letter from Chief-justice Anderson and Sheriff Warburton to the Privy Council states that Fortescue of Warwickshire, though summoned to appear before them, had not come forward to be examined. A declaration by himself says that the armour in question has been in his house for five years, and adds that he has not seen Wintour, the conspirator, for eight years, and was not summoned to join the rising in Warwickshire. He succeeded in clearing himself from these suspicions.... 3
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Early in the reign of James I. he became one of the Commissioners of the Household and Navy. He was knighted by James on 2 Feb 1617/8. He also obtained the office of Surveyor-General "of the king's lands, tenements and hereditaments" in his own county of Worcester, which, in the year 1624, he resigned in favour of his son Edmund. He held at the same time, and until the 21st of May, 1625, when he resigned it, the office of a Chamberlain of the Exchequer, to which office he had been appointed on the 26th of February, 1618/9, upon the death of Sir John Poyntz.
In the years 1622 and 1623 we find him actively employed on several special Commissions.
First, in the former year, he is a Commissioner with the Keeper of the Great Seal, the Lord Manners, and others, for inquiry into defective titles to lands granted by the Crown.
Again, in March, 1623, he served on a Special Commission with the Lord Treasurer (the Earl of Middlesex), and others, to inquire into "the depredations and robberies daily committed on the sea by pirate-robbers, calling themselves men-of-war."
Again, he is on a Special Commission, dated May 9, 1623, with six others, "To inquire into the discords, discontentments, and sundry misgovernments of the English Colonies and Plantations in Virginia and the Summer Islands...."
He married Prudence, daughter of William Wheteley of Holcome in Norfolk, Esquire, sometime Prothonotary of the Common Pleas, by whom he had issue five sons, namely,—William, his son and heir....; second, Francis, of the Inner Temple; third, Edmund, Sewer to the Queen, and successor to his father as Surveyor-General of Crown Lands; fourth, Nicholas, a Knight of Malta; fifth, John; and two daughters,—Martha, married to Nicholas, son of Edward Lewis, of the Vanne, in Glamorganshire; and second, Prudence.
The funeral certificate in the College of Arms, records that "the Right Worshipfull Sir Nicholas Fortescue, of Cookhill, in the Co. of Worcester, Knight, departed this mortal life, at his lodging in Fetter Lane, London, the second of November, 1633; and was thence conveyed to his house aforesaid, and interred in a chapel belonging to the said house the twentieth of the same moneth."
"Near the tomb of Isabel, Countess of Warwick," says Nash, "lays the body of Sir Nicholas Fortescue, Chamberlain of the Exchequer, was was beloved, and died lamented."
By the inquisition post mortem, held November 8, 12 Car. I., it appears that Sir Nicholas died seized of lands in the manors of Wheatley and Cookhill. His eldest son, William, styled "a popish recusant," succeeded to the former manor, which was afterwards sequestered for his recusancy. He is also called "of Cookhill." 4
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