 It is likely that James Cotter was an intimate of James II and may have served at sea with the king when he was Duke of York, and an admiral, in the war against the Dutch of 1665.James Cotter is believed to have been knighted by King James in 1685 following the Battle of Sedgemoor.James II had converted to Roman Catholicism before he succeeded to the throne, the birth of a son an heir who would be raised a Catholic precipitated the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and James fled England.