which resulted in his capture by the French. In 1680 he was promoted to colonel and appointed Deputy-Governor of the island of Montserrat; in 1681 he was made the island's Governor. With a royal pension and the profits from his West Indian governorship James Cotter became very wealthy and he bought out the interests of most of his immediate family in his father's former lands. He further extended his holdings in the Cork area by new purchases of land. James II and the Williamite War in Ireland It is likely that James Cotter was an intimate of James II and may have served at sea with the king when the king was Duke of York, and an admiral, in the war against the Dutch of 1665. King James is reported to have familiarly referred to Cotter as "Shaymus Bwee," Séamus Buidhe in Irish. In June 1685 Cotter is recorded as a Lt. Colonel serving in Sir William Clifton's Regiment of Foot. James Cotter is believed to have been knighted by King James in 1685 following the Battle of Sedgemoor. The earliest official reference to Cotter as a knight occurs in 1686, which supports this timing; the records of the occasion of the dubbing are no longer extant. James II had converted to Roman Catholicism before he succeeded to the throne, the birth to him of a son and heir who would be raised a Catholic precipitated the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and James fled England; where his Protestant daughter Mary, and son-in-law William III, came to power. In order to retrieve his fortunes, King James landed in Ireland in March 1689 with French troops, initiating the Williamite War in Ireland. At this time Sir James Cotter, a Catholic like his king, was made commander of the Jacobite forces in Cork, and he was also returned as the first member of the Irish Parliament for the city of Cork. Cotter is said to have entertained King James at his house in Anngrove in 1689 and was reputedly promised an elevation to the peerage as a marquis. Cotter commanded "Clare's Dragoons," described as one of the finest of the Jacobite cavalry regiments, and was involved in a skirmish at Lisnaskea, where his force was ambushed. On 11 February 1690 Cotter was appointed Governor of the City of Cork, and in April was empowered to collect taxes from the whole of County Cork.