BOTREAUX, William I

The Botreaux were an ancient Cornish family who had been elevated to the baronage in the reign of Edward III. The identity of the man who represented Liskeard in 1423 cannot be established beyond reasonable doubt, but it is probable that he was the London draper of that name, who held estates in Cornwall, rather than his namesake, the Hampshire esquire William Botreaux II*, who later sat in several Parliaments as Member for Wilton. Equally, it is uncertain exactly how William was related to the Lords Botreaux of Boscastle, or, indeed, whether his birth was legitimate. Nevertheless, throughout his life he maintained connexions in his native county of Cornwall, and also with his Botreaux relatives.3 CPR, 1422-9, p. 462; C67/36, m. 7.

No details of William’s apprenticeship or admission to the freedom of London have been discovered, but he was evidently well established in the drapers’ trade by the second half of Henry IV’s reign, when he was supplying cloth to the King’s great wardrobe.4 E101/405/22 ex inf. Dr. E. Quinton. Further afield, he engaged in the trade to Ireland, although he himself evidently preferred to remain in England, entrusting his interests beyond the Bristol Channel to factors.5 CPR, 1408-13, p. 75; 1416-22, p. 411; 1422-9, p. 211. Only once, in July 1415, is Botreaux known to have gone abroad in person, for that year he sued out special royal letters allowing his attorneys to take care of his affairs at home during his absence.6 DKR, xliv. 573. Within England, his commercial contacts extended across the southern counties.7 CPR, 1408-13, p. 441; 1416-22, p. 350; CCR, 1409-13, p. 324; 1422-9, p. 468; 1429-35, p. 29; E326/806; E13/140, rot. 26d; CP40/565, rot. 132d; 643, rot. 270; 688, rot. 129. By the middle of Henry V’s reign he was well established within the London Drapers’ Company, to the building of whose hall he made the standard contribution of 40s.8 Johnson, 294, 299. Among his apprentices he numbered several young men who would later make their name in the drapery trade, possibly including John Norman*, a later master of the Company, who was to become one of his executors.9 Ibid. 290, 297, 320. Botreaux himself would never rise this far within the Company, although in 1423-4 he was elected one of its wardens.10 Ibid. 287, 289, 295. Although he played little part in the government of London, he was nevertheless an affluent member of mercantile society and periodically acted as a feoffee for his neighbours or served on local juries, and it was in recognition of his standing that in 1418-19 he gained admission to the Merchant Taylors’ prestigious fraternity of St. John the Baptist.11 E326/806; KB27/649, rot. 105; Canterbury Cath. Archs., Dean and Chapter mss, CCA-DCc-ChAnt/L/96; London Possessory Assizes (London Rec. Soc. i), no. 231; Guildhall Lib. London, Merchant Taylors’ Co. accts., 34048/1, f. 108v.

In 1419 Botreaux was said to reside in London’s Cheap Ward, and it is likely that property in the parish of St. Mary le Bow, which in 1433 was settled on his eventual executors in a series of transactions involving the Chancery clerk Robert Syreston† and a number of other Cornishmen, was in fact his.12 Corp. London RO, hr 161/37, 39. Beyond this, it is not known what London property, if any, he owned. He had, however, by the end of 1427 contracted a profitable marriage to a Cornish widow. By birth, Isabel, widow of the landowner Arthur Hamely, came from the ancient and wealthy Trenewith family, but of greater importance from William’s point of view (since she was not an heiress) were the lands which she held in jointure from her first husband. These included a moiety of the manor of Allet, and miscellaneous holdings in the manor of Helwyn (in St. Issey) and the Scilly Isles.13 CCR, 1422-9, p. 354; C146/1119, 1279; E159/205, recorda Mich. rots. 11, 11d. By November that year Botreaux had done fealty for his wife’s lands, yet proceedings in the court of the Exchequer over the fees owing to the King for the original enfeoffment of the property were to continue for the remainder of his life and beyond.14 CCR, 1422-9, p. 354; E159/205, recorda Mich. rots. 6, 11, 11d, 22, 25d.

It seems that Cornish affairs also lay at the root of Botreaux’s only recorded return to Parliament in 1423. There is a sense that the Botreaux family was seeking to promote their interests, whatever they were on this occasion, for the draper’s fellow member for Liskeard was Robert Chiselden*, one of the retainers of William, 3rd Lord Botreaux, while the baron’s uncle, Sir Ralph Botreaux*, sat alongside him in the Commons as one of the Cornish knights of the shire.

William Botreaux died in the early months of 1432. The execution of his will was entrusted to his wife’s brother, John Trenewith, the London mercer Everard Flete*, the lawyer Thomas Cokayn*, the draper John Norman and the haberdasher Walter Peryn, who were still engaged in litigation over its terms in the early 1440s.15 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 10, 321, 333; E13/140, rots. 18, 26d; 141, rot. 41d; E5/513; CP40/688, rot. 129; 694, rot. 439; 696, rot. 323; 697, rot. 273; 709, rot. 127d; 710, rot. 330d; 727, rot. 411d; KB27/717, rot. 21. Botreaux’s widow, Isabel, lost little time in taking as her third husband the Northampton draper John Spriggy†, who would spend much of the following decade embroiled in litigation with Botreaux’s feoffees over the Hamely estates.16 E159/205, recorda Mich. rot. 25d; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 432 (where Isabel is not identified); C1/10/23, 173.