BOTELER, John I (?1403-30), of Bewsey and Warrington, Lancs.

John was the only son of the distinguished Lancastrian retainer Sir William Boteler, one of the wealthiest of the Lancashire gentry with landed estates worth over £200 p.a. M.J. Bennett, Community, Class and Careerism, 84; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 304-9. His early prospects were compromised by doubts over his legitimacy. According to a deposition of the 1460s, Sir William had separated from his first wife, seemingly an illegitimate daughter of Sir Henry Hoghton, a younger son of a family almost as wealthy as the Botelers, without ‘any lawfull particion hade be twene thaym’ and on the grounds of mere dislike. He had then married Elizabeth Standish, who was, according to the deposition, our MP’s mother. Annals of Warrington, i. 251. If Sir William’s first w. was a da. of Sir Henry, she must have been illegitimate: The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 387-90. Although no strictly contemporary evidence has been found to substantiate the details of this story, it is not to be disregarded, for the deponent was a servant of Sir Peter Legh, who had been one of the royal farmers of the Boteler estate during our MP’s minority. The context of the deposition is lost, but it is worth noting that it dates from after the murder of our MP’s son and heir in 1463 and that the deponent, Peter Orell, was among those implicated in that murder: DL37/32/36. None the less, there is evidence that complicates this narrative, at least as far as assigning our MP to a mother. The Lancashire inquisition taken on Sir William’s death dates John’s birth to 2 Mar. 1403 and he later proved his age as born on that date, yet, if he was Sir William’s son by Elizabeth, he could not have been born, as legitimate issue, so early for her first husband did not die until 7 Sept. 1402. CP, v. 356n.

Whatever the doubts about John’s legitimacy, however, they were not sufficient to prevent Sir William finding an excellent marriage for him. As early as 1411, John had been contracted to a daughter of another of Lancashire’s leading families, the Haryngtons. On 12 Nov. of that year Sir William settled on the couple and his son’s issue some of his outlying property, namely moieties of the manors of East Grafton in Wiltshire, Stopsley in Bedfordshire and Chalkwell in Essex. Annals of Warrington, i. 248-9; CIPM, xxiii. 443-5. Even so, when Sir William was killed at the siege of Harfleur four years later, leaving John well short of his majority, Sir William’s brother, John, usher of the chamber to Henry V, challenged the boy’s right to succeed. Although an inquisition held at Wigan on 17 Jan. 1416 duly returned our MP as his father’s heir, another held in Warwickshire, where the family held the manor of Exhall, claimed that Sir William died without issue and that the elder John was his brother and heir. Lancs. Inqs. i (Chetham Soc. xcv), 112-14; CIPM, xx. 318. For the elder John’s career: Annals of Warrington, i. 252-5. Whether the brother’s claim was a real threat to our MP’s succession is unclear, and in any event it was ended when he died childless in 1421. In the meantime, the duchy of Lancaster treated the family inheritance as if it was legitimately the property of our MP, granting the wardship of the lands, exclusive of those that remained in the hands of Sir William’s widow, to Sir Peter Dutton, Sir Gilbert Haydock, John Gerard I* (the husband of the boy’s paternal aunt), and William Gernet*, a prominent local lawyer closely associated with the Botelers, to be held at an annual rent of 100 marks. On 2 Dec. 1417 Sir Peter Legh replaced Gerard: Lancs. Inqs. i. 114. In August 1418 Gernet joined with the young heir in taking a bond in £200 from Sir John Stanley† and others, and it may be that this bond reflected continuing difficulties over the succession: DKR, xxxiii. 23.

These trustees held the lands until Boteler came of age in the spring of 1424. Although his landholdings were burdened by the interests of his mother or stepmother, who was now the wife of William, Lord Ferrers of Groby, he was wealthy enough to assume quickly a leading part in the affairs of his native county. At a parliamentary election held on 9 Feb. 1426 he was returned with his cousin, Nicholas Boteler*, whose son and heir had recently married his sister. The election was unusual in two respects: it was held not at the customary location of the county town of Lancaster but at Preston, nearer to our MP’s home at Warrington; and it was witnessed by as few as eight attestors. Lancs. Knights of the Shire (Chetham Soc. xcvi), 214-15. Whether this means that Boteler had improperly secured election can only be a matter of speculation, but it may be that he had a particular reason for wanting a seat at the Parliament which convened at Leicester nine days later. His presence there certainly seems to have worked to his advantage, for on 19 May, during the second session, he was among a distinguished group of young men knighted on the occasion of the boy King Henry VI’s own dubbing. Chrons. London ed. Kingsford, 130.

It may be that he took up the rank either in recognition of an earlier undocumented period of military service, and absence in France thereafter may explain the paucity of references to him in local records. He was certainly in England in the summer of 1429, when he appeared in person at the Lancashire sessions to offer surety for Sir William Atherton, and in the following January, when he witnessed an important award made at Warrington by his aunt, Alice Gerard, but by then he was making preparations to depart for France in Henry VI’s coronation expedition. PL15/2, rot. 27; Standish Deeds ed. Porteus, 140-1. On 18 Feb. he indented to serve for a year with the sizeable retinue of ten men-at-arms (including himself) and 30 archers, and in early April he took the precaution, as insurance against his death on campaign leaving an infant heir, of conveying his manors of Exhall and Bewsey, with the advowson of Warrington church, to feoffees including his father-in-law, Sir William Haryngton, and Thomas Langley, bishop of Durham. E404/46/189; CIPM, xxv. 602; PL4/1/27.

As it transpired, these precautions proved to be timely. Boteler departed for France with the King in the last week of April, and he was immediately entrusted with the captaincy of Vincennes, near Paris, a sure indication that this was not his first period of military service (indeed, it is possible that his captaincy predated the expedition). It was, however, to be his last. His death is described in the contemporary ‘Journal d’un bourgeois de Paris’. On 18 Aug. Charles VII’s forces conducted a raid near one of the gates of Paris, the Porte St. Anthoine, carrying off much livestock. Thomas, Lord Roos, and Boteler sallied after them, and seeing them attempting to cross the Marne tried to overhaul them. Both Roos and Boteler were riding at such speed that they missed the ford and were drowned, though the remainder of their force were successful in trapping the French, capturing their commander Jean Foucaut, and recovering the plunder. Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris, ed. Tuetey, 257; A Parisian Journal 1405-49, ed. Shirley, 251; C.L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature, 291.

Boteler’s untimely death left a son and heir, another John, only one year of age, and his career is described in the biography that follows. His widow did not prove exempt from the troubles that beset the family. On 23 July 1436 she was ‘moste horribely ravysshed’ at her home at Bewsey and then, ‘naked except hir kirtyll and hir smokke’, carried ‘into the wild and desolate places of Wales’ by a gentleman of Wirral, William Pulle, who then compelled her by threats to marry him. So grievous an offence against so important a widow brought a quick response from the Crown, and on 25 Oct. her first cousin, (Sir) Thomas Stanley II*, was named to a very powerful commission for the arrest of Pulle and his adherents and for the safekeeping of the wronged woman. Stanley duly rescued her and, in the Parliament that convened at Westminster on the following 21 Jan., she presented two petitions against Pulle, successfully asking that he be held attaint of high treason should he fail to answer indictment for felony. It is not known whether her abductor suffered punishment, although it seems clear that the marriage into which he forced her did not take effect. It was as Boteler’s widow alone that she died on 15 May 1441. E28/82, 26 Oct. 1436; CPR, 1436-41, p. 83; PROME, xi. 206-7; CIPM, xx. 602.