BOOTH, Henry

Henry Booth enjoyed a remarkable and long career, and more about it can be added to the earlier biography.4 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 288-90. In 1369, when he was no more than an infant, his family provided him with a life interest in lands at Irwillam (near Manchester), worth as much as £20 p.a. This was a more than reasonable competence for a younger son, but Henry owed his success to his own abilities rather than his father’s generosity. By 1391, probably only shortly after coming of age, he transferred his interest in Irwillam to his eldest brother John, and left his native Lancashire to seek his fortune elsewhere.5 Harl. 2112, ff. 167, 169, 175-6; Bodl. Ashmole mss, 833, f. 59; Dodsworth mss, 149, ff. 163, 164v. He began his active career as a soldier: he served in the naval expedition led by Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, in 1388; in 1392 he was retained to serve in Ireland with one archer for a year under another of the Lords Appellant, Thomas, duke of Gloucester; and in 1395 he received letters of protection as in Gloucester’s service there.6 E101/41/5, m. 11d; Add. 40859A, m. 2; CPR, 1391-6, p. 537; C67/30, m. 13. In the meantime he had taken a Derbyshire wife and settled in the environs of Derby, perhaps attracted there by the success of his probable kinsman, the Lancastrian official Oliver Barton, who had risen in John of Gaunt’s service to the stewardships of Tutbury and High Peak.7 S.J. Walker, Lancastrian Affinity, 223-4, 263; R. Somerville, Duchy, i. 381-2; Wolley Ch. I. 58; Crutchley MSS in John Rylands Lib. ed. Taylor, 209; Genealogist, vii. 17-18.

Booth and many of his neighbours in southern Derbyshire benefited greatly from the Lancastrian usurpation in 1399. He actively supported Henry of Bolingbroke after his landing at Ravenspur and thereafter embarked upon a legal career. His practice was chiefly local and centred in Derby, where he represented clients at the bailiffs’ court. In 1400 he served as an arbiter in a dispute between the Derby bailiffs and a townsman, and on occasion he also acted as an attorney at the county assizes.8 CP40/595, rot. 444; 598, rot. 423; E13/117, rot. 6; JUST1/1514, rot. 69d; 1524, rot. 17; 1537, rot. 19d. His abilities were recognized by the Crown in 1411 with his appointment as duchy of Lancaster attorney in his adopted county. This position made him a useful ally for a number of the leading Lancastrian knights in the county, most notably Sir John Cockayne*, Sir Nicholas Montgomery†, Sir John Dabrichecourt† and Sir Roger Leche†. He acted in association with these men on a number of occasions in the first two decades of the fifteenth century, to their mutual benefit. Indeed, it may have been Cockayne who, as a feoffee of Henry Fitzherbert of Norbury, helped him to secure the wardship of the heir of Henry’s son and heir, Nicholas*. This was granted to Booth by the duchy council in October 1416, and he took advantage to cement his local connexions by contracting his daughter, Alice, to the ward.9 Derbys. RO, Okeover mss, D231M/E451; Derbys. Chs., ed. Jeayes, 1769; DL42/17, f. 40v; L.J. Bowyer, Norbury, 83; CP40/635, cart. rot.

Booth also employed his friendship with these knights to assist him in the unscrupulous acquisition of a significant landed stake in the county. With Sir Nicholas Montgomery he was among the feoffees of Robert Fraunceys of Ticknall, and in 1410 Fraunceys’s widow, Joan, daughter of John Took of Sinfin, conveyed to him property in Egginton which had been settled on her by her father on her marriage. If this was not to the disinheritance of her own daughter (who was probably dead by this date) it was to that of her brother, John Took, who had an interest in remainder on the failure of her issue, and a significant dispute ensued. In 1420 a compromise was reached whereby Booth conveyed a life interest in the estate to the unmarried John Took, with remainder to his own issue. By March 1428, probably after Took’s death, the estate had come into Booth’s hands.10 Derbys. Feet of Fines (Derbys. Rec. Soc. xi), 1031; Harpur Crewe mss, D2375M/13/3(1, 3); 24/55; CP40/635, rot. 362d.

Booth also managed to acquire Robert Fraunceys’s manor of Arleston. Complex legal manoeuverings failed to secure the disinheritance of Robert’s nephew, Ralph Fraunceys, but Booth’s friendship with the wealthy Derby merchant, Thomas Stokkes*, the husband of Ralph’s daughter and eventual heiress, eventually brought the manor to the Booths. In 1418 Ralph surrendered his interest to the couple in return for an annual rent of four marks; and ten years later the manor was settled on our MP.11 CP40/607, rot. 526; Harpur Crewe mss, D2375M/13/1-3, 24/55; Derbys. Feet of Fines, 1029, 1055, 1068. Through Sir John Dabrichecourt, Booth acquired two properties. In 1410 William Rolleston of Swarkeston mortgaged his moiety of the manor of Egginton to Sir John to be redeemed at the end of ten years on payment of 40 marks. At Dabrichecourt’s death in 1415, the mortgage remained unpaid, and Booth, as one of the knight’s executors, purchased it from Sir John’s feoffees in 1418. Ten years later he settled the estate upon his son and heir John, and it was not until 1466 that it was at last recovered from the Booths by the Rollestons.12 Derbys. RO, Every of Egginton mss, 3186, 3200, 3340, 3344-5, 3408, 3469, 3537; Reg. Chichele, ii. 51-54, 108-10.

The duchy manor of Sinfin, which adjoined Arleston to the north, was acquired by Booth under similar circumstances. In 1409 debt had forced its tenants, the Tooks, to put it into the hands of their kinsman John Fynderne and then to mortgage it to Booth. After the dispute had erupted between John Took and Booth over the latter’s purchase of the Tooks’ Egginton estate, Booth’s tenure of Sinfin was deemed unacceptable. In March 1412 a deal was agreed. Fynderne was to pay 141 marks to Booth for title to the property; Fynderne was then to mortgage the property for 12 years, both to recompense himself and to pay Took’s debts; and at the manor’s restoration to Took at the end of this period, Fynderne was to have a contingent remainder settled upon him.13 Derbys. Feet of Fines, 746; Harpur Crewe mss, D2375M/13/2-3; Add 6669, f. 39v. Accordingly, on the following 15 June a four-year mortgage was arranged with Sir John Dabrichecourt, seisin to be returned to Fynderne if he and Took paid Dabrichecourt 250 marks by 11 June 1416, and if they did not, then the latter would pay Fynderne an additional £40 and Took would release all title to the knight and his feoffees. At Dabrichecourt’s death the mortgage had not been redeemed, and Booth was able to buy it from his feoffees. He gave Took no further opportunity to redeem the property. In 1417 he was ordered to do homage to the feodary of the honour of Tutbury for the manor, and in 1419 he settled it upon his son John.14 M. Jurkowski, ‘Complicated Relations’, in Much Heaving and Shoving ed. Aston and Horrox, 37-8; DL42/17, f. 185v; CP40/635, cart. rot.

Booth’s increasing prosperity was achieved at the expense of good relations with his brother-in-law John Fynderne, and in June 1416 the matters of difference between them were put to the arbitration of Thomas Staunton* and Elias Stokkes*. A number of the points settled dealt with the disputed estates in Egginton and Sinfin, while others concerned Booth’s role in Fynderne’s dispute with Repton priory over the manor of Potlock. Although Booth had previously helped the prior (his employer) in this affair, and he could not ‘pour sa honeste overtment este encountre le dit priour’, he promised that henceforth he ‘ferra ascun brocage as jourrours enbraceours ou ascun autre persone’ against Fynderne. He undertook also not to furnish the prior with any of the manor’s title deeds and to return all those in his possession to Fynderne; this strongly suggests that he had been treacherously supplying the prior with muniments from the Fynderne archive. Another point conceded was that Booth would no longer disturb Fynderne’s tenure of the office of steward of Burton abbey – a post which he had probably held since at least 1400 and one which Booth was evidently trying to usurp.15 Jurkowski, 35-44.

By Fynderne’s death in 1420, the two men had sufficiently patched up their differences for Fynderne to trust our MP as a feoffee for the settlement of his estate upon his young son and heir, and Booth can probably be credited with bringing about the comprehensive settlement of the Fyndernes’ dispute with Repton priory in 1422.16 Ibid. 41. Nonetheless, the provisions of the arbitration show Booth to have been something of a dissembler and opportunist, although a more sympathetic side of his character is revealed by his involvement in the lollard heresy, detailed in the earlier biography.17 For further details: M. Jurkowski, ‘Heresy and Factionalism’, Jnl. Eccl. Hist., xlviii. 660-9.

Throughout the 1420s, a good deal of Booth’s time was taken up with the affairs of the Leche family. This involvement appears to have been the force motivating his parliamentary career. On his death in July 1420, the noted soldier. Sir Philip Leche†, son of Sir Roger, left most, if not all, of his estates in the hands of Booth and a clerk, William Pirton, as his feoffees and executors of his will.18 DL42/17, f. 151; C64/11, m. 38d; Derbys. Feet of Fines, 1047; Belvoir Castle deeds 6241-2; CCR, 1422-9, p. 73; KB27/645, rot. 21. Leche was unmarried and his common law heirs were his four sisters. It is not known what instructions he left for the disposition of his estate, but it is clear that Booth and Pirton were determined to disinherit the sisters and to sell at least part of the estate to the heir male, Ralph Leche of Chatsworth. Not surprisingly, the sisters did not favour this idea, and in the month after Sir Philip’s death one of them, Anne, and her husband John Legh, with a host of ‘outlaws’ from Cheshire allegedly plundered the Leche manor of Bubnell. They were duly indicted before the Derbyshire j.p.s. three months later, but Booth felt stronger action was needed.19 C1/6/180; KB9/216/2/6, 7. Accordingly, on 28 Nov. he secured election as MP for Derbyshire. Since other evidence shows that he was already on his way to London, he could not have been present at the election, but had probably met with the sheriff a few days before and arranged to have his name returned, leaving Ralph Leche, who was one of the attestors to the election, to represent his interests on the election day. At the same time, he collected the indenture for the Nottinghamshire election (held on 25 Nov.) and delivered it to Chancery. It is certain that Booth was in London by 29 Nov., when he and Pirton initiated a suit in the King’s bench for trespass against an accomplice of the Leghs.20 C219/12/4; KB27/638, rot. 15. More importantly, in the Parliament which was convened a few days later, they presented a strongly-worded petition complaining of Legh’s conduct and secured the issue of expeditious process to make him answer before the royal council. This was enough to force the Leghs to accept terms: in an agreement made in London on 22 May 1421 they were obliged to release all their right to the estate, surrender the title deeds that they had taken from Bubnell and enter guarantees they would bring no further suits in the matter.21 PROME, ix. 253-4; KB27/641, rex rot. 1; 643, rex rot. 2; Keele Univ. Lib., Legh of Booths mss, L3; S.J. Harris, ‘The Legh of Booths Muniments’ (Keele Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1999), i. 124-33; CCR, 1419-22, p. 202.

Soon after, Booth and Pirton were also in dispute with another of the Leche sisters, Isabel, and her formidable husband Sir Sampson Meverell. On 27 Feb. 1423 an assize in Derby found that the two men had been unjustly disseised by the Meverells of a tenement in Tideswell.22 KB27/643, rot 56d; JUST1/1537, rots. 26. The stakes were soon raised: on 2 July in London Booth and Pirton agreed to sell the Leche manors of Bubnell and Birchells to John, Lord Talbot, for a total of 340 marks. The agreement noted that the Meverells had made entry into these premises, and Booth and Pirton undertook to have them removed by common law. The Meverells resisted this pressure, however, and persisted with their attempts to gain possession of the disputed lands. In Trinity term 1423 Sir Sampson and his wife forcibly ejected Booth and Pirton from property in Tideswell and Bubnell, and, according to an indictment taken before the j.p.s., then mounted a robust defence. The indictment dramatically described how Isabel had single-handedly resisted the sheriff’s attempts to repossess the manor of Bubnell, while her husband and his allies lay in wait to kill Booth and Pirton.23 Notts. RO, Portland mss, DDP/45/3; CP40/651, rot. 64; KB27/652, rex rot. 4; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xvii. 98-99.

The defendants remained at large, however, and Booth again sought remedy in Parliament. At the election held in Derby on 30 Sept. 1423, the sheriff Sir John Cockayne returned him as one of the knights of the shire, and in the assembly which convened a month later Booth and Pirton presented a petition against the Meverells, echoing the charges made in the indictment and making further ones. They claimed that the Meverells had threatened jurors in a plea of re-disseisin, and, when this failed to prevent a verdict being returned against them on 31 Aug. 1427, they and their armed supporters had lain in wait to kill the petitioners at Bubnell and in Cheshire. The petition asked that the Derbyshire sheriff be ordered to proclaim that unless the Meverells and their allies appeared before the justices of the common pleas and gave sureties of the peace, their goods would be forfeit.24 C219/13/2; SC8/339/15978. The Meverells replied with the accusation that the judgement rendered in the assize of novel disseisin of February 1423 had been erroneous, and a transcript of the proceedings at the assize was ordered to be sent to the King’s bench by a writ of certiorari on 4 Feb. 1424, while Parliament was still in session. Appearing before the King’s bench in person in the same term, Sir Sampson and Isabel maintained that, because the disputed Tideswell tenement was part of the ancient demesne of the Crown, the plea of Booth and Pirton should have been brought before the Tideswell manorial court by a writ of right. In the following year they continued their defence by taking their case to Parliament and, no doubt aware of their intention, Booth made sure that he was again returned for the county in the election in April.25 KB27/651, rot. 64; C219/13/3.

The Meverells’ petition told an unsavoury tale. They claimed that Booth and Pirton had obtained the verdict in the assize of 1423 through the embracery of the jurors and the favour of the sheriff Cockayne. Yet worse, to execute the judgement of the assize, they had entered the manor of Bubnell with 300 armed men, manhandling Isabel Meverell, who was then heavily pregnant, and dragging her from the manor by her arms. Having taken possession, they conveyed the manor to Lord Talbot to procure his maintenance, and he installed his men there. The Meverells were particularly incensed that Booth and Pirton wasted Sir Roger Leche’s money on retaining ‘maintainers, embracers and other malefactors’ to delay their appeal against the assize and to bring feigned actions of debt and trespass against Sir Sampson. This campaign of harassment, they stated, was meant to force them to release their right to the Leche estate to Booth and Pirton. They complained also of the latter’s treatment of Anne’s husband John Legh, whom they had had arrested and held in prison until he made surety to them that he would not bring suit against them for any of Sir Roger’s lands. The petitioners asked that Booth and Pirton be examined about these allegations in Parliament, but the outcome is not known.26 C49/68/8.

Booth’s election as knight of the shire for Derbyshire in 1427 may also have been procured so that he might further his interests as trustee of the Leche estate, although it was probably not until the Parliament of 1429 that Richard Mynors brought a petition against him and Pirton, accusing them of dereliction in their duties as feoffees of Sir Philip’s father, Sir Roger. He claimed that they owed him 200 marks as arrears of an annuity of 16 marks that Leche had granted him in return for his manor of Willersley, now in the hands of Ralph Leche. The petition was heard before the duke of Gloucester on 3 Nov., but it does not seem that the petitioner secured redress. Ralph Leche held Willesley in 1431, and after Mynors’ death in 1436 an inquisition post mortem jury (which included at least four of Booth’s retainers and allies) found that Mynors had held no lands in the county.27 SC8/25/1227; Feudal Aids, i. 287, 294; CIPM, xxiv. 411.

In 1439, when his title to the manor of Arleston was under threat, Booth resettled the estate upon his son John in tail-male, with contingent remainders to Humphrey, earl of Stafford, and after him to Henry VI. His intent in creating these remainders was recognized all too clearly by the rival claimant to the manor, William Dethick, who petitioned the earl to have the matter brought before his council. ‘Perceiving the feebleness of his title’, he alleged, Booth had settled these remainders ‘to the entent as well to have [the earl’s] assistance, supportation and favour as to delay [Dethick] of his suit by an aid prior of the king’. The earl’s response to the petition is not known, but Dethick’s suit did not ultimately succeed.28 Bodl. Rawlinson mss, B460, ff. 203v-207; KB9/11/15d; Lansd. 905, ff. 61-62; Harpur Crewe mss, D2375M/13/3.

It was probably in the last decade of Booth’s life that what seems to be a satirical depiction of him was drawn in the margin of a manuscript of The Canterbury Tales and other literary works by Chaucer, Lydgate and Hoccleve. Despite its secular content, this anthology is thought to have been written at Leicester abbey and compiled over several years, beginning in about 1450. The drawing is found on the first folio of Hoccleve’s Regiment of Princes and although now faint, it appears to depict a boar’s head wearing a serjeant’s coif – ostensibly a parody of Booth’s armorial seal of argent three boars’ heads erect sable – above which is written ‘h bothe’.29 Harl. 7333, f. 204; J.M. Manly and E. Rickert, Text of the Canterbury Tales, i. 207-18; Trans. Edinburgh Bibliographical Soc. iv (7), 269-71. Perhaps Booth was a legal retainer of the abbey and had become something of a figure of fun in his old age.

According to an inscription that was once on a wall in the church of Barrow-upon-Trent (the parish church of Arleston) in which he was buried, Booth died on Friday 8 July 1446. He had outlived by five years his wife Isabel, who had chosen to be interred with her family in the chapel of Findern.30 Dodsworth mss, 82, f. 47; Reliquary, iii. 189-90; N. Pevsner, Buildings of England: Derbys. (2nd edn.), 215. They left three sons, upon whom, by settlements made in 1436 and on 30 May 1446, Booth’s manors of Arleston, Sinfin, Egginton and Hilton were settled in successive tail-male in order of seniority.31 Harpur Crewe mss, D2375M/13/1, 2, 3; Every mss, 3184, 3196, 3307. The eldest, John, succeeded to these manors, and was assessed, no doubt very conservatively, on an income of £20 in the Derbyshire tax returns of 1450.32 E179/91/73. Although a much less significant figure than his father, he added to the family estate by marriage. As early as 1428 his father had contracted him to Margaret, daughter and heiress of Thomas Petymore, an obscure gentleman of Knights Thorpe, a village on the outskirts of Loughborough.33 Dodsworth mss, 82, f. 47; Harpur Crewe mss, D2375M/13/1-3; Every mss, 3408; C142/30/133; 51/39. John’s younger brother William had been presented to the rectory of Over Colwick (Nottinghamshire) as early as 1420.34 Clergy Central Notts. (Thoroton Soc. xv), 41.