BOTELER, William (d. aft. 1672), of Oundle, Northants.

William Boteler’s family came from the Northamptonshire village of Barnwell, on the Huntingdonshire border, and he was probably educated at nearby Oundle School.25Hardacre, ‘Boteler’, 1; Oxford DNB.. It is likely that he was the brother of Edward Butler or Boteler, who was ejected as a fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1644, and Hester Boteler of Barnwell, who drew up her will in 1665, may have been his sister.26Oxford DNB; PROB11/323/299. The Botelers’ local patrons were probably the Montagus, who owned the manor of Barnwell.27R. Ollard, Cromwell’s Earl (1994), 14, 18. Edward Boteler was later presented to the living of Titchmarsh by the 2nd earl of Manchester; Hester Boteler became a servant of Hon. William Montagu* when she fell on hard times; and William Boteler may have served in the regiment of a cousin, Edward Montagu II*, in the later 1640s.28Oxford DNB; PROB11/323/299; Temple, ‘Original officer list’, 61. In the 1650s William Boteler corresponded with Edward Montagu II and was on good terms with members of his circle, especially his brother-in-law, Sir Gilbert Pykeringe*.29Bodl. Carte 73, f. 181. This connection was no doubt the origin of his closeness to Oliver Cromwell*, who was addressing Boteler as ‘my very loving friend’ as early as May 1649.30Abbott, Writings and Speeches ii. 77.

Boteler served in the parliamentarian army during the first civil war, although the details of that service are unclear, not least because there were a number of officers with the surname Boteler or Butler serving during this period. He may have been the William Boteler who was captain of Sir Henry Cholmley’s regiment, in the army of the 3rd earl of Essex, before its disbandment in August 1643.31SP28/9/112, 229; SP28/10/240. He was later compensated for his arrears due as captain of Colonel Lydcott’s regiment until 26 March 1645.32A. and O. ii. 998. Shortly afterwards he married into the Brooke family of Great Oakley in Northamptonshire, where his son was baptised in 1646. He may have been the Captain Butler listed in the New Model foot regiment commanded by Edward Montagu II, with Thomas Kelsey* as his major, and if so he served at Naseby, Bridgwater, Bristol and Basing during the summer and autumn of 1645.33Temple, ‘Original officer list’, 61. In June 1648, on the information of Thomas Waite*, Speaker Lenthall* thanked Boteler for his part in suppressing a royalist revolt in Northamptonshire.34CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 115. Boteler was still a member of the regular army in the winter of 1648-9, when he attended the army council meetings. In the debate on the second Agreement of the People he opposed the proposed sanctions against heresy, as:

truth and light and knowledge has still gone under the name of errors and heresies, and still they have put these Esau’s garments upon Jacob’s back. And in that regard (that for the most part truth and light go under the name of error and heresy) we shall give occasion to our adversaries to rail against us in every pulpit.35Clarke Pprs. ii. 173, 272-3; Hardacre, ‘Boteler’, 2.

He may have been the Major Butler who played a role in the suppression of the Leveller mutiny, leading the party that killed the rebel ringleader, William Thompson, near Wellingborough.36Gentles, New Model Army, 346-7. It was perhaps as a reward for his service that, later in the same month, Boteler was appointed by Cromwell as major in Thomas Harrison’s* regiment of horse, which was stationed in south Wales and the borders during the invasion of Ireland.37Abbott, Writings and Speeches ii. 77; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 184-5. In 1650 Boteler joined Harrison and other officers of the regiment in being made a commissioner for the better propagation of the gospel in Wales in February and a JP for Glamorgan a year later.38A. and O.; C231/6, p. 207. It is unclear whether Boteler accompanied the regiment to Scotland in the summer of 1650 and then on the Worcester campaign of 1651.39Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 186-7. It was perhaps during his time as Harrison’s subordinate that Boteler’s religious views became more radical. In March 1652 he headed a group of soldiers and civilians which presented a paper to the committee on the propagation of the Gospel denouncing the state-endowed Church and taking up an extreme position on religious toleration. Perhaps inspired by Boteler’s arguments in December 1648, the paper argued that ‘the judgement and condemnation of such false teachers and heretics’ should be left to God, and went on to ask ‘whether for the civil powers to assume a judgement in spirituals be not against the liberties given by Christ Jesus to his people?’.40The Fourth Paper presented by Major Butler ([30 Mar.] 1652), 2-3 (E.658.9); Hardacre, ‘Boteler’, 3. Boteler’s religious radicalism did not prevent him from improving his financial position, purchasing Mansfield Park in Derbyshire in March 1652.41CCC 1735; T. Mowl and B. Earnshaw, Architecture without Kings (1995), 119-22. He was appointed to the Northamptonshire commission of the peace in September 1653; in the same month the council of state ordered him to guard against royalist musters under cover of sporting meetings; and thereafter he was repeatedly called on to examine local suspects, working with his fellow JP, John Mansell.42C231/6, p. 267; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 171; 1654, pp. 67, 89. Boteler may have transferred to be major in James Berry’s regiment in this period.

With the formation of the protectorate in December 1653, Boteler drew closer to Cromwell. In August 1654 the protector instructed his council to insert Boteler’s name into an ordinance for additional security to army officers out of forest lands, to cover £474 he was owed from his service in Lytcott’s regiment during the first civil war.43Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 413; A. and O. ii. 998; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 318. In the midst of the mutinous ‘Overton Plot’ in December 1654, Boteler was one of 12 officers who met at St James’s and after ‘time set apart for seeking God’ prepared a petition in favour of liberty of conscience, which was received favourably by the protector.44Clarke Pprs. iii. 11. In an indication of his trust in Boteler, in February 1655 the Cromwell sent Boteler as his personal agent to solve a bitter dispute between the garrison and the people of Bristol. Boteler’s ‘faithful narrative’, sent to the protector on 24 February, was critical of the officers, who had ‘carried things very imprudently, and to the dishonour of religion, your highness and the army’ by treating the citizens unfairly and by encouraging radical sects, including the Quakers.45TSP iii. 165, 170, 177; 'Bristol', supra. Boteler’s investigations were interrupted by the outbreak of the Penruddock rebellion at the beginning of March. On 15 March he was at Shaftesbury in Dorset with four troops, waiting for the arrival of John Disbrowe* with reinforcements, and in the next few weeks he was busy putting down the insurrection in Wiltshire.46TSP iii. 238; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 80; Clarke Pprs. iii. 28. He told Secretary John Thurloe* on 28 March that he was about the travel to Salisbury to attend the trial of the ringleaders, adding that: ‘I am exceeding glad to see justice at the heels of those whose feet were lately so swift to shed the blood of the saints’.47TSP iii. 309, 374. Boteler’s correspondence with Thurloe in the spring of 1655 provides further evidence of his connections with those around Cromwell. In February 1655 he asked the secretary to ‘present my humble service to Sir Gilbert Pykeringe’, and at the end of March he sent his regards ‘to Sir Gilbert and Mr [Walter] Strickland’.48TSP iii. 172, 328. Pykeringe and Strickland were friends as well as councillors of the protector, and like Thurloe, they were involved in schemes to support culture and learning. Boteler was also interested in such developments. In May 1655 the experimental philosopher, Samuel Hartlib, sent Boteler a copy of his second edition of The Reformed Commonwealth of Bees, prompting Boteler to visit his house in June ‘to give thanks for the treatise’ and to admire Hartlib’s ‘glass hives [and] the rationality of the bees descending being loaden and the hives under roofs’.49Sheffield Univ. Lib. Hartlib MS 29/5/35A-B. In later years Boteler built Cobthorne House in Oundle, using roof timbers and other materials taken from nearby Lyveden House. Cobthorne was perhaps influenced by stylistically similar, if rather grander, projects undertaken by Thurloe at Wisbech and Oliver St John* at Thorpe.50Mowl and Earnshaw, Architecture without Kings, 119-22; Law, Oundle, 30, 85; Bridges, Northants ii. 374, 404. The date of Boteler’s new house is uncertain, but he was resident at Oundle by early November 1655, and he was certainly a welcome visitor at Thorpe, where in April 1656 he had hoped to meet Thurloe, ‘but the unkind floods prevented many of your friends (as well as myself) of that expected happiness’.51TSP iv. 156, 695.

Boteler’s exemplary performance in the spring of 1655, together with his connections with Cromwell and his circle, help to explain his appointment as major-general of Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Rutland in October 1655, despite his relatively lowly military rank.52Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 849-50. His zeal in the new post is obvious from his many letters to Thurloe. On 6 November he told the secretary that he had summoned the royalists of Northamptonshire to ‘take security of them as is directed in the instructions’ and he also intended to meet the commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth to organise the decimation tax which would support the new militia units. He would then visit the other counties in his care and implement the same policies. In the meantime, ‘I have been already reforming our militia, putting out and putting in, and must do more, for that many men are unfit and many had not horses of their own’.53TSP iv. 156. He was soon bombarding Thurloe with further information of his progress and queries concerning the decimation tax, and in mid-November he expressed impatience to get started with his other duties: ‘I cannot but please myself to think how greedily we shall put down profaneness and delightfully (though with continual pains) pass through the rest’.54TSP iv. 179, 207, 218, 234. Boteler’s words were matched by his deeds. He arrested a Catholic priest in Rockingham Forest and rounded up vagrants and suspected royalists ready for transportation; he also acquired the reputation of a persecutor of Quakers, and in December was ordered by the council, on Cromwell’s request, to release some of those he had imprisoned.55TSP iv. 274; CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 64-5. In the following spring he ordered the breaking up of a Quaker meeting near Northampton, and his activities in the county were later denounced by George Fox as ‘a shame to Christianity and religion’.56C. Durston, Cromwell’s Major Generals (Manchester, 2001), 46, 139; Jnl. of George Fox, ed. N. Penney (2 vols. Cambridge 1911), i. 261. Boteler was also keen to extend the decimation tax to all royalists, asking to be allowed to reduce the lower rateable limit, ‘many of that degree being as dangerous and disaffected to the present government as those of higher quality’.57TSP iv. 179, 235. In the spring of 1656 he forced the mayor of Bedford to resign – an intervention which, he boasted, ‘will prove very much to the unity of the godly party here, as also to weakening the hands of the contrary party’. He admitted to Thurloe that his behaviour in this case was ‘somewhat extraordinary’, and that he had ‘exceeded the bounds of my power, as I am enforced to do in something or other every day almost’.58TSP iv. 632.

As Boteler’s remarkably candid comments to Thurloe suggest, he may have been relying on his influence in the protectoral government to keep him out of trouble. His main ally in the council chamber at this time was Pykeringe, who coordinated the choice of commissioners for Rutland in October and wrote to Boteler on the council’s behalf in December.59CSP Dom. 1655, p. 390; 1655-6, pp. 64-5. Pykeringe also advised Boteler on the nomination of sheriffs in November and the payment of the militia in February 1656.60TSP iv. 234, 550. Yet, to his immense frustration, Boteler found the council was unwilling to back him in his more extravagant abuses of power, especially when it came to the decimation tax. His treatment of the 2nd earl of Northampton in the winter of 1655-6 attracted official disapproval, despite his entreaties to Thurloe ‘to wait upon his highness in this point’.61TSP iv. 189. Northampton had asked that his existing bond for good behaviour would be cancelled before he entered a new one, and Boteler agreed only when ordered to do so by the council. Boteler refused to limit the earl’s new bond to a year until forced by another stern letter from the council.62CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 70, 154; Nicholas Pprs. iii. 261-2. In February 1656 he complained to Thurloe that he had received orders from the council for ‘taking off of two or three gentlemen’s assessments in Huntingdon, and this was a common story across his precinct: in Northamptonshire he protested at ‘the taking of my lord of Westmorland’s, Sir William Farmor’s and some other great estates in this country’.63TSP iv. 511, 550. Boteler’s eagerness to collect decimation money was driven by the practical consideration that his militia forces were funded by the tax. Exemptions, especially of noble estates, jeopardised the whole scheme. Boteler pointed this out in November, and in February he ‘once again’ reminded Thurloe ‘that care may be had to supply what the council shall see fit to take away’ by individual concessions.64TSP iv. 189, 511, 550. There was truth in Boteler’s claims. By the late summer of 1656 the council was forced to send extra amounts to Boteler to pay his men, and by November their arrears still amounted to £1,322.65CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 44, 50, 95, 172.

Boteler’s role in managing the county elections for his precinct on 20 August 1656 was less interventionist than that of many other major-generals. There is no evidence for his interference in the Bedfordshire election (which returned MPs broadly acceptable to the regime in any case) and Huntingdonshire was under the thumb of Edward Montagu II. In Rutland Boteler’s old militia colleague, William Sheild, was elected, but despite rumours than Boteler would ‘frustrate’ the enemies of the protectorate in the contest for the second seat, Abel Barker was returned, only to be excluded by the council.66Leics. RO, DG11/DE730/1, f. 70. The Northamptonshire election was another matter. Allegations that Boteler had ‘ordered and managed’ the whole election are supported by the result.67Bodl. MS Top. Northants. c.9, p. 109. As well at Boteler himself, the six MPs returned included Pykeringe, John Cleypole and Boteler’s local ally, Alexander Blake. Overall, Boteler comes across as a successful electoral manager, with only one of the 20 MPs in his precinct being excluded.68Durston, Major Generals, 200.

In the early months of the second protectorate Parliament, Boteler was chosen for a wide variety of committees. His connection with the government presumably accounts for his inclusion in committees to attend the protector with a fast declaration (22 Sept.), to consider how to present bills to him (29 Sept.), and to scrutinise the bill for his personal security (29 Sept.).69CJ vii. 426b, 429a. On 27 September he was also named to a committee to consider previous acts and ordinances and to decide which were to be continued and which repealed.70CJ vii. 429b. Boteler’s role as major-general may have led to his appointment to committees concerning alehouses and drunkenness (29 Sept.), the revision of existing laws against bastardy, adultery and fornication (4 Oct.), and measures for the prevention of former royalists being elected to municipal offices (28 Nov.). 71CJ vii. 430a, 433b, 442b, 461a. He spoke in favour of a bill to provide maintenance for the ministers of Northampton on 17 December.72Burton’s Diary i. 160. Boteler was also named to committees concerning legal matters, such as prisoners held for capital crimes (26 Sept.), and measures against customary oaths (7 Oct.), abuses by attorneys and solicitors (13 Oct.), and the relief of minor debtors (1 Nov.).73CJ vii. 429a, 435a, 438a, 449a. Boteler’s interest in economic issues is suggested by his appointment to committees on to consider legislation on wages (7 Oct.), the corn trade (7 Oct.), and the improvement of the excise on beer (25 Oct.).74CJ vii. 435a, 445b. Religion remained a pre-occupation: he was named to committees on a bill concerning sequestered parsonages on 4 October, to consider further measures against Catholics and their estates on 22 October, and to consider information from Bristol of the antics of the notorious Quaker, James Naylor, on 31 October.75CJ vii. 434a, 443b-444a, 448a.

The question of how to punish Naylor dominated proceedings in the Commons throughout December 1656, and Boteler made frequent, and at times lengthy, interventions in debate. On 5 December, when the committee presented its findings, Boteler said he was horrified by what he had heard

My ears did tingle and my heart tremble to hear the report. I am satisfied that there is too much of the report true. I have heard many of the blasphemies of this sort of people, but the like of this I never heard of. By the Mosaic Law, blasphemers were to be stoned to death. The morality of this remains, and for my part, if this sentence should pass upon him, I could freely consent to it.76Burton’s Diary i. 25-6.

The violence of his reaction was in part based on his previous experience of the Quakers in Northamptonshire: ‘they are generally despisers of your government, condemn your magistracy and ministry, and trample it under their feet’. Despite his earlier arguments that heresy was a matter for God, he now sought to rule out such mitigations: ‘it is not intended to indulge such grown heresies and blasphemies as these under the notion of a toleration of tender consciences’.77Burton’s Diary i. 26-7. Boteler’s views went far beyond the official line adopted by most protectoral councillors, and it telling that his rant was immediately followed by a conciliatory speech by Pykeringe, who advised MPs not to discuss punishment until the committee had reported all the facts.78Burton’s Diary i. 27. In the debate on 11 December, Thurloe also adopted a moderate tone when arguing for a lesser punishment, but Boteler responded with further appeals to Leviticus: ‘the text says this, “He shall surely die”.’79Burton’s Diary i. 113. He dismissed those who warned that a turn of the political wheel might make them all liable to Naylor’s fate, if such a precedent were now set: ‘must we be afraid of doing our duty for that reason? If I were sure to lose my life in the next Parliament for the principles I hold now, I should not stick to give my vote that this man deserves death’.80Burton’s Diary i. 114. On 17 December Boteler argued against the lord chief justice (John Glynne*) and others who maintained that Naylor had a right to be heard, as in other courts of law, and the next day he spoke in favour of a wider bill against all Quakers.81Burton’s Diary i. 164, 171. He dismissed the concerns of those who doubted the legality of the Commons assuming a judicial role, on 26 December telling the House that ‘I am satisfied that this House had a judicatory power to pass this judgement … I desire that we should appoint a time to assert our power, and that in the meantime the corporal punishment might go on’.82Burton’s Diary i. 258. Boteler had as many scruples about exceeding the bounds of power when dealing with Naylor as he had when ousting the mayor of Bedford earlier in the year.

Committee work and the Naylor debates were not the only matters troubling Boteler in the closing months of 1656. Like many of his military colleagues, he took a keen interest in the course of the war with Spain. In October 1656 he had written to his fellow MP for Northamptonshire, Sir John Driden*, reporting ‘the extraordinary good news we have from our generals at sea’ of the capture of Spanish ships laden with silver, and he saw this as providential: ‘not above two hours before these letters to this purpose came to the protector, the Parliament did (nemine contradicente) declare that the war with Spain was… upon religious and honourable, just and necessary grounds, and that they did approve thereof’.83Northants. RO, D(CA)/917. Such acclamations did not translate into financial support for war, however, and the issue was soon crowded out by other matters, including the Naylor debates. On 20 December Adam Baynes* complained to the Commons that the Spanish business would not be resolved over Christmas because of the absence of so many Members, and Boteler and Colonel John Clarke* pressed for an immediate call of the House.84Burton’s Diary i. 192. Later on the same day, Pykeringe was involved in a bitter row with the leading Presbyterian, Thomas Bampfylde*, over the return of the excluded Members, and Boteler sought to reduce tensions, assuring MPs that ‘this heat was soon stirred: I hope it may as soon be laid aside’.85Burton’s Diary i. 195. When the House was called on 31 December, Boteler and Isaac Puller moved that the Rutland MP, William Sheild, should be excused.86Burton’s Diary i. 285.

None of this did much to advance the Spanish war effort, however. By the new year of 1657 Boteler had become deeply disillusioned with Parliament, which had apparently abandoned the Spanish war in favour of an attack on the major-generals. This attack was prompted by Disbrowe’s militia bill (introduced on 25 December), which had been intended to extend the decimation tax and establish the local forces on a more stable footing – something that Boteler had called for a year before. In a letter to Edward Montagu II of 9 January Boteler made the link between Spain and the militia bill explicit, complaining of

the contrivances of those within our bowels and our unwillingness in Parliament, at least our dilatoriness, to obviate and prevent them; nay sir, I wish our enemies do not take more encouragement from our proceedings than our friends do, or can. We have not all this time raised one penny towards the Spanish war, nor are we like to do after the rate we go, till we hear of him upon our border.87Bodl. Carte 73, f. 181.

Instead of ensuring security at home and abroad, ‘we have more mind to take away the militia and lessen our army, as though we had the greatest calm of peace that ever yet we saw’. He was, however, confident of one thing. The threats from within and without might be great, but ‘his highness and council have a thorough sense of them, as I perceive by some discourse last night the officers had with his highness’.88Bodl. Carte 73, f. 181-v. Ten days later, Boteler and Pykeringe moved the Commons for a time to attend the protector ‘to congratulate his deliverance’ from the assassination plot led by Miles Sindercombe.89Burton’s Diary i. 360.

Yet Boteler’s confidence in the protector and his advisers was soon to be shaken. On 21 January, in the debate on the militia bill, Boteler spoke ‘a little too hot’ in favour of extending the decimation tax to all royalists, whether or not they were suspected of disloyalty. This provoked the protector’s cousin, Henry Cromwell I*, to offer a counter-example: ‘because some of the major-generals have done amiss, which I offer to prove, therefore all of them deserve to be punished’. Henry was shouted down by another major-general, Thomas Kelsey, but further quarrelling was quenched ‘by the grave water-carriers’ of the House. The sequel was of no comfort to Boteler, however. Henry attended the protector to explain himself and was greeted warmly and given a cloak and gloves; a few days later, he ‘strutted with his new cloak and gloves in the House … to the great satisfaction and delight of some and trouble of others’.90TSP vi. 20. Worse was to follow. Specific allegations concerning Boteler’s activities in Northamptonshire soon emerged, and on 24 January one newsletter-writer commented that ‘Major-general Boteler is under a cloud by reason of a charge presented against him’, adding that in such a tense atmosphere ‘the continuing or dissolving the power of the major-generals is so even a cast that as yet it cannot be discerned’.91Clarke Pprs. iii. 87. From Boteler’s point of view, the voting down of the militia bill on 29 January was a disaster; but it was partly offset by the Commons’ vote the next day to raise £400,000 for the Spanish war.92Little and Smith, Cromwellian Protectorate, 253. On 10 February he joined Richard Beke as teller in favour of ordering the grand committee on the assessment and the levy for the Spanish war to report as soon as possible: a vote won by 132 votes to 46.93CJ vii. 489b.

There is no doubt that Boteler joined the majority of senior officers in opposing the offer of the crown to Cromwell under the Remonstrance of 23 February 1657, and he may have been among those officers harangued by the protector at a meeting four days later. Cromwell was ready to make concessions, however, especially when it came to the first article of the new constitution, which granted him the title of king. William Jephson* reported on 3 March that the postponement of the vote on kingship had done much to mollify the major-generals: ‘[Edward] Whalley*, [William] Goffe*, Boteler and divers others begin to come in, and indeed we had this day but very little opposition’.94Henry Cromwell Corresp., 214. This spirit of cooperation may explain Boteler’s inclusion, with Whalley and William Packer, on a committee to consider the limits to liberty of conscience to be included in the religious article of the Remonstrance on 19 March.95CJ vii. 507b. The revised constitution, the Humble Petition and Advice, still retained the offer of the crown when it was passed on 25 March, and in the crucial division on accepting the first article Boteler joined Colonel Edward Salmon* as teller for the noes.96CJ vii. 511a. Nevertheless he was named to the committee to attend the protector to ask him to summon a meeting to receive the Humble Petition on 27 March.97CJ vii. 514a. Cromwell’s subsequent hesitation in accepting the crown gave Boteler some reassurance, however. As Jephson noted on 31 March, although John Lambert* and John Disbrowe remained ‘sullen’ and Charles Fleetwood* was unconvinced, ‘Whalley, Boteler, Goffe and divers others [are] grown good natured’.98Henry Cromwell Corresp., 243. Boteler continued to be involved in the tortuous process of renegotiation of the terms of the Humble Petition that followed. Oddly, on 6 April Boteler was also included in the committee that prepared the Commons’ reasons for continuing to insist on the Humble Petition staying the same, including the kingly title.99CJ vii. 520b. Cromwell’s point-blank refusal of the crown on 8 May forced a volte face, however, and on 19 May Boteler was named to the committee charged with deciding how the title ‘protector’ would be ‘bounded, limited and circumstantiated’ in the revised Humble Petition.100CJ vii. 535a. On 27 May he was also named to a committee to peruse the new constitution would be reduced into one or more parliamentary bills.101CJ vii. 540b.

With the constitutional crisis at an end, Boteler was free to return to other business. Despite the demise of the scheme of the major-generals, he was still involved in issues that affected the localities. On 29 May he was named to the committee on a bill for settling postage across the country.102CJ vii. 542a. On the same day he supported the bill to impose an oath on Catholics, saying that although Englishmen might baulk at ‘an oath to accuse a man’s self’, he considered Catholics to be ‘enemies, and upon that account would not have them have the liberties of the laws’.103Burton’s Diary ii. 152. He argued in favour of maintaining the current arrangements for collecting assessments on 12 June, partly because of lack of time to discuss the matter properly, but also for security reasons, for ‘if you appoint strangers to survey, I doubt you will raise greater disturbance than ever was in England’.104Burton’s Diary ii. 235. As the date of adjournment drew nearer, Boteler became involved in moves to complete the Humble Petition and its attendant legislation. On 23 June he was named to the committee to consider how the new constitution might be formally presented to the protector.105CJ vii. 570b. In debate, he spoke in favour of Cromwell taking an oath of office, warning the House of the same day that ‘I think we are in an interregnum, but that my lord cannot exercise government without this oath I cannot tell’, and arguing ‘that is may be speedy’.106Burton’s Diary ii. 279. On 24 June, when messages to Cromwell concerning arrangements for his re-inauguration were considered, Boteler again urged haste, ‘for there will be time little enough to prepare the place’.107Burton’s Diary ii. 284.

After the adjournment of Parliament, Boteler returned to Northamptonshire, where he resumed his duties as a magistrate, issuing a certificate concerning the ejection of a minister in August and sitting on an inquisition panel in November.108CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 49; CCC 744. On the first day of the second sitting, 20 January 1658, he was authorized to administer to MPs the oath of loyalty to the protector.109CJ vii. 578a. His firm support for Cromwell as lord protector under the Humble Petition and Advice soon became apparent. On 22 January he spoke in favour of transacting with the new Other House, for ‘I would not have your enemies that wait for your breach, find you stumble at the first’, and a week later he moved to adjourn all business until the status of the upper chamber had been resolved.110Burton’s Diary ii. 342, 392. On 2 February he countered the arguments of Sir Arthur Hesilrige* and other opponents of the Other House with a trenchant speech in support of its Members, whose ‘religion, piety and faithfulness to the commonwealth’ made them the ‘best balance’ for the Commons. He protested that the new constitution did not pave the way to monarchy: ‘I am not for a king, and shall not be. They are mistaken that say these are the same with a House of Lords. It is quite another thing … I hear it much talked on, that we shall come to an arbitrary power. I had rather be never a day in England’. He went on to eulogise the Humble Petition, echoing the point made by Nathaniel Fiennes I* that ‘a threefold cord is not easily broken’, and warned against those opponents of the protectorate who were intent on ‘tying knots or twitching it too far’, adding ‘he that shall move to put anything upon it does stretch it; he aims to break it’. Finally, Boteler returned to the title, which he saw as no more than a feather in a hat: ‘A House of Lords they are, and they will be so; and let us not strive against the stream, lest we spend so much of our own strength against ourselves that we shall not be able to defeat our enemies’.111Burton’s Diary ii. 407-9.

In February 1658, a few days after the dissolution of the Parliament, William Packer, major of Cromwell’s regiment of horse, was cashiered. After a delay, in which other candidates were considered, by the end of March it became known that Boteler was to succeed Packer ‘in the head of that regiment of his highness’.112TSP vi. 806; vii. 38. This was yet another sign of the protector’s faith in Boteler, and it raised eye-brows among the opponents of the army. Viscount Fauconberg (Thomas Belasyse*) commented that many at court considered Boteler ‘as odd a fellow … as Packer was’, while Henry Cromwell* concluded that his father had calculated that ‘he may command those more absolutely who have been most used to obey him, and to understand the thorough use of such whom he has known longest, which is the reason, as I think why he chooses to employ such as Boteler than others rather of better principles and parts’.113TSP vii. 84-5, 102. It was later claimed that it was Boteler who noted down the final prayer of the protector, at the foot of his death-bed, on 3 September 1658.114LPL, MS 930/156; Hardacre, ‘Boteler’, 4.

Boteler was not elected for the third protectorate Parliament, but he became the focus for an acrimonious debate towards the end of the session. On 29 March 1659 the committee for grievances received a petition concerning his actions as major-general in sequestering lands belonging to the Hatton family of Holdenby in Northamptonshire, ‘whose proceedings they have voted unjust and illegal’.115Henry Cromwell Corresp., 489. On 12 April the grievances committee reported the case. It was said that Boteler had ‘justified’ himself ‘by colour of his late highness’s letter commanding him so to do’, but the committee decided that his behaviour had been ‘unjust and illegal’.116CJ vii. 636b. Even those connected with the army thought Boteler ‘carries it very high’.117Clarke Pprs. v. 283-4. There was a heated debate in the House but the question to throw him out of the commission of peace was passed with very little opposition.118Burton’s Diary iv. 406. The motion to disable him from military office was another matter, not least because it soon led to debate over the Commons’ judicial powers; and it was resolved that a committee should draw up the impeachment and consider judicial proceedings against him.119Burton’s Diary iv. 410-12. Throughout the debate, Boteler’s enemies were a mixture of Presbyterians, crypto-royalists and commonwealthsmen, but his friends were not just drawn from the ranks of the army. Prominent among the latter was his old associate, John Thurloe, who told the Commons that ‘I think the gentleman to be a man of worth’ who deserved to be heard before the House before being disabled from office.120Burton’s Diary iv. 407. Thurloe’s involvement reflected not only his personal connection with Boteler but also the political sensitivity of the case. He reminded the House that Boteler was condemned ‘for executing his [late] highness’s commands, through zeal for your safety. What he did was upon occasion of an insurrection’ and in this and other cases ‘he has served you faithfully and valiantly’.121Burton’s Diary iv. 407. Thomas Kelsey, whose speech was seen as an attempt to ‘wash’ his old comrade from blame, also pointed out that ‘it was a reflection upon his highness that is gone, who had a great influence upon this gentleman’.122Burton’s Diary iv. 405. There was also the sinister shadow of factionalism over the case. According to Anthony Morgan*, (who had also ‘laboured to wash him’ in the House), ‘the commonwealth party appeared most in the prosecution, some think to the end the army may be disaffected with the Parliament … which was the only way to their ends’.123Burton’s Diary iv. 405; Henry Cromwell Corresp., 500. Another commentator thought Boteler was but the ‘first exemplary offender’ to be targeted by the army’s critics, adding that ‘this … will not a little startle most of the same rank officers, who are as deeply plunged in the same condition of villainy as he’.124Bodl. Clarendon 60, f. 374. Referring the matter to a committee did not mark the end of the affair. On 14 April the Commons received another petition against Boteler, ‘for his misdemeanour in Northamptonshire, and taking away a gentleman’s possessions and imprisoning him’, and this new evidence was presented to the committee on his impeachment.125Burton’s Diary iv. 429. As one royalist wrote on the same day: ‘Boteler the major-general is in great danger for all Thurloe’s power to defend him’.126Clarendon SP iii. 453-4.

The restored Rump was uncertain how to treat a Cromwellian loyalist such as Boteler. On 21 June Sir Arthur Hesilrige reported to the council of state that Boteler should be nominated as the new quartermaster-general.127CSP Dom. 1658-9, p. 384. On 4 July the council duly proposed to Parliament that Boteler would be suitable as quartermaster-general; but another report about his actions in Northamptonshire was then read and his nomination was rejected.128CJ vii. 704a. However, in August he was given command a local militia troop and ordered to garrison Rockingham castle.129CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 83, 117. He proved an active local commander, arresting suspected royalists during Sir George Boothe’s* abortive rising, including his old adversary, the earl of Northampton, and he was officially thanked for his efforts by the council of state.130CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 93, 107, 112. His militia command was extended by the Commons on 1 September.131CJ vii. 772b. Boteler was not directly involved in the army’s coup of October 1659, and he was not appointed to the committee of safety, but one commentator reported that he was active behind the scenes as an assistant to Bulstrode Whitelocke*: ‘Whitelocke sits now and then in chancery, and Decimating Boteler is imposed on him for a secretary or spy’.132Clarke Pprs. iv. 300. On 15 December the committee of safety voted to pay Boteler £400 for the maintenance of his militia troop.133CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 283.

At the Restoration it was proposed that Boteler should be exempt from the Act of Oblivion but the motion was defeated by 160 votes to 131.134CJ viii. 64b-65a. He was examined in March 1663 and, taking the oath of allegiance, said that he was living privately in Oatlands Park in Surrey.135CSP Dom. 1663-4, pp. 89-90. He was discharged, but two years later he was again imprisoned in the Tower, whence he wrote letters to Lord Arlington and others, denying that he been involved in plots against the king and swearing that he ‘would not offend as his family’s livelihood depends on his liberty’, although he could not ‘in all things conform to the Church of England but can show that his nonconformity is from conscience, not faction’.136Hardacre, ‘Boteler’, 10; CSP Dom. 1665-6, pp. 2, 438-9; 1666-7, p. 235. His case was considered by the privy council in September 1667.137PC2/59, p. 610. In 1670 he was arrested at a conventicle, and reported denounced him as ‘the greatest person among the meeters’ and ‘likely to enflame’ his fellow non-conformists. In early 1673 his house in Ashley, a few miles from Great Oakley, was licensed as a meeting house.138CSP Dom. 1670, p.233-4; 1672-3, pp.260, 426. There is no mention of Boteler thereafter, and he may have died by 1674, when the Oundle lands were in the hands of one John Boteler, perhaps William’s son. In 1679 John Boteler sold up to the Pykeringes and nothing further is known of the family.139C6/215/97; Mowl and Earnshaw, Architecture without Kings, 122.