BOTELER, John (c.1566-1637)

Boteler came from a cadet branch of a well established Hertfordshire family, and in 1609 inherited a relatively modest estate, both in Hertfordshire and in Bedfordshire. Sometime before 1609 he married the elder half-sister of George Villiers^*, subsequently 1st duke of Buckingham, the dominant royal favourite of the later Jacobean and early Caroline period. During the 1620s marriage to one of Boteler’s six daughters enabled ambitious men to become ‘of the kindred’, as one newsletter-writer termed Buckingham’s extended family.23 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 338. Nevertheless, Boteler himself was slow to attract the attention of his contemporaries: in 1621 one of William Trumbull’s^‡ correspondents was clearly unsure of Boteler’s full name, describing him as ‘Sir [blank] Butler’.24 Add. 72254, f. 37.

Unlike other members of Buckingham’s family, Boteler failed to secure significant advancement until the end of the duke’s life, suggesting either that Buckingham did not rate him highly, or that Boteler himself was unambitious. The only evidence that Boteler aspired to anything other than local office is to be found in a newsletter of February 1625, in which it was said that Sir John Suckling^‡ was to resign to him the office of comptroller of the Household in return for £5,000. However this deal, if it ever existed, was never concluded.25 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 599-600.

Boteler was summoned to attend the Privy Council in 1622 over the Palatinate benevolence, suggesting that he initially failed to pay what was demanded of him.26 SP16/44/37. This undated list of ‘persons about [the] contribution to be sent for’ has been assigned to 1626 but was evidently compiled before the death of Sir John Leventhorpe in 1625. CB, i. 196. The following year, one William Woodward tried to recruit his support for a project to raise revenue for the crown by reviving escuage, an ancient fee payable by those who owned land by military tenure.27 CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 483. Woodward undoubtedly hoped that Boteler would give him access to Buckingham, and offered to demonstrate that Boteler had a right to two large Essex manors and the earldom of Wiltshire, claiming, somewhat implausibly, that Boteler was the rightful heir of James Butler^†, 6th earl of Ormond [I], created earl of Wiltshire in 1449. However, nothing came of Woodward’s offers.28 Stowe 743, f. 35; CP, xii. pt. 2, p. 734.

Boteler was elected for Hertfordshire in 1625 at the nomination of his neighbour, William Cecil^*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, but may not have taken his seat. Not only did he play no recorded part in the proceedings of the lower House, he also attended the Hertfordshire quarter sessions while Parliament was in session.29 HP Commons, 1604-29, iii. 262; HALS, QSB/2a, f. 36. In August 1626, Boteler was one of the Hertfordshire magistrates who reported the rejection of a further benevolence by the inhabitants of his county.30 SP16/33/8. However, there is no evidence that Boteler was reluctant to pay the Forced Loan, initiated later that year. Indeed, his relationship with Buckingham and his continuance in local office suggest that he probably paid the levy.

Boteler may have been prompted to seek a peerage in the summer of 1628 by the petition preferred by Sir Francis Coningsby to the House of Lords earlier that year. This alleged that trustees appointed by the petitioner’s deceased father, Sir Ralph Coningsby^‡, of whom Boteler was one, had misappropriated property entrusted to them. On 1 May Boteler and the other trustees were summoned before the Lords’ committee for petitions to answer the charges. However, they failed to impress the committee and, on 31 May, John Holles^*, 1st earl of Clare, reported in Coningsby’s favour. The Lords thereupon ordered the transfer of the property to new trustees and required Boteler and his colleagues to account for what they had received. On 25 June Boteler and the other trustees protested, but failed to get the order overturned.31 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 369, 570-2, 698-9. Boteler may have hoped that a seat in the Lords would protect himself from further proceedings.

On 30 July, after the 1628 session was prorogued, Boteler was created Baron Boteler of Brantfield. His reason for choosing as his territorial suffix Brantfield, or Bramfield (a village four miles north-west of Hertford), rather than Woodhall (his principal residence) is unclear. However, Woodhall was a sub-manor of Hatfield, which belonged to the earl of Salisbury. Taking its name as part of his title might have implied subordination to his more powerful neighbour. By contrast, Boteler held the manor of Bramfield directly from the crown.32 C142/308/113; VCH Herts. ii. 344; iii. 107. Unsurprisingly, contemporaries attributed Boteler’s elevation to the influence of Buckingham, even though the duke was then wholly occupied in preparing a further expedition to relieve La Rochelle.33 Diary of Sir Richard Hutton 1614-39 ed. W.R. Prest (Selden Soc. suppl. ser. ix), 73. However, if Buckingham did have a hand in Boteler’s ennoblement his assassination the following month terminated any further hope Boteler may have had of further advancement from that quarter.

In September Boteler quarrelled with his son-in-law, Francis Leigh^*, Lord Dunsmore, who had been ennobled the day after his own creation. The dispute was deemed sufficiently serious for the Privy Council to summon Boteler and forbid him from meeting Dunsmore, presumably for fear that such an encounter would lead to a duel.34 APC, 1628-9, p. 169. The third Caroline Parliament was reconvened the following January and, on the 22nd, Boteler was formally introduced to the Lords, possibly the first time he had ever sat in Parliament.35 LJ, iv. 9b. Boteler attended the Lords on a further nine occasions before the Parliament was dissolved, but left no further mark on its records.

By the early 1630s Boteler seems to have been in financial difficulties, for in 1631 he mortgaged a significant part of his estate, which was not redeemed until after his decease.36 CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 78. Buckingham’s death had exposed a lack of material support behind his newly acquired status. On the marriage of one of his daughters to Mountjoy Blount^*, Lord Mountjoy (subsequently 1st earl of Newport), in 1627, Boteler had promised to provide a dowry of £2,000, presumably on the understanding that a large part would come in the form of favours procured by the duke. It was certainly reported at the time that the bride’s kinship to Buckingham would be ‘a great part of the portion’. However, with Buckingham dead, Mountjoy pressed Boteler for the full sum in cash. By 1637 he had managed to secure only half of what was owed.37 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 192; CSP Dom. 1637, p. 556.

In May 1637, Boteler fell seriously ill after (according to one report) pulling out one of his own teeth with rusty pliers. His daughter Olive, who had married the courtier Endymion Porter^‡ and converted to Catholicism, rushed to Hertfordshire and brought her father back to her home in Westminster, where her priests secured from him a deathbed conversion.38 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 110; S.R. Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. viii. 238. Boteler’s funeral certificate states that he died at his lodgings in the Strand, a reference no doubt to the Porters’ residence near Durham House. His funeral on 30 May was held, in accordance with his wishes, at Higham Gobion in Bedfordshire, where his father had been buried. In his will, dated 19 May 1637, he named Dunsmore and Endymion Porter as his executors.39 Coll. of Arms, I.8, f. 56; SP16/524/26; PROB 11/114, f. 11; 11/187, ff. 187-8. On 24 June 1637 an inquest held at Chipping Barnet declared that his only surviving son, William^†, who succeeded as 2nd Lord Boteler, had been mentally incapable since birth. William died childless in 1664, when the peerage became extinct.40 C142/546/150; HP Lords, 1660-1715, ii. 273.