FEUDAL BARONAGE 



bridge. 1 In 1543 he sold to the king lands in Burtonwood and Great 

 Sankey of the yearly value of 50 i2s* He died on 15 September, 1550, 

 being succeeded by Thomas, his son and heir, then aged 37 years. 3 Thomas 

 Butler, esq., married in 1543 Eleanor, daughter of John Huddleston, of 

 Sawston, co. Cambridge, whose widow, Thomas Boteler, the father, had 

 married in 1542.* He was returned to serve the county in the Parliament of 

 1553." About the year 1560 he married, as his second wife, Thomasina, 

 whose family name is unknown. 6 She died in 1573 and was buried in the 

 church of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe, in London. 7 In 1574 he married 

 as his third wife, Anne, daughter of Edward Norris of Speke. 8 He was 

 knighted in the house of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, 

 in May, 1 577.' Shortly before his death, being in fear that his son and heir, 

 Edward Butler, would dissipate his patrimony, he made a lease of the whole 

 of his estate to his daughter Elizabeth, to commence from the death of his 

 said son, if the latter died without issue. 10 He died on 22 September, 1579, 

 Edward his son being 26 years of age. 11 Edward Butler, the last of his line, 

 was a man of singularly weak character. Four years previous to his father's 

 death, and in anticipation of that event, he caused his father grievous distress 

 by an attempt to alienate the family estate to Sir William Boothe of Dunham. 

 This proceeding, which is believed to have been the outcome of a visit made 

 by Edward Butler to his distant kinsman, the earl of Leicester, at Kenilworth 

 in 1575, upon the occasion of the Queen's memorable visit, was discovered 

 by his father in 1579, who immediately repaired the contemplated mischief 

 by obtaining a re-grant of the estates to himself from Sir William Boothe. 12 

 But immediately after his father's death Edward Butler proceeded to bar all 

 claims upon the estates, so as to secure to himself an estate in fee simple. 

 Having secured this result, he conveyed his estates in 1581 to his kinsman 

 .the earl of Leicester, subject to certain powers of appointment to wife or 

 wives, sons and daughters, and to certain unusual provisions affecting the 

 earl and himself. 13 By various subsequent deeds the estates were further 

 secured to that unscrupulous nobleman. In 1586 Edward Butler died 

 childless, having married firstly in 1563, Jane, daughter of Richard Brooke of 

 Norton, co. Chester ; from whom and at whose instance he was divorced in 

 1569 or 1570, owing to his extraordinary behaviour in refusing to consum- 

 mate the marriage. 14 He married secondly, in or before 1586, Margaret, 

 daughter of Richard Maisterson, of Nantwich. 16 His will is dated on 

 2 November, I586. 18 With the death of this weak and capricious youth 

 terminated the line of the Butlers, barons of Warrington. 



1 Beamont, Annals of barring/on, 452. * Ibid. 455. 



8 Duchy of Lane. Inq. p.m. vol. ix. No. 22. * Annals ofWanington, 468. 



6 Par!. Ret. i. 379. 



6 Perhaps she was a Croston of Croston Hall, near Chorley. See the Visit. ofWartu. Harl. Soc. xii. 357 ; 

 Annals of Warrington, 473. 



7 Harl. MSS. No. 3,610, 39 ; Stowe, Survey, ed. 1618, 641. 



Annals of Warrington, 482. Metcalfe, Book ofKts. 130. 



10 Annals of Warrington, 485. 



11 Duchy of Lane. Inq. p. m. vol. xiv. No. 2. 



12 Beamont, Annals of Warrington, 482, 484-5, 493. U Ibid. 498-500. 



W The story is recorded in Chetham Soc. xcviii. 100. 16 Annals of Warrington, 509. 



18 Ibid. 512-5. A survey made for the earl of Leicester on his acquiring this inheritance is quoted in the 

 introduction to the ballad entitled Sir John Butler in Bp. Percy's folio manuscript (N. TrUbner & Co. 1868), 

 iii. 205. 



349 



