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Person Info

• Name: John De BOTETOURTE, Lord Botetourte
• Sex: M
• Birth: Abt 1264 ^b
• Death: 25 Nov 1324 ^d


Parents:

• Father:
  
• Sir Guy II BOTETOURT Death: After 1316
Mother:

• Ada Death: After 1312

Family:
Marriage:

• Maud FITZ THOMAS on Before Jun 1282 .^m1
  
• Maud FITZ THOMAS Birth: Abt 1271 Death: After 28 May 1329

Children:

1. Sir John De BOTETOURTE Death: Abt 28 Aug 1339
2. Robert De BOTETOURTE Death: After 8 Jan 1326
3. Sir Otto De BOTETOURTE Death: 11 Nov 1345
4. Ada De BOTETOURTE Death: Abt 31 May 1349
5. Joan De BOTETOURTE
6. Elizabeth De BOTETOURTE Birth: 1 Death: 11 Apr 1384
7. Sir Thomas De BOTETOURTE Birth: 1285 Death: Abt 28 Jul 1322

Bibliography

Sources for birth and parent Information

date:

1265 [Ref: Hart PresidentWives p108]

legal age in 1285 [Ref: Craig Botetourte p145],

parents:

[Ref: CP++(proposed) Botetourt 12/31/2006 (CP II p233), Richardson PA p136, Richardson RoyalAnc v1p451]

dotted line on chart, Guy BOTETOURTE & Ada [Ref: Craig Botetourte p146],

father:

[Ref: Craig Goldsmith p30]

Sources with Inaccurate birth and parent Information

father:

illeg son of Edward I (#12028) [Ref: CP II p233 (with corr in XIV p102), Paget HRHCharles p18]

possibly illeg son of Edward I (#12028) but not proven, shown as a broken line [Ref: Weis AR7 #216],

note:

formerly thought to be an illegitimage son of Edward I, but see TAG 63 (1988) 145-53 [Ref: Roberts RD600 p457]

Sources for death Information

date:

[Ref: CP II p235, Hart PresidentWives p108, Richardson PA p136, Richardson RoyalAnc v1p453, Weis AR7 #122A, Weis AR7 #216]

1324 [Ref: CP II p234, Craig Goldsmith p30, Paget HRHCharles p18, Paget HRHCharles p20, Sanders Baronies p11]

Sources with Information about marriage to Maud FITZ THOMAS

date:

1385/92 [Ref: Weis AR7 #216]

before 1295 [Ref: Craig Botetourte p148]

before Jun 1282 [Ref: Richardson PA p136, Richardson RoyalAnc v1p451]

by 1285-6 [Ref: Craig Goldsmith p30]

by Jun 1292 [Ref: Weis AR7 #122A]

probably soon after 1 Jul 1285, certainly by Jun 1292 [Ref: CP II p233],

names:

[Ref: Paget HRHCharles p18],

child:

[Ref: CP II p235(a), CP II p235, CP VII p469, CP XII/1 p432, Craig Botetourte p146, Craig Goldsmith p30, Craig Goldsmith p31, Hart PresidentWives p108, John Ravilious SGM 1/27/2002-123645, Richardson PA p136, Richardson PA p137, Richardson RoyalAnc v1p451, Richardson RoyalAnc v2p654, Richardson RoyalAnc v3p276, Richardson RoyalAnc v4p541, Richardson RoyalAnc v5p159, Roberts RD600 p433, Roberts RD600 p435, Roberts RD600 p437, Roberts RD600 p457, Roberts USPres p212, Sanders Baronies p11, Weis AR7 #216]

Sources with Inaccurate marriage information

child:

Hawise (#233138) [Ref: Richardson PA p136, Richardson PA p137]

Research Notes:
1st Lord Botetourt, of Barony cr 1305 [Ref: CP II p233]
1st Lord Botetourt [Ref: Richardson RoyalAnc v2p654, Richardson RoyalAnc v4p209, Richardson RoyalAnc v4p385, Richardson RoyalAnc v5p159, Roberts RD600 p433, Roberts RD600 p435, Roberts RD600 p437, Weis AR7 #122A, Weis AR7 #216]

Knt, of Little Ellingham and Upton, Norfolk, Great Bradley, Suffolk, etc, and in right of his wife, of Mendlesham, Suffolk, Bromham, Cardington, Dilewick, Renhold, and Wootton, Bedfordshire, Linslade, Buckinghamshire, hamerton, Huntingdonshire, Shelsley Beauchamp, Worcestershire, etc [Ref: Richardson RoyalAnc v1p451]
Knt, of Upton, Elingham, and Kerebrok, Norfolk, and in right of wife, of Mendlesham, Suffolk [Ref: Richardson PA p136]
Knt [Ref: Richardson RoyalAnc v4p209, Richardson RoyalAnc v4p385, Richardson RoyalAnc v5p159]

parentage is unknown [Ref: CP II p233]
bastard son of Edward I [Ref: CP II p233 (with corr in XIV p102)]

Neither Given-Wilson/Curteis nor Edward I's magisterial biographer, Michael Prestwich (_Edward I_, Berkeley CA/London 1988) accept the allegation that John Botetourt was a natural son of Edward I. The evidence is extremely slim: a single MS of the Hayles abbey chronicle carries Botetourt's name in an isolated roundel in the vignette pedigree of Edward's children. I have examined this MS in the British library and found its genealogies riddled with errors--King John is credited with a son William, for example, and Henry III with a daughter Matilda, neither of whom is known to have existed. No other contemporary source vouches for Botetourt's supposed royal filiation. There are many references to him in royal wardrobe accounts, none of which indicates he was the king's bastard. We possess a roll of the letters sent out in 1304-05 by Edward of Caernarfon, the future Edward II; throughout this roll the letters addresses as young Edward's cousins the descendants of the bastard children of his granduncle Richard of Cornwall, but significantly the letters never address John Botetourt as Edward's brother. (See comments in my _Eleanor of Castile_, chapter one, note 149, which actually appears on p. 274).
Noel Denholm-Young's _History and Heraldry_ also refers to Botetourt, and somewhat confuses the issue by trying to localize him in East Anglia via the manor of Mendelsham in Suffolk, referring to that estate as if it were the locus of the Botetourt family proper. In fact it was of the inheritance of John Botetourt's wife, so it had nothing to do with him or his family before his marriage. [Ref: John Carmi Parsons SGM 9/9/1998-104631]

The Cotton MS Cleopatra D III noted below [Hailes Chron. in BM Cott. MS. Cleopatra, D III, f. 51, ex inform A. R. Wagner] is (as frequently noted in the earlier thread/s on Botetourt) the only extant source attributing John Botetourt's (probably *rectius* "Botecourt") to Edward I. The claim rests upon Botetourt's inclusion in a genealogical half-page vignette that purports to show the names of Edward I's children by both wives. I have examined the manuscript and noted at once that throughout, its genealogical information is deeply flawed: King John, for example, is provided with a son named William and Henry III has a daughter Matilda, neither of whom is known from any other extant source. Edward I's children, moreover, have been numbered--in the wrong order--with Arabic numerals above the roundels in which their names are written. As it stands the vignette was probably originally created sometime between the birth 1301 of Edmund of Woodstock, later earl of Kent, Edward I's second son by his second wife, and 1306 when that lady gave birth to her third and last child, Eleanor. As has been noted elsewhere, however, John Botetourt's name is written in an isolated roundel (not connected to Edwar I's large roundel) and was clearly added over an erasure, though identified as "nothus" (bastard).
No other contemporary evidence that has ever been brought to light has confirmed the allegation. Noel Denholm-Young's _History and Heraldry, 1254 to 1310_ appears to imply that the golden lion on Botetourt's arms points to royal parentage, but this ignores the well-attested fact that there was not yet a fixed system of differencing arms in the 13th and early 14th centuries when John Botetourt lived. We know the names of several of John's brothers, who bore the same arms although the lion was differently colored by each of them. A gold lion signifies nothing in and of itself, certainly not a claim to royal parentage; it appears purely and simply to be the metal John chose to distinguish his lion from his brothers'. [Ref: John Carmi Parsons SGM 10/31/1998]

I discuss the very slight and doubtful evidence for Botetourt's royal paternity in *Eleanor of Castile*. For reasons which defy interpretation, Botetourt's name was written in among those of Edward I's children in a genealogical vignette in one manuscript (and one manuscript only) of the Hayles Abbey chronicle in the British Library. Whatever was originally written where Botetourt's name appears was first erased, and his name added over the erasure with the description "nothus" (bastard). But the genealogical tables through this MS are highly suspect--Henry III is credited with a daughter Matilda, for example, and King John is given a son William, neither of whom is known from any other source.
That Botetourt was a royal bastard is counter-indicated by a number of other points. As Noel Denholm-Young remarks (*History and Heraldry, 1254 to 1310*) we know the names of several of Botetourt's brothers, and he bore the same arms as they did, allowing for the then-current practice of differencing arms merely by changing tinctures. It is, however, an error on Denholm-Young's part (perpetuated in Given-Wilson's *Royal Bastards of England*) that Botetourt inherited the manor of Mendlesham in Suffolk; it came to him by marriage. Given-Wilson in fact relegates Botetourt to his "doubtful" category (p. 179).
Finally, we possess a roll of the letters dispatched by the future Edward II in 1304-05. These were published in the 1940s by Hilda Johnstone, who later wrote a brief biography of Edward II as prince of Wales (1944), based in part on these letters. In several of the letters, young Edward shows that he was aware of the kinship that existed between himself and the descendants of the OOW children of his granduncle Richard of Cornwall; these individuals are all clearly and explicitly called the prince's cousins or kinsmen. A number of the letters are addressed directly to John Botetourt, who was by 1304-05 a royal justice--but in none of these letters does Edward give the slightest indication, either in the form of address or in the letters' content, that Botetourt might have been his brother. [Ref: John Carmi Parsons SGM 4/21/1999]

heir of his father [Ref: Richardson PA p136, Richardson RoyalAnc v1p451]

1285: granted custody of the manors of Gestingthorp Beauchamp and Gosfeld, co Essex [Ref: Craig Botetourte p148]

1291-1308: Warden of the Forest of Dean [Ref: Richardson RoyalAnc v1p451]
Governor of St Briavel's Castle, Gloucestershire, and Forest of Dean [Ref: Richardson PA p136]

1291-1308: Constable of St Briavels Castle [Ref: Richardson RoyalAnc v1p451]

1295: described as Admiral, first use of the term in England [Ref: Richardson RoyalAnc v1p451]

Admiral of the North Fleet [Ref: Richardson PA p136, Richardson RoyalAnc v1p451, Richardson RoyalAnc v2p654]
admiral [Ref: Weis AR7 #216]

1304: governor of Famlingham Castle [Ref: Weis AR7 #216]
Governor of Framlingham Castle, Suffolk [Ref: Richardson PA p136, Richardson RoyalAnc v1p451]

1305-24: Member of Parliament [Ref: Weis AR7 #216]

1318-19: heir to his brother William; inherited the manor of Cantley, Norfolk [Ref: Richardson RoyalAnc v1p452]



Pedigree of John De BOTETOURTE, Lord Botetourte
          /-----Guy I BOTETOURT
 /-----Sir Guy II BOTETOURT
John De BOTETOURTE, Lord Botetourte
 \-----Ada



Descendants of John De BOTETOURTE, Lord Botetourte

2nd generation


3rd generation


4th generation


5th generation