Some corrections and additions to the Complete Peerage: Volume 2: Botetourt

BOTETOURT

Volume 2, page 233 (as modified by volume 14):
JOHN DE BOTETOURT [d. 1324] bastard s. of Edward I [Hailes Chron., in BM Cott. MS. Cleopatra, D III, f. 51, ex. inform. A.R. Wagner], was a distinguished soldier ...

Originally, volume 2 said that John's parentage was unknown.

Stewart Baldwin, and later others, referred to the work of F.N. Craig, The American Genealogist, vol. 63, pp. 145-153 (1988), arguing that a pedigree in the Hailes Abbey Chronicle is incorrect in making him a son of Edward I, and that he was probably the son of Guy de Botetourt (living 1274, 1316), by his wife Ada. Douglas Richardson produced some supporting evidence for this suggestion.

Douglas Richardson subsequently provided direct evidence that John was the son of Guy de Botetourt. In a Norfolk assize in 1326 a free tenement in Wood Rising, claimed by Master Thomas Butetourte, was stated to be part of the lands and tenements formerly of Guy Butetourte, to which Guy's son John Butetourte had remised and quitclaimed his right to John de Wysham and his heirs. Maud, who was the wife of John Butetourte, was among the defendants [JUST 1/1393A, rot. 17].

[This question was discussed by Stewart Baldwin in March 1998, and by Douglas Richardson in October 2002. The evidence of John's parentage was provided by Douglas Richardson in September 2018.
Item last updated: 14 December 2018.]