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 FEUDAL BARONAGE bridge.^ In 1543 he sold to the king lands in Burton wood and Great Sankey of the yearly value of ;^5o laj." He died on 15 September, 1550, being succeeded by Thomas, his son and heir, then aged 37 years.' 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 ^553-" About the year 1560 he married, as his second wife, Thomasina, whose family name is unknown.* She died in 1573 and was buried in the church of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe, in London.'' In 1574 he married as his third wife, Anne, daughter of Edward Norris of Speke.' 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.^" He died on 22 September, 1579, Edward his son being 26 years of age." 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 1 579, who immediately repaired the contemplated mischief by obtaining a re-grant of the estates to himself from Sir William Boothe.^*' 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." 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.^* He married secondly, in or before 1586, Margaret, daughter of Richard Maisterson, of Nantwich." His will is dated on 2 November, 1586." With the death of this weak and capricious youth terminated the line of the Butlers, barons of Warrington. ^ Beamoat, Jnnah o/Pf^arringiofi, ^$2. * Ibid. 455. ' Duchy of Lane. Inq. p.m. vol. ix. No. 22. * -^"""^ of Waningion, 468. 6 Pari. Ret. i. 379. 6 Perhaps she was a Croston of Croston Hall, near Chorley. See the Visit. ofWartv. Harl. See. xu. 357 ; Annals of Warrington, 473. 1 Harl. MSS. No. 3,610, 39 ; Stowe, Survey, ed. i6i8, 641. 8 Annals of Warrington, 482. ' Metcalfe, Book ofKts. 1 30. 1" Annals of Warrington, 485. 11 Duchy of Lane. Inq. p. m. vol. xiv. No. 2. 12 Beamont, Annals of Warrington, 482, 484-5, 493. ^^ Ibid. 498-500. 1* The story is recorded in Chetham Soc. xcviii. 100. " 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