The Complete Peerage

The Internet Archive is a useful tool to find historical and genealogical information. The Complete Peerage is a case in point with respect to Sir John de Boutetort

The notion that Sir John was the bastard son of Edward the first, I think, started in an entry in the Complete Peerage and the Chronicals of Hailes Abbey. This was subsequently corrected, at least as far as the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy is concerned.

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The Complete Peerage

The Complete Peerage was first published in eight volumes between 1887 and 1898 by George Edward Cokayne (G. E. C.).

More from Plantagenet Ancestry - Douglas Richardson - on Sir John de Botetourt

Corrections to the Complete Peerage

I have found a couple of instances where there are postings on medievalgenealogy.org.uk where "corrections" have been suggested for Cokayne's original research and book. While these are possibly the result of more recent research by later geneologists having found access to additional manuscripts it is not clear.

The pages to which I refer relate to my research on Sir John de Botetourt and the later descendants of the Botetourt family. There are probably many more!

https://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/cp/botetourt.shtml - relating to Hailes Abbey
https://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/cp/p_botetourt.shtml - relating to the heritage of Sir John, 2nd Lord.

Below is the "corrections" relating to Hailes Abbey, transcribed for readability.

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.]

F.N. Craig, The American Genealogist, vol. 63, pp. 145-153 (1988) has yet to be located by this website.

The "corrections" for Sir John de Botetourt, 2nd Lord are more extensive and contain many more names that I had not previously encountered.

Links

archive.org and the Botetourt research - The Internet Archive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hailes_Abbey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Peerage
Hugh Bigot - Need to trace this to Botetourt
Medieval Ecclesiology - Myth and Superstition and the church