This surname is derived from an occupation. 'the bottler,' i.e. bottle-maker; v. Bottlemaker. The 'pouche makers, hoteliers, and capmakers' acted together in the York Plays (p. xxii). These bottles were evidently of leather, (a) Offic. 'the bottler,' i.e. butler, one who looked after the bottles. The forms of entry are endless.

'Botler schalle sett for each a messe, A pot, a lofe, withouten distresse.': Boke of Curtasye. 'The furst yere, my son, thou shalt be pantere, or buttilare.': Boke of Nurture.

Katerina la Butelere, Norfolk, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Adam le Buteler. Herefordshire, ibid.

Clement le Butiller, Norfolk, ibid.

Faukes le Buteller, Lincolnshire, ibid.

Richard le Botiler, Buckinghamshire, ibid.

William le Botilier, Nottinghamshire, ibid.

Hugo le Botyler, Cambridgeshire, ibid.

1635. Baptised — Tomas Bottler, son of William Bottler: St. Michael, Cornhill.

Originally the servant in charge of the butts or casks of wine, OF. bouteillier, in Latin documents rendered pincerna. Some of the name in later times may derive from hoteller, maker of leather bottles, specimens of which are in Scottish museums. Hugo, pincerna, witnessed charters by Richard, bishop of St. Andrews, a. 1173 (RPSA., p. 134—136,138, 139), and c. 1200—1207 Petrus, pincerna, appears as a witness (LAC., p. 81). Warinus, pincerna of the bishop of Glasgow, witnessed confirmation of the sale of land of Scrogges to the church of Glasgow, 1208—13 (REG., p. 76). Malcolm, pincerna, witnessed a confirmation charter by Alexander 11 of his father's grant of the right of a fair, etc., to the bishop of Glasgow, c. 1225 (ibid., p. 113). Sir John le Botiler swore fealty in 1291, and in 1296 Johan le Botillier of Cramond, Johan le Botiler of Perthshire, and Sir John called le Botillier all rendered homage. Alisaundre de la Butelerie (= butlery) of Ayrshire also rendered homage in the same year (Bain, II, p. 205). The name in Scotland appears to have been ousted by Spence.

This name, as Pincerna, is three times entered in Domesday. “Hugo Pincerna” held a barony in Bedfordshire; and two others, Richard and Robert, were under-tenants, the first in Shropshire and Cheshire, the second in Shropshire only. The two first founded baronial families, and in giving some account of each of these, I will commence with Hugo, the feudal Butler of the Counts of Mellent.

This dignity had been, and continued to be, hereditary in his family, as was then customary. He accompanied the Count to England in 1066, and received his share of the spoils awarded to the new Earl of Leicester. His son, Ralph Pincema, had the custody of his suzerain’s estates in 1130 (Rot. Pip.), and was a benefactor of Kenilworth Priory (Mon. ii. 115,118, 134). Henry I. confirmed his grants. He was seated at Oversley in Warwickshire, “where,” says Dugdale, “taking advantage of the natural Ascent of the Ground near the Stream of Arrow, he built a strong Castle, and within a Mile distance thereof (on the north side of Alcester) founded a Monastery for Benedictine Monks anno 1140.” His descendants, for three generations, were styled Pincerna, and then Le Botiller. One of them acquired the great Shropshire barony of Wem with the daughter of William Pantolf; another was a baron by writ 24 Ed. I.: and a third was disposed of in marriage by an agreement very characteristic of the times. He was only sixteen when his father died, and in the same year Walter de Beauchamp “obtained a grant of his marriage in behalf of Eleanor his daughter; and in case Eleanor should die before the accomplishment of that intended marriage, that then he might marry some other of his daughters. And, moreover, that if the said John le Botiller should depart this life before such marriage, that then the said Walter might have the same benefit of the next heir; and so from heir to heir till one of his daughters were wedded to one of these Botillers.” No man could have done more to secure an alliance on which he had set his heart; and yet it is very doubtful whether it ever took place. John died three years afterwards; and “whether this marriage was compleated by him or his brother Gawine (who was his heir) I make a question.” The last Botiller lived in the time of Edward III., and left an heiress married to Sir Robert de Ferrers, who was thereupon summoned to Parliament as Baron of Wem.

I find mention of at least three other representatives of Hugo Pincerna in the male line. His great grandson, “John, son of Robert Pincerna, son of Ralph (Mon. Angl. ii., 309), held lands in Bedford in 1165. Ralph le Botiler of Bedford, c. 1300, married Hawisia Gobiun, of the same county (Roberts, Cal. Gen.). In 1376 John Botiler married Isolda Gobiun, heiress of Waresley, Hunts, where he resided (Lodge, ‘Irish Peerage’). From him descended the Butlers of Waresley, one of whom, George Butler, of Fen Drayton, Cambridge, was lineal ancestor of the Earls of Lanesborough. The arms of this family in various branches are those of the Botilers of Wemme.” I cannot see that the Earl of Lanesborough’s coat in the slightest degree resembles that of the Botilers of Wem, who bore Gules a fesse chequée Argent and Sable, between six cross-crosslets Or. It is less unlike that of the Botilers, of Warrington, Azure, a bend between six garbs Or. —The Norman People. Sir Stephen Butler removed to Ireland in the reign of James I., and was the great grandfather of Brinsley, created in 1728 Viscount Lanesborough, whose son Humphrey was the first Earl of that name. Newton Butler, co. Fermanagh, takes its appellation from them.

The second branch, of which Burke has not clearly made out the descent, was seated at Hatfield-Woodhall in Hertfordshire. Thomas Botiler Le Grand, of Thetford, son of Francis, eleventh son of Sir Philip Botiler, of Woodhall, “was the nimblest Englishman that has been known, for he would stand upright on the Saddle of a Horse (and yet he was six feet high) and run him full speed: and when he was riding full gallop, he would take a Handkerchief from the ground and never stop, with several other notable actions of like nature.” —Blomfield's Norfolk. Sir John Butler of that place was first created a baronet by James I., and further advanced to a peerage by his successor in 1628 as Baron Butler of Bramfield in the same county. He was at the head of a goodly family of six sons and six daughters, but all the six sons died unmarried, and the title expired with the eldest in 1647.

Another of the Botilers of Wem, named William, married Joan de Sudeley, sister of the last Lord Sudeley of Sudeley in Gloucestershire, who died unmarried in 1367. As her sister Marjory, the other co-heiress, left no children, this barony was eventually vested in her grandson, Sir Ralph Botiler. It was this Ralph that built Sudeley Castle, “of subject’s castles the most handsome habita­tion, and of subject’s habitations the strongest castle,” of whom Leland says:— “The Lorde Sudeley that buildid the Castle was a famous Man of Warre in K. H. 5. and K. H. 6. Dayes, and was an Admirall (as I have heard) on Sea: whereupon it was supposed, and spoken, that it was partly builded ex spoliis Gallorum, and some speak of a Towre in it called Potmare’s Towre, that it should be made of a Ransome of his.

“One thinge was to be noted in this Castle, that part of the Windowes of it were glased with Berall.” So splendid an abode well befitted its occupant, and the lengthy list of his honours and preferments, furnished by Dugdale. He had served his first campaign in the retinue of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester in 1418: but three years later brought to the French wars a train of his own, composed of twenty men-at-arms and sixty archers on horseback, and throughout gained more than his full share of success and renown. He “stood firm to the Lancastrian Interest in all those sharp Contests betwixt that and the House of York;” and was amply rewarded for his fidelity by Henry VI. He was Chamberlain of the Royal Household and Baron Sudeley by letters patent in 1429, with a pension in support of his new dignity; Treasurer of the King’s Exchequer in 1430; Lord Treasurer of England in 1443, receiving at the same time another annuity, and for “his Winter Robe, against Christmass, 10 Ells of fine Cloth of colour Violet in Grain; and for its Lining ccc Bellies of Minever”; joint governor, with Lord Beaumont, of the Channel Isles in 1446, and twice sent on embassies to France. “But upon the Fall of King Henry the Sixth, the scene being changed, he excused himself from coming to Parliament by reason of his Age and withdrew altogether from public affairs. If he thus reckoned upon being unnoticed and passed over by his former enemies, he had left out of his calculations the tempting prize that even a sovereign might be found to covet. Accordingly, “K. E. 4 bore noe good Will to the L. Sudeley, as a Man suspected to be in heart K. H. 6 his Man; whereupon by Complaints he was attached, and going up to London he looked from the Hill to Sudeley, and sayd, ‘Sudeley Castle, thou art a Traytor, not I.’ After he made an honest Declaration, and sould his Castle of Sudeley to K. E. 4.”—Leland. No child of his was wronged by this transfer, for none had been bom of his marriage. His barony died with him in 1473; and his heirs were the sons of his two sisters, Sir John Norbury and William Belknap.

The second Pincema entered in Domesday is Richard, the ancestor of the Butlers of Chester, who held great estates in Salop and Cheshire, and made grants to Chester Abbey about 1090 (Mon. i. 201). “It appears from the early arms of these barons that they were a branch of the house of Venables or Le Venur."—The Norman People. His son Robert founded a Cistercian abbey at Pulton in Cheshire, afterwards transferred to Delacres in Staffordshire; and Aumeric Pincerna acquired the barony of Warrington in Lancashire through his marriage with Beatrice de Vilers. William le Botiller was certified to hold eight knight’s fees in that county of King John. To him succeeded a second William, Sheriff of Lancashire and Constable of Lancaster Castle 43 Hen. III., who enrolled himself in the ranks of the insurgent barons, but made his peace after Evesham, and subsequently served Edward I. so well in the wars of Scotland and Gascony, that he was summoned to Parliament by writ in 1294. His son had the like summons in the following reign, but none other of his descendants ever “stood in the degree of Barons of this Realm,” though they continued seated at Beausey in Lancashire till after the time of Henry VIII. These Butlers gave their name to Crophill-Butler in Nottinghamshire.

One of the Lords of Warrington was foully murdered in 1521. “Sir John Butler” (according to a MS. now in the Bodleian Library) “was slaine in his bedde by the procurement of the Lord Standley; Sir Piers Leigh and Master William Savage joining with him in that action (corrupting his servants): his porter setting a light in a window to give knowledge upon the water that was about his house at Bewsey. They came over the moat in leather boats, and so to his chamber, where one of his servants, named Houlcrofte, was slaine, being his chamberlaine; the other basely betrayed his master: they payd him a greate reward, and so coming away with him, they hanged him on a tree in Bewsey Park.” The brave chamberlain was, says popular tradition, a negro, and helped to save his master’s infant son, whom a faithful maid-servant wrapped up in her apron, and carried unharmed out of the house. The young heir’s mother was absent at the time. “Sir John’s lady at that instant being in London, did dream the same night that her husband was slaine, and that Bewsey Hall did swymme with blood: whereupon she presently came homewards, and heard by the way the report of his death.” She afterwards prosecuted his murderers; “but, being married to the Lord Grey, he made her suite voyde, for which reason she parted from her husband and came into Lancashire, saying, ‘If my Lorde will not let me have my will of my enemies, yet shall my body be buried with hym:’ and she caused a tomb of alabaster to be made, where she lyeth on the right side of her husband, Sir John Boteler.” In good sooth his blood remained unavenged; for none cared to prove the guilt of the head of the powerful house of Stanley; and of his two accomplices, only one underwent even a show of penance. This was Sir Piers Leigh, an ecclesiastic, who, six years afterwards, was sentenced to build a church at Disley. The cause of this deadly feud had been nothing more serious than some grudge or quarrel respecting the ford at Warrington.

The last Boteler of Beausey died either in 1586 or 1587; but a junior branch is still represented by the Hoghtons of Hoghton Tower. “In the reign of William Rufus, the manor of Houghton was given by Warin Bussel with a daughter in marriage to Hamo Pincerna; after whose death his wife gave it to their second son, Richard. The son of Richard Fitz Hamo was Adam, who in the reign of Henry II. styled himself Adam de Horton, or Adam Dominus de Horton.”— Baine's Lancashire. Hoghton Tower, “rising in isolated pre-eminence from the rocky banks of Darwen,” crowns the summit of a lofty hill, and was ruined in the Civil War, “when the gate-house was accidentally blown up with gun-powder, and one Captain Starkey, with two hundred soldiers, were killed in that blast most woefully. This stately fabric is invironed with a most spacious park” (Richard de Hoghton, 9 Richard II., obtained from his Earl, John of Gaunt, license to add sevenscore acres to his park): “which in former times was so full of tymber that a man passing through it could scarce have seen the sun shine at middle of day; but of late dayes most of it has been destroyed. It was much replenished with wild beasts, as with boars and bulls of a white and spangled colour, and red deer in great plentie.”—Dr. Kuerden. James I. spent three days at Hoghton Tower, “in the midst of the most splendid festivities,” on his progress from Edinburgh to London in 1617. “There is a laughable tradition still generally current in Lancashire that our knight-making monarch, finding, it is presumed, no undubbed man worthy of the honour, knighted at the banquet in Hoghton Tower, in the warmth of his liberality, a loin of beef, the part ever since called sir-loin. Those who would credit this story have the authority of Dr. Johnson to support them; among whose explanations of the word sir in his Dictionary is:—”a title given to a loin of beef, which one of our kings knighted in a fit of good humour.”— Baines.

Robert, the third Pincerna of Domesday, was the butler of the Earls of Shrewsbury in Shropshire, where Felton-Butler still designates one of his professions. To what family he belonged I am quite unable to determine. He may have been (according to The Norman People) the brother of Roger de Corcelle (ancestor of the Churchills) who held a great barony in Shropshire in 1086: or else the Robert Pincerna spoken of in the Recherches sur le Domesday as the brother of Geoffrey Alselin or Ascelin, likewise a powerful baron at the same time, whose name has been transformed by the English genealogists into Hauselyn. This Geoffrey or Goisfrid was the son of Ascelin, conjectured to have been either a bastard or a cadet of the family of Dinan in Brittany. Robert “probably shared in the forfeiture of his suzerain, Robert de Belesme, in 1102: for King Henry I., when he founded the Honour of Montgomery, annexed thereto the escheated estate of Robert Pincerna.”—History and Antiquities of Shropshire.

The great family that has made the name of Butler illustrious can find no place here, as they did not assume it till the time of Henry II., who first appointed Theobald Walter Chief Butler of Ireland. He was the son of Hervey Walter, who held the barony of Amounderness, in Lancashire, and is believed (v. The Norman People) to have been of the house of Glanville. “The name of Walter originally signified an office, and is derived by Verstaegen from the Teutonic Wald-hüter, a forester; and having been assumed by Hervey, Carte is of opinion that he was Warden of the Forests of Amounderness.”— Baine's Lancashire. This was an office of great dignity and power. “It cost the nation so recently as 1810 no less than £216,000 to purchase the prizage of wines (one of its hereditary privileges) from his heir the Marquess of Ormonde.”

See under Botiler. The origin of the great Irish family of Butler is a vexed question. They have been variously deduced-from Herveius, a companion of William the Conqueror-from the illustrious De Clares-and from a brother of Thomas a Becket. Certain it is that they went over to Ireland, temp. Henry II., and that the name is derived from the office of King's Butler, which was conferred upon Theobald surnamed le Boteler by that monarch in 1177, and remained hereditary in his descendants for many generations. The head of the family claimed prisage and butlerage for all wines imported into Ireland, and it was not until 1810 that the claim was finally surrendered, for the valuable consideration of £216,000.

This family derive their origin from the old Counts of Briony or Biony, in Normandy, a descendant of whom, Herveius Fitz Walter, accompanied the Conqueror into England. His son, Theobold, went with Henry II. into Ireland, where, having greatly assisted in the reduction of the kingdom, he was rewarded with large possessions there, and made it the place of his residence. The king afterward conferred on him the office of chief Butler of Ireland, whence his descendants, the Earls of Ormond and others, took the surname of Be Boteler or Butler.

BOTILER: In ordinary life a wine-merchant or butler. The king's botiler, or ' Pincerna regis,' was an officer of considerable importance, answering to the collectors of customs in modem ports. In virtue of his office he was empowered to seize for the king's use, from every ship laden with wine, one cask from the prow and one from the poop, paying for each twenty shillings. Jacob's Law Dict. Le Boteler, le Botiller, H.R.

Boteler: The name is entered thrice in Domesday. It by no means follows that every Butler is a descendant of Hugo Pincernus, who came over with the Conqueror, as every nobleman, as well as William I., kept his butler.

Butler. —This name is widely scattered, but its principal home is in the south of England in the adjacent counties of Wilts, Hants, and Berks.