Booth,’ appended to an account of ‘The Dreadful and most Prodigions Tempest at Markfield in Leicestershire.’
Although the plot in behalf of Charles was thus externally a failure, it had undoubtedly no small effect in hastening the Restoration. Booth, after undergoing examination by Haslerig and Vane, was retained to be dealt with by the council of state, but afterwards was set at liberty on bail. He took his seat in the Convention parliament, and was the first of the twelve members, elected 7 May 1660, to curry to King Charles the reply of the commons to his majesty’s declaration. On I3 July following the House of Commons ordered that the sum of 10,000l. should be conferred on him as a reward for his great services, the original sum proposed being 20,000l., which was reduced by one half at his own request. On the occasion of the coronation he was, with five others, raised to the dignity of baron, his designation being Lord Delamere. Liberty was also given him to nominate six gentlemen to receive the honour of knighthood. In the same year he was appointed custos rotulorum of the county of Cheshire, an office which he retained till 1673, when he was succeeded in it by his son Henry. Retaining throughout life his early love of civil liberty, he latterly found himself in entire opposition to the general policy of Charles. He died at Dunham Massey 8 Aug. 1684, and was buried at Bowdon, in the vault of the family. On a brass let into the flag which covers the Dunham vault there is a eulogistic inscription to George Booth, written by one of his servants. By his first wife, Catherine Clinton, daughter and coheiress of Theophilus, earl of Lincoln, he had one daughter; and by his second wife, Elizabeth Grey, eldest daughter of Henry, earl of Stamford, he had seven sons and five daughters. Under his direction three manuscript volumes were compiled, chiefly containing genealogical documents relating to his own and the neighbouring families (Ormerod's Cheshire, ed. Helsby, i. xxxviii). The original volumes are still at Dunham, and important extracts from them made by Randle Holme are preserved in the British Museum (MS. Harleian, 2131).
[A Bloudy Fight between the Parliament’s Forces and Sir George Booth’s, 1659; A Declaration of Sir George Booth at the last Rendezvous, on Tuesday last near the city of Chester, 1659; Sir George Booth’s Letter of 2 Aug. 1659, showing the reasons of his present engagement; A Plea for Sir George Booth and the Cheshire Gentlemen, by W. P. (W. Prynne), 1659; An Express from the Knights and Gentlemen engaged with Sir George Booth, 1659; One and Twentie Chester Queries, 1659; A Dialogue between Sir George Booth and Sir John Presbyter at their meeting at Chester, upon the Rendezvous of the Army, 1659; A True Narrative of the manner of the Taking of Sir George Booth on Tuesday last at Newport Pannel, being disguised in Woman’s Apparel, likewise the Parliaments resolve touching the the Sir George, also his Examination in the Tower, 1659; Collins’s Peerage (ed. 1735), vol, ii, part ii. pp. 477–483; Biog. Brit.. (Kippis), ii. 408–9; Cal. State Papers (Dom.); Clarendon's History of the Rebellion; Ludlow’s Memoirs; Whitelocke’s Memorials ; Ormerod’s Cheshire.]
BOOTH, GEORGE (1675–1758), second Earl of Warrington, was the second son of Henry, earl of Warrington [q. v.], by Mary, daughter of Sir James Langham, of Cottesbrooke, and was born at Merehall, Cheshire, on 2 May 1675. On the death of his father, in 1694, he succeeded to the title, and also received the appointment of lord-lieutenant of Chester, another nobleman being nominated to discharge the duties during his minority. In 1702 he married Mary, daughter of Sir John Oldbury, a merchant in London. During the lady’s lifetime he published anonymously, in 1739, ‘Considerations upon the Institution of Marriage, with some thoughts concerning the force and obligation of the marriage contract, wherein is considered how far divorces may or may not be allowed, By a Gentleman. Humbly submitted to the judgment of the impartial.’ It is an argument in favour of divorce on the ground of incompatibility of temper. From other sources we learn that he had been convinced of the advisability of admitting this as a sufficient reason by his own unhappy experiences. Luttrell (Relation of State Affairs, v. 162) states that the lady had a fortune of 40,000l., and Philip Bliss, in a manuscript note in a copy of Walpole‘s ‘Royal and Noble Authors,’ now in the British Museum, adds: ‘Some few years after my lady had consign’d up her whole fortune to pay my lord’s debts, they quarrelled, and lived in the same house as absolute strangers to each other at bed and hoard.' Of the earl and his lady there is an amusing and not too flattering description in a letter by Mrs, Bradshaw, printed in ‘Letters to and from Henrietta, countes of Suffolk’ (1824), i. 97: ‘The Earl and Countess of Warrington,’ she writes, ‘met us, which to me quite spoiled the feast; she is a limber dirty fool, and he the stiffest of all stiff things.’ Besides his pamphlet on divorce the earl was the author of a ‘Letter to the writer of the “Present State of the Republic of Letters,” vindicating his father from the re-
