the following statement, which,
though manifestly incorrect in respect of names and particulars, may
yet be relied on with regard to the main facts, corroborated by
tradition, which still preserves the memory of this horrible event.

"Sir John Butler, Knt., was slaine in his bedde by the procurement of
the Lord Standley, Sir Piers Leigh and Mister 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 (where your way to ... comes). They came over the
moate in lether 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 payed him a great reward, and
so coming away with him, they hanged him at a tree in Bewsey
Parke;--after this Sir John Butler's lady prosecuted those that slew
her husband, and ... L20 for that suite, but, being married to Lord
Grey, he made her suite voyd, for which reason she parted from her
husband and came into Lancashire, saying, If my lord will not let me
have my will of my husband's enemies, yet shall my body be buried by
him; and she caused a tomb of alabaster to be made, where she lyeth on
the ... hand of her husband, Sir John Butler.

It is further stated in the MS. that the occasion of this murder was
because of a request from Earl Derby that Sir John would make one of
the train which followed him on his going to meet King Henry VII., and
which request was discourteously refused.

The following extract from Froissart may not be deemed uninteresting,
as a record of one of our Lancashire worthies, Sir John Butler of
Bewsey, relating how he was rescued from the hands of those who sought
his life at the siege of Hennebon:--

"The Lord Lewis of Spain came one day into the tent of Lord Charles of
Blois, where were numbers of the French nobility, and requested of him
a boon for all the services done to him, and as a recompense for them
the Lord Charles promised to grant whatever he should ask, as he held
himself under many obligations to him. Upon which the Lord Lewis
desired that the two prisoners, Sir John Boteler and Sir Mw.
Trelawney, who were in prison of the Castle of Faouet, might be sent
for, and delivered up to him, to do with them as should please him
best.

"'This is the boon I ask, for they have discomfited, pursued, and
wounded me; have also slain the Lord Alp