(1684 - 1774) of Watton Woodhall, Herts, o. s. of Capt. John Boteler; m. Anne Goodwin; MP 1715 - 22, 1734 - 5.
1726 - 32 Florence (before Aug. 1726), Bologna (by 24 Aug. 1726), Rome (21 Feb. - 19 Apr. 1727), Naples (by 25 Apr. 1727 and Nov. 1729); Venice ( - 15 Apr. 1732)
Encumbered by debts on his property which were compounded by the collapse of the South Sea Company in 1720, Boteler 'made [his] retreat into foreign parts, stayed abroad ten years, and returned home in 1732'.1
On 24 August 1726 Francis Colman, the British resident at Florence, asked Boteler for information concerning the Pretender at Bologna.2 On 21 February 1727 'Bount and Butler' [Blount and Boteler] arrived in Rome3 and lodged near the Piazza di Spagna.4 On 19 April they accompanied Willem Bentinck and his tutor from Rome to Naples, where they had arrived by 25 April. Bentinck wrote that the '2 Hertfordshire Gentlemen' had earlier spent nearly six months at Mr Necker's at Geneva where they had become 'particularily acquainted' with his brother Charles Bentinck.5 In November 1729 Boteler was detained in Naples.6 He eventually returned to England through Venice which he left on 15 April 1732, Burges, the British resident, then saying Boteler was his relation.7
1. See Commons 1, 1:477. 2. SP 98/25 (14 Sep. 1726). 3. SP 85/16, f.217 (Walton, 22 Feb. 1727). 4. AVR SA, S.Lorenzo in Lucina. 5. Bentinck letters MSS, f.459 (28 Apr. 1727). Bernege letters MSS, f.463 (25 Apr. 1727). 6. Chaloner 1950, 162. 7. SP 99/63, f.202 (4 Jul. 1732).