BOOTH, LAWRENCE

Archbishop of York, chancellor of England; b. Lancashire; d. Southwell, May 19, 1480. Booth became master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in April of 1450, a position he held for life. Soon after succeeding his half brother William booth as chancellor to Henry VI's wife, Queen Margaret, in 1452, he received rapid preferment with court patronage, becoming archdeacon of Richmond (1454) and dean of St. Paul's, London (November 1456). On Aug. 22, 1457, he was provided to the See of durham and on September 25, consecrated.

As keeper of the privy seal from September of 1456 to July of 1460, he was closely associated with the queen and the court party in Henry's later years, but the political importance of his northern palatinate brought him into favor with Yorkist King Edward IV, to whom he became confessor (1461). His loyalty was later suspected; his temporalities were confiscated (December 1462 to April 1464), and he seems to have lived chiefly in his Cambridge College between 1462 and 1466.

Restored to favor in 1471, he was chancellor of England from July of 1473 to May of 1474. In July of 1476, he was provided to the archbishopric of york, which he held until his death. Little is known of his diocesan administration, but it is doubtful whether he was an active pastor, politics being his chief concern.

Bibliography: a. b. emden, Biographical Register of the Scholars of the University of Cambridge before 1500 (Cambridge, Eng. 1963) 78–79. a. h. thompson, Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques (Paris 1912–) 9:1164-65.

[c. d. ross]