America. Booth's Drury Lane engagement terminated on 13 Jan. 1821. On the 18th of the same month, according to his daughter and latest biographer, he married Mary Ann Holmes. He shortly afterwards took his wife, viâ Madeira, to America, and landed at Norfolk, Va., on 30 June 1821. On 6 July he opened at Richmond as Richard; on 5 Oct. 1821 he played Richard III at the Park Theatre, New York. In 1825 he returned to England and appeared at Drury Lane as Brutus. The following year he played at Rotterdam, Brussels, &c., and returned to America. In 1828 he managed the Camp Theatre, New Orleans, and played in French Oreste in the ‘Andromaque’ of Racine. In 1836–7 England was again revisited, Drury Lane, the Surrey, and Sadler's Wells being the scenes of his London performances. After his return to New York he started for the south, and attempted to drown himself on the route, but was saved by means of a boat. In this unfortunate voyage, however, he broke his nose, and marred thus his appearance and his voice. During the last ten years of his life he withdrew to some extent from the stage, living on a farm he had purchased near Baltimore, but performing occasionally in Boston and New Orleans. His last appearance was at his benefit on 19 Nov. 1852 at the St. Charles Theatre, New Orleans. He then took the parts of Sir Edward Mortimer and of John Lump in ‘The Review, or the Wag of Windsor,’ a musical farce. While on his way by sea to Cincinnati he died on 30 Nov. 1852. His body was taken to Boston, and, after some change of sepulture, was ultimately placed in Greenmount cemetery, Baltimore. Booth was a good second-rate actor. The most competent judges of the day placed him below Kean, C. Kemble, and Macready, but before Wallack and Conway. His popularity was marred by his habit of disappointing audiences by non-appearance on nights for which he was announced. This was attributable in part to intemperance, in part to insanity. In his occasional fits of moroseness he attempted once, as has been seen, his own life, and more than once, it is said, that of another. Some wild tricks are assigned him, and once he made an effort to obtain the post of lighthouse keeper at Cape Hatteras lighthouse. Amongst his surviving children were Edwin Booth, still a favourite actor, Junius Brutus Booth, jun., John Wilkes Booth, mournfully celebrated, and Mrs. Asia Booth Clarke, his biographer, the wife of a well-known comedian.
[Genest's History of the Stage; Clarke's The Elder and the Younger Booth, Boston (U.S.A.), 1882; Dramatic Magazine, 1829; Oxberry's Dramatic Biography, vol. iv. 1826; Vanderhoff's Dramatic Reminiscences, London, 1860; London Magazine, 1820.]
BOOTH or BOTHE, LAWRENCE (d. 1480), bishop of Durham, and afterwards archbishop of York, sprang from a wealthy family of good position. He was the youngest son ntllobn Booth, of Barton in Lancashire, by his second wife, Maud, daughter of Sir John Savage, a Cheshire knight. Two of his half-hrothers became bisliolls-William, archbishop of York; and John, bishop of Exeter. He went to Pembroke Hall in Cambridge, studied the civil and canon laws in which he became a licentiate, and was in 1450 appointed master of his college. During his residence in Cambridge he became chancellor of the university and rector of Cottenham in Uambrid eshire. While chancellor (about 1458), He started a movement for the lmilding of an arts school and a civil law school (Mullinger, Univensity of Cambridge to 1535, p. 300). Outside the university preferment was showered thick upon him. In 1449 he became a prebendary of St. Paul’s, and, after being thrice transferred to more valuable stalls, he became on 22 Nov. 1450 dean of that cathedral. In 1452 he became archdeacon of Stow in the diocese of Lincoln, but resigned in the same year. In 1453 he was made provost of Beverley. In 1454 he was appointed archdeacon of Richmond. He was also a prebendary of York and of Lichfield.
Booth’s main business, however, was legal and political rather than ecclesiastical. He became chancellor to Queen Margaret, and, apparently about 1456, keeper of the privy seal (Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, i. 408). In the same year he became a commissioner to renew the existing truce with Scotland. On 28 Jan. 1457 he was appointed one of the tutors and guardians of the Prince of Wales. On 15 Sept. in the same year he was appointed bishop of Durham, by provision of Calixtus II. Henry VI had already solicited the pope to nominate his physician, John Arundell, to the vacant see, but the more energetic supplication of Queen Margaret for her chancellor, together with the request of many nobles, and the remembrance of an old recommendation of Henry himself, determined Calixtus to appoint Booth, whose position, wisdom, noble birth, northern origin, and local knowledge made him, in the pope‘s opinion, peculiarly fitted to be bishop of the great palatinate (Rymer, xi, 404-5). Henry did not press his physician‘s claims, an on 25 Sept. Booth was consecrated by his brother, the archbishop
