William Brereton loved worthily, and, when he had attained to man's estate, he married whom he loved--the daughter of Sir George Booth, of Dunham, "free, grave, godly, brave Booth, the flower of Cheshire," as he was described by writers of the day--a "person," as Clarendon says, "of one of the best fortunes and interest in Cheshire, and, for the memory of his grandfather, of absolute power with the Presbyterians," and the "chief corner stone" of their cause in the county. His lot seemed an especially happy one. Boasting an old and honourable lineage, possessed of an ample estate, which had doubtless been increased during his long minority, successful in his marriage, endowed with every domestic enjoyment, and surrounded by the children of his love, of cultivated taste, too, with a mind stored with knowledge which had expanded and ripened under the experience gained in foreign travel, and, withal, possessing a healthy and vigorous frame that enabled him to enjoy all outdoor pursuits, the cultivation of his lands, and the participation in such harmless sports as country gentlemen in his day were wont to indulge, he could only have been induced to leave the privacy of the home life he so much loved by the stern duties of times in which pleasure and self-gratification must unmurmuringly yield. Clarendon speaks of his notorious aversion to the Church. This was undoubtedly true, so far as her form of government was concerned, and was in all likelihood heightened by the circumstances under which he received his early training, as well as by the connections formed in later life. Yet he was a professed member, and in 1641 his name occurs in the parish register of Wanstead, in Surrey, with those of about fifty of the principal inhabitants, as signing a protestation expressive of their attachment to the Church of England and their abhorrence of Popish innovations. He was of a sober, serious turn, and imbued with strong religious feelings, but his attachment to the Church could neither have been very strong nor very exclusive; he was fond of "spicy" sermons, and seems to have listened with equal satisfaction and delight to the discourses of a Brownist or Anabaptist as to the ministrations of the most eminent of the preachers of the Church of which he professed himself a member.