Sir Randle Brereton’s second and ninth sons were founders respectively of the Tatton and the Handford branches of the Breretons. His seventh son succeeded his father as Chamberlain of Chester, and was Groom of the Chamber to King Henry VIII. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Earl of Worcester, widow of Sir John Savage, and was beheaded, upon a most questionable charge of criminal intercourse with Queen Anne Boleyn, in 1536, when he was twenty-eight years of age, and a young married man. It may be noticed incidentally that Queen Anne Boleyn’s favourite lap-dog (an Italian greyhound) was named Urian, the name of a brother of the Groom of the Chamber, and a family name in the Malpas Hall branch of the Brereton family, derived from the early Barons of Malpas. “Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ.” Sir Urian Brereton, the ninth son of Sir Randle Brereton, of the Shocklach and Malpas Hall branch, married Margaret, the daughter and sole heiress of William Handford, Esq., of Handford. His son, grandson, and great-grandson, were all of the name of William; and it was the latter (Sir William Brereton, Bart.), who was the distinguished Parliamentarian general, {270a} and whose achievements are so well known to persons who have devoted their attention to the unhappy war between Charles I. and the Parliament, in which—now that the excess of party-heat has long ago subsided, and the history of those times can be dispassionately considered—there is too much reason to believe that both parties were in the wrong. His notorious aversion to church government, noticed by Clarendon, was probably heightened by circumstances; but he appears, by his early travels, to have been always of a sober, serious, and religious turn of mind, with a _penchant_ for spicy sermons. He married a daughter of Sir George Booth, who was considered the cornerstone of the Presbyterian interest in Cheshire, and is described by writers of the day as “free, grave, godly, brave Booth, the flower of Cheshire.” Sir William Brereton was also the friend and neighbour of Henry Bradshaw, of Colonel Duckinfield, and of Lenthall; the latter of whom afterwards married his daughter. The cruel and unjust execution of the Groom of the Chamber, by Henry VIII., rankled in the breasts of his family and connections; the imposition of ship-money had led Sir William Brereton into collision with the citizens of Chester; and he had disputes with the church and corporation of that city, about exemptions from tolls, and for murage, on account of his lands of St. Mary’s Nunnery in Chester, granted by the Crown to his family. The before-mentioned William Brereton, of Handford, was created a Baronet in 1626–7, and the title became extinct on the death of Sir Thomas Brereton, Bart., in 1673. {271a}