English wine cask units the mediæval French and Italian "botte") or pipe was half a tun, or 1008 pints. Tradition has it that George, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Edward IV of England, was drowned in a butt of malmsey on 18 February 1478. (However, Josephine Tey in "The Daughter of Time" suggests that "drowned in a butt of malmsey" means rather that George, Duke of Clarence, drank himself to death rather than literally drowning in a container of wine.) In Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado", the narrator claims he has received "a pipe of what passes for Amontillado".
Charles Parker Butt Charles Parker Butt Sir Charles Parker Butt (24 June 1830 – 26 May 1892) was an English High Court judge and a Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 to 1883. Butt was the third son of the Rev. Phelpes John Butt, of Wortham Lodge, Bournemouth, and his wife Mary Eddy, daughter of Rev. John Eddy, Vicar of Toddington, Gloucestershire. He was educated privately and called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1854. He practiced on the Northern Circuit and became a Q.C. in 1868. At the 1880 general election, Butt was elected Liberal Member