Lieutenant-General James FitzThomas Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, KG, PC (19 October 1610 – 21 July 1688), was an Anglo-Irish statesman and soldier, known as Earl of Ormond from 1634 to 1642 and Marquess of Ormond from 1642 to 1661.[a] Following the failure of the senior line of the Butler family, he was the second representative of the Kilcash branch to inherit the earldom.
His friend, the Earl of Strafford, secured his appointment as commander of the government army in Ireland. Following the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, he led government forces against the Irish Catholic Confederation; when the First English Civil War began in August 1642, he supported the Royalists and in 1643 negotiated a ceasefire with the Confederation which allowed his troops to be transferred to England. Shortly before the Execution of Charles I in January 1649, he agreed the Second Ormonde Peace, an alliance between the Confederation and Royalist forces which fought against the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.
During the 1650s he lived in exile on the continent with Charles II of England. After the Stuart Restoration in 1660, Ormond became a major figure in English and Irish politics, holding many high government offices such as Chancellor of the University of Oxford.
James was born on 19 October 1610 at Clerkenwell, London,[1] the eldest son of Thomas Butler and his wife Elizabeth Pointz. His father, who was known by the courtesy title of Viscount Thurles, was the eldest son and heir apparent of Walter Butler, 11th Earl of Ormond, called "Walter of the rosary beads". His father's family, the Butler dynasty, was Old English and descended from Theobald Walter, who had been appointed Chief Butler of Ireland by King Henry II in 1177.[2]
James's mother, Lady Thurles, was English and Catholic, a daughter of Sir John Pointz of Iron Acton, Gloucestershire, and his second wife Elizabeth Sydenham. James's birth house in Clerkenwell belonged to him, his maternal grandfather.
James was one of seven siblings, three brothers and four sisters, who are listed in his father's article. James was not only the eldest son but also the first-born as his eldest sister was born after him in 1612.
Shortly after his birth, his parents returned to Ireland where they were welcome to Black Tom, the 10th Earl of Ormond but not to Walter his heir apparent, who had opposed James's father's marriage into the English Poyntz family, who were Catholic but only gentry.
Black Tom died on 22 November 1614.[3] James's grandfather Walter succeeded as the 11th Earl and James's father became heir apparent with the courtesy title of Viscount Thurles. While the title was secure, the Ormond lands were claimed by Richard Preston, 1st Earl of Desmond, who had married Elizabeth, Black Tom's only surviving child.
In 1619 his father perished on his way from Ireland to England in a shipwreck[4] near the Skerries off the coast of Anglesey. James inherited his father's courtesy title Viscount Thurles.[5] The year following that disaster, his mother brought young Thurles, as he now was, back to England, and placed him, then nine years old, at school with a Catholic gentleman at Finchley — this doubtless through the influence of his grandfather, the 11th Earl. His mother remarried to George Mathew of Thurles.[6]
On 26 May 1623, King James I, made Thurles a ward of Richard Preston, Earl of Desmond, and placed him at Lambeth, London, under the care of George Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury to be brought up as a Protestant.[7] The Ormond estates being under sequestration, the young Lord had but £40 a year for his own and his servants' clothing and expenses.[8] He seems to have been neglected by the Archbishop — "he was not instructed even in humanity, nor so much as taught to understand Latin".[9]
When fifteen Thurles went to live with his paternal grandfather (then released from prison) at Drury Lane. His grandfather, the 11th Earl of Ormond, was now an old man and did not interfere much with his Protestant religious education.[10] This was very important for Thurles's future life, as it meant that, unlike almost all his relatives in the Butler dynasty, he was a Protestant. This strained his relationship with the rest of his family and dependants, as they suffered from land confiscations and legal discrimination on account of their religion, while he did not.
Now having more means at his command, Thurles entered into all the gaieties of the court and town. At eighteen he went to Portsmouth with his friend George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham intending to join the expedition for the relief of La Rochelle; a project abandoned upon the Duke's assassination.[11]
It was during his London residence that he set himself to learn Irish, a partial knowledge of which proved most useful to him in after years.[12]
About six months after his visit to Portsmouth, Thurles first saw at Court, and fell in love with, his cousin Lady Elizabeth Preston, only child and heiress of Richard Preston, Earl of Desmond and his wife Elizabeth.[13] Charles I gave his consent by letters patent, on 8 September 1629. At Christmas 1629,[14] they married putting an end to the long-standing quarrel between the families and united their estates, one of which was Kilkenny Castle [15]
James and Elizabeth had eight sons, five of whom died in childhood, and two daughters. Five children survived into adulthood:[17]