'James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde' (
October 19,
1610 –
July 21 1688), was an
Anglo-Irish statesman and soldier. He is best known for his involvement in the
Irish Confederate Wars of the 1640s, when he commanded the
English Royalist forces in
Ireland.
Early life
James Butler was the eldest son of Thomas Butler,
Viscount Thurles, and of Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Poyntz, and the grandson of Walter, 11th Earl of Ormonde. The Butlers of Ormonde were an
Old English dynasty who had dominated the southeast of Ireland since the middle ages. He was born in
London.
On the death of his father by drowning in 1619, the boy was made a royal ward by
James I, removed from his
Roman Catholic tutor, and placed in the household of
George Abbot,
archbishop of Canterbury, with whom he stayed until 1625, when he went to live in Ireland with his grandfather. This was very important for Butler's future life, as it meant that, unlike almost all his relatives in the Ormonde dynasty, he was a
Protestant. This made his relationship with the rest of his family and dependents somewhat strained, as they suffered from land confiscations and legal discrimination on account of their religion, while he did not.
In December 1629, he married his cousin, the Lady Elizabeth Preston, daughter and heiress of Richard, Earl of Desmond, putting an end to the long-standing quarrel between the families and united their estates. In 1634, on the death of his grandfather, he succeeded to the earldom.
Rebellion and Civil War
Ormonde already had a reputation in Ireland. His active career began in 1633 with the arrival of
the Earl of Strafford, by whom he was treated with great favour. Writing to the king, Strafford described Ormonde as "young, but take it from me, a very staid head", and Ormonde became Strafford's chief friend and supporter. Wentworth planned large scale confiscations of Catholic owned land (see
Plantations of Ireland), something that Ormonde supported but which infuriated his relatives and drove many of them into opposition to Wentworth and ultimately into rebellion. In 1640, during Strafford's absence, he was made commander-in-chief of the forces, and in August he was appointed lieutenant-general.
On the outbreak of the
Irish Rebellion of 1641, Ormonde found himself in command of government forces based in Dublin. Almost all the rest of the country was taken by the Catholic rebels, who included Ormonde's Butler relatives. However Ormonde's bonds of kinship were not entirely severed. His wife and children were escorted from rebel held
Kilkenny to Dublin by Richard Butler, Lord Mountgarrett (Ormonde's cousin).
Ormonde mounted several expeditions from Dublin to try to clear the surrounding area of rebel forces. First he relieved
Naas, and then the northern part of
the Pale in 1642. he lords justices, who suspected him because he was related to many of the Irish rebels, recalled him after he had succeeded in relieving
Drogheda. He received the public thanks of the
English Parliament and a jewel of the value of £620. On
15 April 1642 he won the
battle of Kilrush against Lord Mountgarret. On
30 August 1642 he was created a marquess, and on
16 September 1642 was appointed lieutenant-general with a commission direct from the king.
On
18 March 1643 he won the
Battle of New Ross against
Thomas Preston, afterwards Viscount
Tara. However, Ormonde was now in a very difficult situation. In September, the
civil war broke out, leaving the Ormonde without reinforcements from England. The Catholic rebels held two thirds of the country by this time. In addition,
Scots Covenanters in
Ulster who had landed an army there to put down the Irish rebellion in 1642 had afterwards sided with the English Parliament against the King.
Isolated in Dublin, Ormonde therefore agreed to a "cessation" or ceasefire with the Catholics, by which the greater part of Ireland was given up into the hands of the Irish
Catholic Confederation, leaving only small districts on the east coast and round
Cork, together with certain fortresses in the north and west in the possession of the English commanders. This truce was vehemently opposed by the Lords Justices and the Protestant community in general in Ireland.
Ormonde subsequently, by the king's orders, despatched a body of his troops into England to fight on the
Royalist side in the Civil War there. These troops were shortly afterwards routed by
Thomas Fairfax at the
Battle of Nantwich (
26 January 1644. Ormonde was appointed
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in January 1644, with the brief of preventing the King's Parliamentarian enemies from being reinforced from Ireland, while at the same time, securing more troops to fight in the Royalist side in England. To these ends, he had special instructions to do all in his power to keep the Scottish
Covenanter army in the north of Ireland occupied. He was also given the King's authority to negotiate a Treaty with the
Irish Confederates, which would allow their troops to be sent to fight for the King in England.
Negotiations with the Irish Confederates
Ormonde was faced with a difficult task in reconciling all the different factions in Ireland. The Old (native) Irish and Catholic Irish of English descent ("
Old English") were represented in
Confederate Ireland—essentially an independent Catholic government based in
Kilkenny—who wanted to come to terms with
King Charles I of England in return for
religious toleration and
self-government. On the other side, any concession that Ormonde made to the Confederates weakened his support among English and Scottish
Protestants in Ireland. Ormonde's negotiations with the Confederates were therefore tortuous, even though many of the Confederate leaders were his relatives or friends.
In 1644, he assisted
Randall Macdonnell, 1st Marquess of Antrim in mounting an Irish Confederate expedition into
Scotland. The force, led by
Alasdair MacColla was sent to help the Scottish Royalists and sparked off
a civil war in Scotland (1644-45). This turned out to be the only intervention of Irish Catholic troops in Britain during the Civil Wars.
The difficulties of Ormonde's position had been greatly increased by the secret treaty that
Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester signed with the Irish Catholics on
August 25,
1645. On
March 28,
1646 Ormonde concluded a treaty with the Irish Confederates which granted religious concessions and removed various grievances. However, the Confederates' General Assembly rejected the deal, partly due to the influence of the
Pope Innocent X's nuncio,
Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, who worked to prevent the Catholics entering into a compromise. Those who had signed the treaty were arrested and the Confederates called off their truce with Ormonde.
It soon became clear that he could not hold
Dublin against the Irish rebels. He applied to the
Long Parliament, signed a treaty on
June 19,
1647, gave Dublin into their hands on terms which protected the interests of both Protestants and Roman Catholics who had not actually entered into rebellion, and sailed for England at the beginning of August 1647. He handed over Dublin and the troops under his command to the Parliamentarian commander
Michael Jones. Ormonde famously remarked of his surrender that he "preferred English rebels to Irish ones."
Commander of Royalist Alliance
Ormonde attended King Charles during August and October 1647 at
Hampton Court Palace, but in March 1648, in order to avoid arrest by the parliament, he joined the
queen and the
Prince of Wales at
Paris. In September of the same year, the pope's nuncio having been expelled, and affairs otherwise looking favourable, he returned to Ireland to endeavour to unite all parties for the king.
The Irish Confederates were now much more amenable to compromise, as 1647 had seen a series of military disasters for them at the hands of English Parliamentarian forces. On
17 January 1649 Ormonde concluded a peace with the rebels on the basis of the free exercise of their religion.
On the execution of the king (
30 January1649) he proclaimed Charles II, who made him a
Knight of the Garter in September 1649. Ormonde was placed in command of the Irish Confederates' armies and also English Royalist troops who were landed in Ireland from France.
However, despite controlling almost all of Ireland before August 1649, Ormonde was unable to prevent the
conquest of Ireland by
Cromwell in 1649-50. Ormonde tried to re-take
Dublin in August 1649, but was routed at the
battle of Rathmines. Subsequently, he tried to halt Cromwell by holding a line of fortified towns across the country. However, the
New Model Army took them one after the other, beginning with the
Siege of Drogheda in September 1649.
Ormonde lost most of the English and Protestant Royalist troops under his command when they mutinied and went over to Cormwell in May 1650. This left him with only the Irish Catholic forces, who distrusted him greatly. Ormonde was ousted from his command in late 1650 and he returned to
France in December 1650. In Cromwell's
Act of Settlement 1652, all of Ormonde's lands in Ireland were confiscated and he was excepted from the pardon given to those Royalists who had surrendered by that date.
Ormonde, though desperately short of money, was in constant attendance on Charles II and the queen mother in Paris, and accompanied the former to
Aix and
Cologne when expelled from France by the terms of
Mazarin's treaty with Cromwell in 1655. In 1658 he went disguised, and at great risk, on a secret mission into England to gain trustworthy intelligence as to the chances of an uprising. He attended the king at
Fuenterrabia in 1659 and had an interview with Mazarin and was actively engaged in the secret transactions immediately preceding the
Restoration.
Restoration career
On the return of Charles to England as king Ormonde was appointed a commissioner for the treasury and the navy, made
Lord Steward of the Household, a
Privy Councillor,
Lord Lieutenant of Somerset (an office which he resigned in 1672),
High Steward of
Westminster,
Kingston and
Bristol, chancellor of
Trinity College, Dublin, Baron Butler of
Llanthony and
Earl of Brecknock in the
peerage of England; and on
30 March 1661 he was created Duke of Ormonde in the Irish peerage and made
Lord High Steward of England for Charles's coronation that year. At the same time he recovered his enormous estates in Ireland, and large grants in recompense of the fortune he had spent in the royal service were made to him by the king, while in the following year the
Irish Parliament presented him with £30,000. His losses, however, according to Carte, exceeded his gains by £868,000. See also
Act of Settlement 1662.
On
4 November 1661 he once more received the lord lieutenantship of Ireland, and busily engaged in the work of settling that country. The main problem was the land question, and the
Act of Explanation was passed through the Irish parliament by Ormonde on
23 December 1665.
His heart was in his government, and he vehemently opposed the bill prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle which struck so fatal a blow at Irish trade; and retaliated by prohibiting the import into Ireland of Scottish commodities, and obtained leave to
trade with foreign countries. He encouraged Irish manufactures and learning to the utmost, and it was to his efforts that the Irish College of Physicians owes its incorporation.
Ormonde's personality had always been a striking one, and he was highly regarded. He was dignified and proud of his loyalty, even when he lost royal favour, declaring, "However ill I may stand at court I am resolved to lye well in the chronicle". Ormonde soon became the mark for attack from all that was worst in the court.
Buckingham especially did his utmost to undermine his influence. Ormonde's almost irresponsible government of Ireland during troubled times was open to criticism. He had
billeted soldiers on civilians, and had executed
martial law. He was threatened by Buckingham with impeachment.
In March 1669, Ormonde was removed from the government of Ireland and from the committee for Irish affairs. He made no complaint, insisted that his sons and others over whom he had influence should retain their posts, and continued to fulfil the duties of his other offices, while his character and services were recognized in his election as chancellor of the
University of Oxford on
4 August 1669.
In 1670 an extraordinary attempt was made to assassinate the duke by a ruffian and adventurer named
Thomas Blood, already notorious for an unsuccessful plot to surprise
Dublin Castle in 1663, and later for stealing the royal
crown from the
Tower. Ormonde was attacked by Blood and his accomplices while driving up St James's Street on the night of
6 December 1670, dragged out of his coach, and taken on horseback along
Piccadilly with the intention of hanging him at
Tyburn. Ormonde, however, succeeded in overcoming the horseman to whom he was bound, and escaped.
The outrage, it was suspected, had been instigated by Buckingham, who was openly accused of the crime by Lord Ossory, Ormonde's son, in the king's presence, and threatened by him with instant death if any violence should happen to his father. These suspicions were encouraged by the improper action of the king in pardoning Blood, and in admitting him to his presence and treating him with favour after his apprehension while endeavouring to steal the crown jewels.
In 1671 Ormonde successfully opposed
Richard Talbot's attempt to upset the
Act of Settlement. In 1673 he again visited Ireland, returned to London in 1675 to give advice to Charles on affairs in parliament, and in 1677 was again restored to favour and reappointed to the lord lieutenancy. On his arrival in Ireland he occupied himself in placing the
revenue and the
army upon a proper footing. Upon the outbreak of the disturbances caused by the
Popish Plot (1678) in England, Ormonde at once took steps towards rendering the Roman Catholics, who were in the proportion of 15 to 1, powerless; and the mildness and moderation of his measures served as the ground of an attack upon him in England led by
Shaftesbury, from which he was defended with great spirit by his own son Lord Ossory.
In 1682 Charles summoned Ormonde to court. The same year he wrote "A Letter, from a Person of Honour in the Country, in answer to the earl of Anglesey, his Observations upon the earl of Castlehaven's Memoires concerning the Rebellion of Ireland", and gave Charles general support. On
9 November 1683 an English dukedom was conferred upon him, and in June 1684 he returned to Ireland; but he was recalled in October in consequence of fresh intrigues. Before he could give up his government to
Rochester, Charles II died; and Ormonde's last act as lord lieutenant was to proclaim
James II in Dublin.
Ormonde also served as the sixth Chancellor of
Trinity College, Dublin between
1645 and
1688, although he was in exile for the first fifteen years of his tenure.
Subsequently Ormonde lived in retirement at
Cornbury in
Oxfordshire, a house lent to him by
Lord Clarendon, but emerged in 1687 to offer opposition at the board of the
Charterhouse to James's attempt to assume the dispensing power and force upon the institution a Roman Catholic candidate without taking the oaths. Ormonde also refused the king his support in the question of the
Indulgence; James, to his credit, refused to take away his offices, and continued to hold him in respect and favour to the last. Ormonde died on
21 July 1688 at Kingston Lacy, Dorset, not having, as he rejoiced to know, "outlived his intellectuals"; and with him disappeared the greatest and grandest figure of the times. His splendid qualities were expressed with some felicity in verses written on welcoming his return to Ireland and printed in 1682:
:A Man of Plato's grand nobility,
:An inbred greatness, innate honesty;
:A Man not form'd of accidents, and whom
:Misfortune might oppress, not overcome
:Who weighs himself not by opinion
:But conscience of a noble action.
Ormonde was buried in
Westminster Abbey on
1 August 1688.
Family
With his wife, Elizabeth Preston, he had at least 7 children, of whom three of his sons survived into adulthood.
★ Thomas Butler (1632 – 1632)
★
Thomas Butler, Earl of Ossory (1634 – 1680)
★ James Butler (1636 – 1645)
★
Richard Butler, 1st Earl of Arran (1639 – 1686)
★ Elizabeth Butler (b. 1640)
★
John Butler, 1st Earl of Gowran (1643 – 1677)
★ Mary Butler (1646 – 1710)
The eldest of these, Thomas, Earl of Ossory (1634 – 1680) predeceased him, his eldest son (that is to say James Butler's grandchild) succeeded as
2nd Duke of Ormonde (1665 – 1745). The other two sons, Richard, created earl of
Arran, and John, created earl of
Gowran, both died without male issue, and the male descent of the 1st Duke becoming extinct in the person of Charles, 3rd Duke of Ormonde, the earldom subsequently reverted to the cadet descendants of Walter, 11th earl of Ormonde.
Lineage of the Butlers can be traced back to James Butler born in 1331 in Knocktopher Castle, Arklow, Wicklow, Ireland. This James Butler was the son of Eleanor Bohun who was the daughter of Elizabeth Plantagenet or also called
Elizabeth of Rhuddlan(born 1282 in Rhuddlan Castle, Wales). Elizabeth Plantagenet was the daughter of King
Edward I of England and
Eleanor of Castile. King Edward I can trace lineage to notable monarchs such as
Henry II,
Eleanor of Aquitaine,
William the Conqueror and, of course,
Charlemagne, King of the
Franks.
References
★
Thomas Carte, ''Life of the Duke of Ormonde'' (3 vols., 1735-1736; new ed., in 6 vols., Oxford, 1851)
★ Thomas Carte, ''Collection of Original Letters, found among the Duke of Ormonde's Papers'' (1739)
★
Carte Manuscripts in the
Bodleian Library at
Oxford
★ Sir
Robert Southwell, "Life of Ormonde", printed in the ''History of the Irish Parliament'', by Lord Mountmorres (i 792), vol. 1.
★ ''Correspondence between Archbishop Williams and the Marquess of Ormonde'', edited by B. H. Beckham (reprinted from ''Archaeologia Cambrensis'', 1869)
★
John Milton, ''Observations on the Articles of Peace between James, Earl of Ormonde, and the Irish-Rebels''
★ Hist. MSS. Comm. Reps. ii.-iv. and vi.-x., esp. Rep. viii., appendix, p. 499, and Rep. xiv. App.: pt. vii.
★ Manuscripts of the Marquis of Ormonde, together with new series; ''
Notes and Queries'', vi. ser. v., Pp. 343~ ~al1
★ Gardiner's ''History of the Civil War''
★ ''Calendar of Slate Papers (Domestic) and Irish,1633 – 1662'', with introductions
★ ''Biographia Britannica'' (Kippis)
★ Scottish Hist. Soc. Publications: ''Letters and Papers of 1650'', edited by S. R. Gardiner, vol. xvii. (1894)
★
External link
★ http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/biog/ormond.htm
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