The Butlers of Ormonde

No family in Norman Ireland held its position for so long, or defended it so tenaciously, as the Butlers of Ormonde. From a hereditary office bestowed by Prince John in 1185 to the sale of Kilkenny Castle to the people of Kilkenny in 1967, their story spans nearly eight hundred years of Irish history: of palatine lordship and royal favour, of bitter rivalry with the FitzGeralds, of loyalty to the Crown in the teeth of rebellion, and of a great house that exhausted its line in the twentieth century and left its castle to the nation.

The hereditary office

The Butler name is an office, not a place. When Prince John came to Ireland in 1185, he granted to Theobald Walter, a Cambro-Norman of good family and brother to Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, the hereditary office of Chief Butler of Ireland. The duties were ceremonial and magnificent: the Chief Butler attended the Kings of England at their coronation, presenting the first cup of wine in a gesture that placed the Butlers, symbolically, at the very centre of royal authority. With the office came vast estates in Tipperary, and the family took their surname from the honour they bore.

Theobald’s descendants planted deep roots in the Irish midlands. They built castles, founded abbeys and administered their Tipperary lands with the energy of men who had come to stay. By the early fourteenth century the family had grown powerful enough to seek a formal earldom, and in 1328 James Butler was created 1st Earl of Ormond, with palatine authority over County Tipperary that made him, in effect, a ruler with near-sovereign powers within his own territory.

The White Earl and the height of power

The earldom reached its first great flowering under James Butler, 4th Earl, known as “the White Earl.” He served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland three separate times, a distinction that reflected both his administrative ability and the trust the English crown placed in him. He was also a man of letters in an age when that was unusual among the Irish nobility: he was patron of Irish learning and responsible for the compilation of the Book of the White Earl, a collection of Irish poetry and genealogy that stands as one of the significant cultural monuments of medieval Gaelic Ireland.

It was the White Earl, too, who promoted the office of Ireland King of Arms, the heraldic authority for the island, and the Butlers’ own arms set a standard of clarity that heraldry admires: Or, a chief indented azure, gold beneath a toothed band of blue, simple and bold. Their motto, Comme je trouve ("As I find it"), carries a studied pragmatism entirely in keeping with a family that navigated centuries of Irish politics without losing either its estates or its head.

The great rivalry

No account of the Butlers is complete without the FitzGeralds. For generations the Butlers of Ormonde and the FitzGeralds of Kildare and Desmond contested the supremacy of Norman Ireland in a rivalry that was personal, territorial and at times violent. It was a feud conducted on the grand scale: competing lordships, competing ambitions at the English court, and competing claims to the loyalty of the Irish chieftains who surrounded them.

The most direct attempt to quiet the feud came from Piers Butler, 8th Earl, who married Margaret FitzGerald of Kildare in a match designed to bind the two houses together. It helped, for a time. The deeper antagonism between the families never fully dissolved, but it did not prevent either house from prospering under the Tudor crown.

Black Tom and Elizabeth

The Butler who made the most of royal favour was Thomas Butler, 10th Earl, known to his contemporaries as “Black Tom” from his dark complexion. Born in 1531 and educated at the English court, he was a man of the Renaissance: accomplished, politically shrewd, and personally close to Queen Elizabeth I, whose mother, Anne Boleyn, shared Butler blood. That kinship gave Black Tom an access to the queen that few Irishmen could match.

He used it. In 1565 at the Battle of Affane in County Waterford, Thomas led a Butler force against Gerald FitzGerald, Earl of Desmond, in what proved to be the last private pitched battle fought on Irish soil. He defeated the FitzGerald comprehensively, capturing the Earl of Desmond in the field. Elizabeth reprimanded both earls for fighting without royal sanction, but she never doubted where her favour lay. Black Tom remained her man in Ireland until his death in 1614, one of the longest-serving and most trusted of all her servants.

The great Duke and the fall of the house

The family reached its highest point in the person of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, born in 1610. The pre-eminent royalist in Ireland during the wars of the three kingdoms, he served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland four times across the reigns of Charles I and Charles II, navigating the catastrophe of the 1640s with a loyalty to the Stuart cause that cost him everything and eventually restored him to everything. Charles I created him Marquess of Ormonde in 1642; the restored Charles II created him Duke in 1661. He died in 1688, having outlasted the crisis that destroyed so many of his contemporaries.

His grandson, James Butler, 2nd Duke, did not share his fortune. Implicated in Jacobite plots after the accession of the Hanoverian George I, he was impeached and attainted in 1715. The dukedom was forfeited and he went into exile, dying at Avignon in 1745. The great Butler dukedom was gone.

A Marquessate of Ormonde was created anew in 1825 for a cadet of the family, and the title endured until 1997, when Charles Butler, 7th and last Marquess, died in Chicago without a male heir. With his death the Marquessate became extinct, and the ancient Earldom of Ormond fell dormant. The Butler Society, founded in 1967, now gathers the worldwide family; the senior surviving Butler peerage is the Viscountcy of Mountgarret.

Kilkenny Castle and the long inheritance

The physical heart of the Butler inheritance was Kilkenny Castle. The 3rd Earl bought it in 1391 and it served as the principal seat of the family for close on six centuries: a great Anglo-Norman fortress on the Nore, rebuilt and extended in each generation until it stood as the most conspicuous monument to Butler power in Ireland.

Its final chapter was characteristic of the twentieth century’s settlement with the old landed houses. In 1967 Arthur Butler, 6th Marquess of Ormonde, reckoned the 30th Chief Butler of Ireland, sold the castle to the people of Kilkenny for fifty pounds. The gesture was generous and deliberate: a recognition that the castle belonged, in some deeper sense, to the city it had dominated for so long. The state restored it and it stands today as one of Ireland’s most visited historic sites, a monument to a line that is ended but not forgotten.

For those who wish to trace the Butlers’ Norman neighbours in Ireland, the article on Gaelic Nobility offers a wider view of the lordships they moved among.

The Butlers of Ormonde, Succession

The Chief Butlership of Ireland was granted in 1185; the Earldom of Ormond was created in 1328. The Dukedom, created in 1661, was forfeited by attainder in 1715. A new Marquessate of Ormonde was created in 1825 and became extinct in 1997, when the Earldom of Ormond also fell dormant.

Chief Butlers and Earls of Ormond

1. — Theobald Walter, 1st Chief Butler of IrelandGranted the hereditary office of Chief Butler of Ireland by Prince John, 1185; founded the Butler dynasty in Tipperary.
2. — James Butler, 1st Earl of OrmondCreated Earl of Ormond in 1328 with palatine authority over County Tipperary.
3. — James Butler, the White Earl, 4th Earl of OrmondThree times Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; patron of Irish learning and the Book of the White Earl; promoted the office of Ireland King of Arms; died 1452.
4. — Piers Butler, 8th Earl of OrmondMarried Margaret FitzGerald of Kildare to quiet the Butler–FitzGerald feud; died 1539.
5. — Thomas Butler, “Black Tom”, 10th Earl of OrmondKinsman and favourite of Elizabeth I; defeated and captured the Earl of Desmond at the Battle of Affane, 1565, the last private pitched battle in Ireland; died 1614.

Marquesses and Dukes of Ormonde

1. — James Butler, 1st Duke of OrmondePre-eminent royalist statesman of Ireland; Lord Lieutenant four times; created Marquess 1642, Duke of Ormonde 1661; died 1688.
2. — James Butler, 2nd Duke of OrmondeImpeached and attainted for Jacobitism in 1715; the dukedom was forfeited; died in exile at Avignon, 1745.
3. — James Wandesford Butler, 1st Marquess of Ormonde (1825 creation)A new Marquessate of Ormonde created 1825; died 1838.
4. — Arthur Butler, 6th Marquess of OrmondeReckoned 30th Chief Butler of Ireland; sold Kilkenny Castle to the people of Kilkenny for £50 in 1967; died 1971.
5. — Charles Butler, 7th and last Marquess of OrmondeDied in Chicago, 1997, without a male heir; the Marquessate became extinct and the Earldom of Ormond fell dormant.

A House That Shaped Ireland

Eight centuries separate Theobald Walter’s grant from the death of the last Marquess. In that span the Butlers were Chief Butlers at a dozen coronations, palatine lords of Tipperary, governors of Ireland under four dynasties, and the tenacious custodians of a castle they held for nearly six centuries before giving it to the nation. Their arms are gone from Kilkenny’s walls, but the castle stands, and the Butler Society carries the family’s memory around the world. The Earldom of Ormond is dormant, not dead: a fitting condition for a house that has always known how to wait.

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