Elizabeth Butler, Duchess of Ormond

Elizabeth Butler
Duchess of Ormond
Born	Elizabeth Preston 25 Jul 1615 Midlothian, Scotland
Died	21 July 1684(1684-07-21) (aged 68) London
Spouse(s)	James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond

Elizabeth Butler, Duchess of Ormond (née Lady Elizabeth Preston; 25 July 1615 – 21 July 1684) was an Irish noblewoman and only child of Richard Preston, 1st Earl of Desmond and Elizabeth Butler, Countess of Desmond.

Birth and origins

Elizabeth Preston was born on 25 July 1615, probably at Craigmillar Castle in Midlothian, Scotland. She was the only child of Richard Preston, 1st Earl of Desmond and Elizabeth Butler, Countess of Desmond. Her father was a younger son of the Prestons of Craigmillar Castle who was a favourite of James I and had been made a gentleman of his bedchamber. Her mother was the only surviving child of Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond, called Black Tom and the widow of Theobald Butler, 1st Viscount Butler of Tulleophelim.

In 1628 James I, in his adjudication of the dispute over the Ormond patrimony, Elizabeth inherited much of the Ormond estate after the death of her parents.

Marriage

At Christmas 1629 she married her cousin, James Butler, styled Viscount Thurles at the time. This was the courtesy title of the heir apparent of the earls of Ormond. So she became Viscountesse Thurles.

Family tree

Elizabeth Preston with husband, parents, and other selected relatives. Walter 11th Earl 1559 – 1632/3 'Beads' Helen Butler d. 1631 Thomas 10th Earl c. 1531 – 1614 Black Tom Thomas Viscount Thurles bef. 1596 – 1619 Elizabeth Pointz 1587–1673 Richard Preston 1st Earl Desmond d. 1628) Elizabeth Butler c. 1585 – 1628 James 1st Duke Ormond 1610–1688 Elizabeth Preston 1615–1684 Thomas 6th Earl Ossory 1633–1680 Emilia von Nassau 1635–1688 Philip Stanhope 2nd Earl Chesterfield 1634–1714 Elizabeth Butler 1640–1665 James 2nd Duke Ormond 1665–1745 Charles 1st Earl Arran 1671–1758 Elizabeth Butler d. 1717 Elizabeth Stanhope 1663–1723 Legend XXX Elizabeth Preston XXX Earls & dukes of Ormond This family tree is partly derived from the condensed Butler family tree pictured in Dunboyne. Also see the list of children in the text.

They had eight sons, five of whom died in childhood, and two daughters. Five children survived into adulthood:

1. Thomas (1634–1680), who predeceased his father, but had a son who would become the 2nd Duke;
2. Richard (1639–1686), who was the first and last Earl of Arran of the 1662 creation and predeceased his father;
3. Elizabeth (1640–1665), who married Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield and had affairs with James Hamilton and the Duke of York;
4. John (1643–1677), who became the Earl of Gowran; and
5. Mary (1646–1710), who married William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire.

As a consequence the marriage, the Ormond estate as her grandfather, the 10 Earl, had held it was reunited. She and James went to live in the Ormonde Castle at Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary.

In 1633 Elizabeth became countess of Ormond when her husband succeeded the earldom. Lady Ormond, as she was now, moved into Kilkenny Castle, the family seat, on the outbreak of the 1641 Rebellion, while her husband took command of the king's army in Dublin. She was still living in the castle when Kilkenny became the capital of the Catholic Confederation, where she aided Protestant refugees, sheltering them in the castle until 1642 when she was allowed to rejoin her husband in Dublin. In the city she continued to aid refugees, and assisted the reinforcement of Dublin's defences during a siege in 1646.

Following her husband's promotion to marquess on 30 August 1642 she became a marchioness. She followed him to England in 1647 after the surrender of Dublin to the parliamentary forces. In 1648 as he renewed his support for the royalist cause, Lady Ormond moved to Caen, France with their children. The marquess joined the family in 1651, at which point the family had no money. In 1652, Butler and their children returned to England to plead with Cromwell for income from the land she owned. After a long delay, she received enough funds in 1657 to allow her to live at her home in Dunmore, County Kilkenny, with the caveat that she would not correspond with her husband.

Following the restoration of Charles II, Butler sent her husband valuable political information from Ireland, with the couple reunited later in England. Her husband was given a dukedom in March 1661, and in 1662 he was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland serving until 1669 and again from 1677 to 1685. Butler hosted entertainment and spent lavishly on restoring and improving the family estates, but her personal correspondence revealed she was concerned about the debts of her husband and sons. Her health began to decline in 1681, and she died in London on 21 July 1684. She was buried at Westminster abbey on 24 July.

See also

• Butler dynasty

Notes and references

• Burke, Bernard (1949), A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire (99th ed.), London: Burke's Peerage Ltd.
• Carte, Thomas (1851), The Life of James Duke of Ormond, vol. 3 (new ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Chester, Joseph Lemuel (1876), Registers of Westminster Abbey, London: Private Edition
• Cokayne, George Edward (1895), The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant, vol. 6 (1st ed.), London: George Bell and Sons – N to R (for Ormond)
• Debrett, John (1828), Peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 1 (17th ed.), London: F. C. and J. Rivington - England
• Dunboyne, Patrick Theobald Tower Butler, Baron (1968), Butler Family History (2nd ed.), Kilkenny: Rothe House{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Hamilton, Anthony (1888), Memoirs of Count Grammont, translated by Walpole, Horace, Philadelphia: Gebbie & Co
• Pepys, Samuel (1893), Wheatley, Henry Benjamin (ed.), The Diary of Samuel Pepys, vol. 2, London: George Bell & Sons - 1 April 1661 – 31 December 1661
• Perceval-Maxwell, Michael (2004), "Butler [née Preston] Elizabeth, duchess of Ormond and suo jure Lady Dingwall (1615–1684)", in Matthew, Henry Colin Gray.; Harrison, Brian (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 9, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 130–131, ISBN 0-19-861359-8

Further reading

• Bourke, Angela (2002), "Elizabeth Butler, Duchess of Ormond", The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, vol. 5, New York: NYU Press, p. 66, ISBN 9780814799079
• McAreavey, Naomi (2019), Eckerle, Julie A.; McAreavey, Naomi (eds.), "The Place of ireland in the Letters of the First Duchess of Ormonde", Women's life writing and early modern Ireland, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 158–182, ISBN 9781496214287

External links

• Genealogy of Elizabeth Preston, Baroness Dingwall on The Peerage website