James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde

James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde after a painting by Michael Dahl

James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde (born April 29, 1665 in Dublin Castle , † November 16, 1745 in Avignon ) was an Anglo-Irish statesman and general. Between February 19, 1703 and April 30, 1707 he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland . He became known as a partisan of the Jacobites and had to go into exile in 1714 after the rise of the Hanoverian dynasty .

Life

origin

James Butler was the second and the eldest surviving son of Thomas Butler, 6th Earl of Ossory (1634-1680) and Aemilia van Nassau († 1688), daughter of Ludwig von Nassau, Lord of Beverweerd , a Dutch officer and administrator . His paternal grandfather was James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde (1610–1688). He inherited the titles of his father in 1680 and that of his grandfather in 1688.

Early years

James, known as Lord Butler until 1680, was raised privately and spent the years 1677/78 in the Principality of Orange , shortly before France annexed the territory belonging to the Princely House of Nassau in 1680. On March 4, 1679, Butler enrolled at Christ Church in Oxford . However, according to a statement by his Swiss companion and advisor, Peter Drelincourt, he was not very suitable for academic studies. He spent the time lavishly on the funds that his grandfather gave him, and increasingly strove for a military career. On July 30, 1680 his father died, whereupon he inherited the Irish title 7th Earl of Ossory and the English title 2nd Baron Butler of Moore Park . The title gave him seats in the Irish and English House of Lords . On September 6, 1680, he left Oxford and then studied in Dublin . In August 1683 he was appointed owner of an Irish cavalry regiment and made his first military experience in the French army during the siege of Luxembourg in May 1684 . In July 1684 Ossory inherited from his grandmother Elizabeth Butler (née Preston), Duchess of Ormonde, the Scottish title of 3rd Lord Dingwall , which gave him a seat in the Scottish Parliament.

Partisans of the Stuart

James Butler as Earl of Ossory after William Gandy, 1685

On May 16, 1685 he was appointed chamberlain to King James II and took part on July 6 at Sedgemoor in the fight against the rebellious forces of the Duke of Monmouth . The Earl of Ossory was promoted to colonel in January 1686 and was given command of the Irish Guards Regiment on foot, although he continued to live in London's St. James Square. As at July 21, 1688 his grandfather died he fell to its title, it was thus in the Peerage of Ireland 2nd Duke of Ormonde , 2nd Marquess of Ormonde , 13th Earl of Ormonde , 5th Viscount Thurles , and in the Peerage of England 2nd Duke of Ormonde, 2nd Earl of Brecknock and 2nd Baron Butler of Llanthony , also the hereditary court office of the Chief Butler of Ireland . On July 21, 1688 he was accepted as a knight in the Order of the Garter .

During the Glorious Revolution in 1688 he took the side of Wilhelm III. of Orange , Jacob's nephew and son-in-law, who ascended the throne together with his Protestant daughter Maria II . As a result, he was under William of Orange on the continent and was promoted to major general. He took part in the battle against the French armies under the Marshal of Luxembourg and fought in August 1692 in the Battle of Steenkerke . In July 1693 he fell captive at the Battle of Landen , but was exchanged for the Duke of Berwick , an illegitimate son of James II. In 1694 he rose to lieutenant general . Although Ormonde supported the revolution in 1688, his sympathy remained with the Tories and their partisans Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke . In 1701, St. John became a Tory member of the House of Commons. Despite his party affiliation, Bolingbroke received the post of war secretary responsible for the administration and organization of the army between 1704 and 1708 on the intervention of the Duke of Marlborough .

After the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession and Queen Anne's rise to power , Ormonde became the commander of the land forces in England in March 1702. In August 1702, in close cooperation with Sir George Rooke, he organized a naval attack on Cádiz , which in October led to the naval battle in Vigo Bay . In February 1703 Ormonde was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and replaced in April 1707 by Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke . When the return of the Tories was announced in the fall of 1710, Ormonde quickly found a return to high offices.

The dismissal of the Duke of Marlborough on January 1, 1712 brought Ormonde the appointment of Colonel of the Life Guard and Captain General and Commander in Chief of the British forces on the continent. In April 1712 he embarked from Harwich for Rotterdam to take command of the British troops in the Netherlands. On April 25, he received orders from Viscount Bolingbroke to instruct the new foreign minister not to take active military action and to act only as an observer. In order not to openly snub the allied emperor, he was supposed to cover the operations of the imperial under Prince Eugene of Savoy during the siege of Quesnoy. Reluctantly, Louis XIV allowed the English access to Dunkirk. On April 15, 1713 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk .

In early 1714, after Queen Anne's death, Ormonde almost played the key role in restoring the Stuarts . In the short term, his military position enabled him to take on a role comparable to that of Monck in the restoration of Charles II.

Exile and Jacobite insurrection attempts

James Butler circa 1725-1730

Under the Act of Settlement , George of Hanover became King of Great Britain and Ireland. Until his arrival in Great Britain on September 18, 1714, Lord Chief Justice Thomas Parker ruled on his behalf. Ormonde was by the British Parliament of the high treason accused and other serious offenses and charged on 21 June 1715th The Spanish ambassador convinced the Duke to evade the trial and leave Great Britain at the end of July, and he arrived in Paris on August 8th. The indictment culminated on August 20, 1715 in the ostracism of the duke by the Bill of Attainder , which was associated with the withdrawal of all of his titles of nobility. 1716 introduced a new bill to appoint royal commissioners who should collect the forfeited goods for the crown, in 1720 the Duchess of Ormonde had to withdraw from her property to Paradise Row in Chelsea. After Ormonde secured the support of France, Louis XIV supported a first expedition of the Jacobites to Scotland. The command had been given to John Erskine, Earl of Mar , in October 1715 the operation failed after the English ministry learned of it. From April 1716 Ormonde was no longer welcome in France and moved to the papal enclave in Avignon. At the beginning of February 1717 he moved his court to Rome, in June 1718 he was back in Paris and, with the help of French diplomacy, sought the support of Sweden in the intended overthrow of George I.

The defeat of the Spanish fleet against Admiral Byng at Cape Passaro in September 1718 induced the Prime Minister Philip V , Cardinal Alberoni to seek an alliance with the Jacobites. In November 1718 Ormonde was invited to Madrid and received a general post in the Spanish army. A new fleet expedition he initiated to the western Highlands of Scotland failed at the end of March 1719 due to storms in the Bay of Biscay. The British Parliament had been informed of the preparations since March 10, a royal proclamation declared Ormonde a high traitor and offered a reward of £ 5,000 for his capture.

With France and his regent Philip Duke of Orleans as military supporters and big donors (Spain, Pope Clemens) at his side, as well as long lists of British loyal to Jacob for an army, a new uprising, the Atterbury Plot, was to take place in the summer of 1722 . With Baron Lansdowne and the Viscount of Dillon a network was built with the Irish Jacobites. The Duke of Ormonde, inaugurated in the plans, resigned from the Spanish army in 1723 after another small invasion flotilla ran out in April 1722, but received royal order to return after reaching Bilbao in June.

In 1729 his pardon seemed possible after the death of George I, but Ormonde remained suspicious in Spain. In 1732 he moved to Avignon, where the papal authorities, despite occasional complications, tolerated him because of his pious Anglicanism . The Duchess of Ormonde died on November 19, 1733, and Ormonde spent the rest of his life, with the exception of a brief excursion to Spain in 1740, in Avignon, where he spent the last years of his life until his death in 1745. In 1744 Ormonde was almost ready to travel to Dunkirk to assist Prince Charles Edward Stuart in the Second Jacobite Rebellion.

Ormonde died on November 16, 1745 in Avignon, his body was brought back to England for burial and buried in Westminster Abbey on May 22, 1746 .

His great-great-great-nephew John Butler (1740–1795) obtained the retroactive legal clarification from the Irish House of Lords in 1781 that the ostracism of 1715 did not result in the expiry of the titles belonging to the Peerage of Ireland. Accordingly, these titles had fallen to his younger brother, Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran (* September 4, 1671, † December 17, 1758) as the 3rd Duke of Ormonde on his death in 1745 de iure . At his death in 1758, the Dukedom and Marquessate of Ormonde had expired and the titles Earldoms of Ormonde and Ossory and the Viscountcy Thurles had fallen to his great-grandnephew. His nephew and heir was the petitioning John Butler, who was confirmed as 17th Earl of Ormonde in 1781. The English title Baron Butler of Moore Park and the Scottish title Lord Dingwall were hereditary in the female line and were restored in 1871 for the next of kin, Francis Cowper, 7th Earl Cowper .

Marriages and offspring

On July 20, 1682 he married Lady Anne (1667-1685), daughter of Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester . His wife died on January 25, 1685 in Dublin Castle after a miscarriage. His only daughter from this marriage, Mary Butler, died in 1688.

On August 3, 1685, he got a second marriage in Badminton with Lady Mary Somerset (1664-1733), daughter of Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort . A son from this marriage, Thomas, died in infancy, while two daughters, Elizabeth (1688–1750) and Mary (1689–1713), reached adulthood.

During this time he also fathered an illegitimate son, William Butler, who later served as captain of the Dragoons.

literature

• Toby Barnad / Jane Fenlon: The Dukes of Ormonde 1610-1745 , Boydell Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk 2000
• Thomas A. Carte: Duke of Ormonde Life 1610-88 , Oxford 1851
• Stuart Handley: James Butler, second duke of Ormond (1665–1745), army officer, politician, and Jacobite conspirator - from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Editor: Professor Sir David Cannadine)

Web links

• Handley: Biography from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Editor: Prof. Sir David Cannadine
• James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde on thepeerage.com

predecessor	Office	successor
Thomas Butler	Earl of Ossory 1680-1715 ( de iure to 1745)	Title forfeited de iure Charles Butler
Thomas Butler	Baron Butler of Moore Park 1680-1715	Title forfeited from 1871: Francis Cowper
James Butler	Duke of Ormonde (Ireland) Marquess of Ormonde Earl of Ormonde Viscount Thurles 1688–1715 ( de iure to 1745)	Title forfeited de iure Charles Butler
James Butler	Duke of Ormonde (England) Earl of Brecknock Baron Butler of Llanthony 1688–1715	Title forfeited
Elizabeth Preston	Lord Dingwall 1703-1715	Title forfeited from 1871: Francis Cowper
Laurence Hyde	Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1703-1707	Thomas Herbert
Thomas Wharton	Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1710-1713	Charles Talbot
John Churchill	Commander in Chief of the British Army 1711–1714	John Dalrymple