Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Butler, John (d.1478)
BUTLER, JOHN, sixth Earl of Ormonde (d. 1478), brother of James, fifth earl [q. v.], was with his brother attainted by the first parliament of Edward IV, but was soon afterwards pardoned and restored in blood by Edward, and to all his estate except his lands in Essex, which had been granted by the king to his sister Anne. The attainder by the Irish parliament at Dublin, 2 Edward IV, was not however repealed till 16 Edward IV. Previous to succeeding to the earldom he was known as Sir John de Ormonde, having been knighted at Leicester by the Duke of Bedford, the king's uncle, for adherence to Henry VI. Edward IV used to say of him that he was ‘the goodliest knight he ever beheld and the finest gentleman in Christendom; and that if good breeding, nurture, and liberal qualities were lost in the world, they might all be found in John, earl of Ormonde.’ He had a thorough mastery of every European language, and had been an ambassador to nearly every European court. He died in the Holy Land during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1478. He was unmarried, and was succeeded in the earldom by his brother Thomas.
[Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, iv. 14–16; Carte's Life of the Duke of Ormonde (Oxford ed. 1851), i. lxxxi; The Ormonde Attainders, by Hubert Hall, in the Genealogist, new ser., i. 76–9; The Barony of Arklow, by J. H. Round, in vol. i. of Foster's Collectanea Genealogica.]