eighth Earl of Ormonde, studied at Oxford, became a canon regular of St. Augustine, and was appointed prior of the abbey of that order at Athassel in the county of Tipperary. In 1524 Butler was nominated by the pope to the archbishopric of Cashel, with permission to retain the priory of Athassel. The consecration of Butler took place in 1527. He was a member of the privy council in Ireland, held a provincial synod at Limerick in 1529, and, on the dissolution of religious houses in Ireland, surrendered the abbey of Athassel to the crown.
Butler was present in the parliament at Dublin in 1541 which enacted the statute conferring the title of 'King of Ireland' on Henry VIII and his heirs. The communication addressed to the king on this subject, bearing the signature of the Archbishop of Cashel, has been reproduced on plate lxxi in the third part of 'Facsimiles of National Manuscripts of Ireland.' Butler's autograph and archiepiscopal seal were attached to the 'Complaint' addressed to Henry VIII in 1542 by 'the Gentlemen, Inheritors, and Freeholders of the county of Tipperary.' This document also appears in the same 'Facsimiles.' A letter from Butler to the Protector, Somerset, in 1548, is preserved among the state papers in the Public Record Office, London. In 1549-50 Butler took part at Limerick with James, Earl of Desmond, and the king's commissioners, in the enactment of ordinances for the government of Munster. References to Butler and his proceedings concerning public affairs in the districts of Ireland with which he was connected occur in the English governmental correspondence of his time. Butler died in March 1550-1, and was buried in the cathedral, Cashel, under an elaborate marble monument which he had erected, but which does not now exist.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxen. (Bliss), ii. 767; Archiepiscoporum Casselliensium Vitæ, 1626; Ware's Bishops of Ireland, i. 482-3; Hibernia Sacra, 1717; State Papers, Ireland; Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, 1848; Shirley's Original Letters, 1851; Brady's Episcopal Succession, 1876.]
BUTLER, Sir EDWARD GERARD (1770–1825), one of the heroes of the affair at Villiers-en-Couche, entered the army by purchasing a cornetcy in the 15th light dragoons in 1792. He was at once sent to Flanders on the outbreak of the war in 1793, and on 24 April 1794 was one of the officers of the two companies of his regiment which overthrew a French army and saved the life of the emperor. Landrecy was closely invested by the Austrian and English armies, when a corps of 10,000 Frenchmen moved from Cæsar's camp to raise the siege. Their march was so rapid that they were close to the allied lines, and on the point of taking the emperor himself prisoner as he was riding along the road almost unattended, when General Otto perceived the danger, and ordered the only cavalry he had at hand, namely, 160 of the 15th light dragoons and 112 Austrian hussars, to charge the French, in order rather to save the emperor than to defeat the enemy. They charged, and the French were seized with an unaccountable panic and fled, leaving three guns behind them. For this gallant charge the emperor conferred upon every one of the eight English officers who were present the order of Maria Theresa, and the king of England, at the emperor's request, knighted them all. Butler had been promoted lieutenant in the 11th light dragoons in May 1794, and he was in 1796 gazetted major without purchase in the newly raised 87th regiment. With it he served in the West Indies in 1797 at Trinidad and Porto Rico, and remained in garrison there till 1802. In 1804 he was promoted lieutenant-colonel, and in 1806 the 87th was ordered to form part of the expedition under Sir Samuel Auchmuty to Monte Video. In the attack on Monte Video Butler especially distinguished himself, and also in Whitelocke's attempt on Buenos Ayres, where the 87th had 17 officers and 400 men killed and wounded. From 1807 to 1810, while the 2nd battalion, under Colonel Hugh Gough, was distinguishing itself in the Peninsula, the 1st battalion of the 87th, under Butler, garrisoned the Cape of Good Hope. In 1810 he was second in command of a force ordered from the Cape to assist Major-general Abercromby in the reduction of the Mauritius, but the island was already taken when the contingent arrived. Nevertheless, though he saw no more service, Butler was promoted colonel in 1811 and major-general in 1814, and made a C.B. in the latter year. He died in Normandy in June 1825.
[Royal Military Calendar, ed. 1820, for the affair of Villiers-en-Couche, and contemporary journals; Records of 87th Regiment.]
BUTLER, Lady ELEANOR (1745?–1829), recluse of Llangollen, was the youngest daughter of Walter Butler, by Ellen, daughter of Nicholas Morres of Latargh, Tipperary. Her father was a collateral descendant and only lineal representative of James Butler, second duke of Ormonde, who had been attainted in 1715. Her brother John (1740-1795) claimed the Irish titles of his family, which had been forfeited by the act of attainder, and in 1791 he was acknowledged seventeenth earl of Ormonde by the Irish House of Lords. The rank
