Ormond, James Butler, 4th earl of

Ormond, James Butler, 4th earl of (c.1390–1452), called ‘the White Earl’, son of the 3rd earl (d. 1405), eight times chief governor (king's lieutenant 1420–2, 1425–6, 1442–4, justiciar 1426–7, and deputy in 1407–8, 1424, 1441–2, and 1450–2), and protagonist in the Talbot‐Ormond feud. He showed energy and skill both in dealing with Gaelic chiefs and in governing with little or no financial help from England. As earl, his rule of the Butler lordship is noted for his seigniorial ordinances for its government and defence. After the death in 1430 of his first wife Joan Beauchamp, he acquired the greater part of the lands of Gerald, 5th earl of Kildare, through his second marriage to the latter's only legitimate child, Elizabeth FitzGerald, in 1432. However he made a number of enemies. Besides John and Richard Talbot, these included Giles Thorndon, treasurer of Ireland, and Thomas FitzGerald, prior of Kilmainham, who curtailed Ormond's third lieutenancy in 1444 by making charges in England, respectively, of misappropriation of Irish exchequer funds and of treason and necromancy. None were proved, but before the earl was acquitted in 1447 abortive arrangements were twice made to settle the FitzGerald‐Ormond case by judicial duel in London.

Both a patron of Gaelic culture and a frequent visitor to England, Ormond also served three times (1412–13, 1418–19, 1430) with English armies in France. Although he did not scruple to circumvent unwelcome royal orders, he twice (1421 and c.1436–8) pressed, unsuccessfully, for a major English military effort to perfect the conquest of Ireland under the crown.

Elizabeth Matthew