ght years in great
poverty, his rents being cut off. Although liberated in 1625 he was not
acknowledged heir to his uncle's estates until 1630. His son, Viscount
Thurles, being drowned on a passage to England, a grandson succeeded him.

This grandson, James Butler, is perhaps the most famous of the long line of
Ormondes. By his marriage with his cousin Elizabeth Preston, the Ormonde
titles were once more united with all the Ormonde estates. A loyal soldier
and statesman, he commanded for the king in Ireland, where he was between
the two fires of Catholic rebels and Protestant parliamentarians. In
Ireland he stayed long enough to proclaim Charles II. in 1649, but defeated
at Rathmines, his garrisons broken by Cromwell, he quitted the country at
the end of 1650. At the Restoration he was appointed lord-lieutenant, his
estates having been restored to him with the addition of the county
palatine of Tipperary, taken by James I. from his grandfather. In 1632 he
had been created a marquess. The English earldom of Brecknock was added in
1660 and an Irish dukedom of Ormonde in the following year. In 1682 he had
a patent for an English dukedom with the same title. Buckingham's intrigues
deprived him for seven years of his lord-lieutenancy, and a desperate
attempt was made upon his life in 1670, when a company of ruffians dragged
him from his coach in St James's Street and sought to hurry him to the
gallows at Tyburn. His son's threat that, if harm befell his father he
would pistol Buckingham, even if he were behind the king's chair, may have
saved him from assassination. At the accession of James II. he was once
more taken from active employment, and "Barzillai, crowned with honour and
with years" died at his Dorsetshire house in 1688. He had seen his
great-great-uncle the Black Earl, who was born in 1532, and a
great-grandson was playing beside him a few hours before his death. His
brave son Ossory, "the eldest hope with every grace adorned," died eight
years before him, and he was succeeded by a grandson James, the second duke
of Ormonde, who, a recognized leader of the London Jacobites, was attainted
in 1715, his honours and estates being forfeited. The duke lived thirty
years in exile, chiefly at Avignon, and died in the rebellion year of 1745
without surviving issue. His younger brother Charles, whom King William had
created Lord Butler of Weston in the English peerage and earl of Arran in
the Irish, was allowed to purchase th