Elizabeth Butler, Countess of Desmond

Elizabeth spent some of her most formative years in England, due to her father's influential role in the court of Elizabeth of England. It is believed that she resided in an apartment with her mother overlooking the river Thames, in Canon Row, before returning to live in her ancestral lands in Ireland in February of 1593.

Little is known of Elizabeth's experience of returning to Ireland, or how she felt about leaving her father and the English court. However, it has been documented that she believed that one day she would return to England to be married to a prominent English lord. While we can only assume about why she came to believe in this it is likely that she expected to advance her family's already high position in politics as marriages during this period were wield often political tools. Her fortune changed after the rebellion of 1596 in which her cousins of the Carlow line of the Butler family created turmoil over who would inherit the title of the earldom of Ormond.

As the tenth earl of Ormond had no surviving legitimate male heirs, his earldom was supposed to transfer to his brother's (Sir Edmund Butler) eldest son in Cloghgrenan. This succession, however, was jeopardised by the outbreak of rebellion in 1596 by Thomas' Cloghgrenan family. Thus, in order to protect his earldom, Thomas instead arranged for Elizabeth to marry Edmund's youngest son, Theobald, her cousin, who was too young to be implicated in the plot. This safeguarded the succession of the title and settled the threat of a successional war amongst other branches of the Butler dynasty. Thomas sought to secure a royal dispensation for Theobald to marry his daughter. Elizabeth complied content with the fact that instead of being an English countess she would become the countess of Ormond. She was coached by her grandmother, Douglas, Howard, on how to behave in the presence of the queen in order to prepare for an official court appearance. On Christmas in 1602, she made her court debut at Whitehall Palace serving as her own suitor to her marriage. Her appearance reportedly made a great impression upon the Queen. They received official permission to marry from the dying queen on 22 January 1603. Soon after her death, James I (the new monarch) ennobled Theobald as the viscount of Tulleophelim.

Despite his title, Theobald was neither wealthy nor influential and he relied upon his uncle and father-in-law, Black Tom, who proved reluctant to help out the newlyweds. Theobald blamed his wife for his lack of success and allegedly abused Elizabeth. They remained childless and after Theobald's death in 1613 the earldom of Ormond passed to Black Tom's newly anointed preferred heir, Walter Butler, the future eleventh earl of Ormond. "In the confident expectation that eventually he would inherit the vast Ormond estate, her late husband had run up many debts; the payment of these now passed to her but without the Ormond revenues."[2]

Now financially destitute, Elizabeth had to find another husband. In the autumn of 1614 she married Sir Richard Preston, Lord Dingwall a courtier from Scotland and ambassador to Venice despite her father's disapproval. They had an only child:

• Elizabeth Preston, married James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond

Her father feared the ambitions of her new husband warning his daughter to be wary of him. Black Tom died soon after and he was succeeded by Walter Butler. Preston, therefore, challenged this succession and on 3 October 1618 Elizabeth and her spouse were awarded more than half of the Ormond estate, including Kilkenny castle, although it was several years before they were able to take up residence there due to the obstruction of Walter's lawyers. Preston was in good favour with King James leading to the overturning of the succession of Walter through royal arbitration.

In July 1619, Preston and Elizabeth were ennobled as the earl and countess of Desmond as well as the Baron and Baroness of Dunmore. When the legal status of Kilkenny Castle was officially settled in 1623, Elizabeth returned to find the family home in a state of neglect with missing furniture and family heirlooms.

That same year her husband supported the succession of the Ormond title to a pretender unwittingly. Both Elizabeth and Richard seemed to have believed that there was a secret child born of an affair from the Cloughgrenan line. This claim was contested by leading members of the Butler family leading to the declaration of the person seeking the title as a fraud. Their support of this individual led to much controversy within the family and within their territories leading to Elizabeth, ultimately, leaving Ireland in August of 1624 to never return.

She died on 10 October 1628 and was eventually buried in Westminster Abbey. Her husband, Richard, drowned at sea on the way to her funeral. Their surviving daughter, Elizabeth Preston, would later marry her cousin, James Butler, future twelfth earl and first duke of Ormond.[3]

• Butler dynasty
• Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond
• History of Ireland (1536–1691)

• Dunboyne, Patrick Theobald Tower Butler, Baron (1968), Butler Family History (2nd ed.), Kilkenny: Rothe House
• Edwards, David (2003), "The Ormond lordship in County Kilkenny, 1515–1642: the rise and fall of Butler feudal power", Dublin: Four Courts Press
• Kirwan, John and Murtagh, Ben, The Chief Butlers of Ireland and The House of Ormond: An Illustrated Genealogical Guide (2018)

• Genealogy of Lady Elizabeth Butler on The Peerage website