1 - White Earl to the Great Earl, 1442–96

Summary

azsThe first four earls of Ormond augmented their inheritance and title over the centuries, enjoying a continual rise since the founding of the comital houses in 1326. Located between both Geraldine earldoms, the Butlers of Ormond did, however, face geographical disadvantages and Kilkenny castle was some distance from the administrative centre of the Lordship. By the time James Butler, the ‘White Earl’ of Ormond, served as deputy Lieutenant for the third time in 1442, he was the most prominent old colonial magnate in the early fifteenth century. Despite acrimony with the Talbots and insidious Geraldine-Butler feuding in Munster, Ormond's career in general was marked by a broad vision that echoed his dominance. This feuding was intermittent. Ormond maintained good relations with Desmond in the 1420s as commissioners of the peace were well briefed but by 1441 co-operation had ceased. As governor, warlord and politician he was belligerent, successfully holding power in what was a ruthlessly competitive environment. Like his bitter rival, John Talbot, Shakespeare's ‘great Alcides of the field’, Ormond served in France under Henry V up to 1420. Efficient and aggressive, as demonstrated by the regulations of coign in his ‘Ordinances’, Ormond's patria and patronage were also broad in scope. The Ormond strategy in Ulster had been to counterbalance O’Neill and O’Donnell. Even as Richard Nugent, baron of Delvin, held the viceregal office in 1448–9, peace in Uriel and south-east Ulster ‘twene english and yrish (was made) by auctoritie of (the) depute and the Eirle of Ormond’. In 1449, when Ormond intervened in the O’Reilly lordship, he was indispensable as Richard duke of York pursued the vestigial earldom of Ulster.

Ormond-Talbot feuding erupted again in the early 1440s.Archbishop of Dublin Richard Talbot and the (disputed) Geraldine prior of Kilmainham Thomas Fitzgerald had been vehemently opposed, with ‘malice’, to Ormond.10 Giles Thorndon originally a royal intermediary serving as Treasurer was driven from Ireland under intimidation from the deputy Lieutenant. He was accused of having consorted ‘with…Thomas Fitzmorice, a notorious traitor…broken the king's prison and gaol in which lay Brother Thomas Fitzgerot styling himself prior of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in Ireland’.