Edmund FitzThomas Butler (abt. 1470 - abt. 1523)

Born about 1470 in County Tipperary, Ireland

Ancestors

Husband of Catherine Le Poer — married before 1510 in Ireland

Descendants

Died about 1523 at about age 53 in County Tipperary, Ireland

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Biography

Edmund -- son of Thomas Butler, of Cahir-dun-Eske, and Ellice, daughter of Thomas, [7th] Earl of Desmond -- married Catherine, daughter of Sir Piers le Poer, Knight, and they had at least 2 sons: Thomas, 1st Baron Cahir (ca.1510-1557) and Piers Butler (ca.1512-1567), whose son Theobald eventually inherited the Cahir title.^[1]

Notes on Edmund's pedigree:

• Edmund Butler was 4 generations below James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormond, via his illegitimate son James "Gallda" Butler.

• He was the grandson of Piers Butler, Lord of Cahir (d.1464), whose son Thomas waged open warfare with his 2nd cousin James Butler of Polestown, Kilkenny.
  • "From the 1450s onwards the Butlers of Cahir charted their own independent course in Munster, and were not fully returned to comital control till the 1520s."^[2]

• Cokayne's Peerage refers to him as Edmund of "Caher-down-Eske, in the barony of Kiltenenen."^[3]

Timeline:

• After 1515: "I, said Edmund, have released and quit-claimed for ever for me and my heirs to lord Peter Butler, Earl of Ormond, his heirs and assigns, all my claim in the abovesaid manors, castles, lands and tenements." (Dorso: "Sir Edmond Butler of the Cahir a release to Piers Earl of Ormond, of Blakecastell, Littleisland, etc.")^[4]

• 1517: This was the year of the famous "Composition" between Edmund FitzThomas of the Cahir and his cousin Piers Butler (8th Earl of Ormond), signed in Clonmel in August 1517 in the presence of many witnesses. Verbatim from the Ormond Deeds:^[5]
  • "By their mutual consent, for the settling of disputes between the two parties and establishing mutual peace and friendship."
  • "After reciting a long course of discords between the two parties and their ancestors, the occasion of murders, preyings, arsons, destruction of castles, etc., the instrument proceeds to say that the Earl and Edmund have taken oath on the Baculum Jesu, the "wood of the True Cross of Wochtirlawn (Holy Cross)," and other sacred relics."
  • "The Earl's lordship over the whole country is affirmed. All the men in that country are both in their persons and their lands to be obedient and faithful to the Earl."
  • "And for confirming this peace and composition ... the Earl shall deliver the manor of Cahir with all its appurtenances to Edmund his cousin on this condition viz., that Edmund and his heirs shall be in all things faithful and true to the Earl and his heirs."
  • "Whenever any strangers shall attack, injure or prey the said Edmund or that county, then all the horsemen, Scots, footmen and all others, both gentry and husbandmen, shall rise in defence of Edmund and of the Baron of Dunboyne."^[6]
  • "This document, which was so important that it was attested by many of the chief men of Ireland at the time, both English and Gaelic, marks the beginning of the Butler branch who were barons of Cahir, county Tipperary."

• 1523: Release of Claims to the Earldom of Ormond. Letters patent of Edmund Butler, son of Thomas son of Peter Butler, by which he releases and quit-claims for himself and his heirs to Piers, Earl of Ormond, all claims that he may have to the lordships, manors, castles, towns, hamlets, messuages, lands, tenements, rents, services, etc., etc., whatsoever belonging to the name and honour of Earl of Ormond. September 26, 1523.^[7]

• 1515-1523:^[8] "Whereas James Boteler, [3rd] Earl of Ormond, father of James, the White [4th] Earl of Ormond, gave and granted to Catherine, daughter of Gerald, late Earl of Desmond, his manor of Blackcastle in Meath and his castle of Lytellhylond near Waterford with divers other manors, to have and to hold to the said Catherine for the term of her life so that after her death the said manors, castles, lands and tenements should remain entire to [her 4 illegitimate sons with the 3rd Earl of Ormond] James, Edmund, Gerald and Theobald, the issue between the said James, [3rd] Earl of Ormond, and Catherine begotten; to have and to hold the said manors, etc., and afterwards the said manors should descend to me Edmund, son and heir of Thomas Botiller [Katherine's FitzGerald's great-grandson], by the form of the above grant, know that I, said Edmund, have released and quit-claimed for ever for me and my heirs to lord Peter Butler, [8th] Earl of Ormond, his heirs and assigns, all my claim in the abovesaid manors, castles, lands and tenements. In witness whereof to this writing I have put my seal. [Dated 1515-1523]^[9]
  • Dorso: Sir Edmond Butler of the Cahir, a release to Piers, Earl of Ormond, of Blakecastell, Littleisland, etc.

• Edmund died ca.1523, and his widow re-married, to Sir John Grace of Courtstown.^[10][11]

Edmund is possibly the Cahir Butler whose tombstone was erected in the 1530s at the Franciscan Church on Abbey St., Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.^[12]

From The History of Clonmel:^[13]

• "Edmund Butler, Baron of Cahir, according to his custom, was one day hearing mass in this church when word was brought that the Earl of Ormond and the Baron of Dunboyne, with their followers in great force, were invading his territory. Without the least sign of being disconcerted, he made up his mind to remain to the end of mass. For he thought it unworthy for any human consideration, to lose mass by which, through the power of prayer, the enemy might be more easily overcome than by military force. Moreover, one could suffer no great loss who neglected everything rather than leave the divine, propitiatory sacrifice, uncompleted. Nor was he disappointed for when mass was over, he with a few relatives and fighting men, delivered an attack, recovered spoils and prey, upset the design of a powerful enemy, and put them to disgraceful flight."

Formal complaint to Henry VIII

Excerpted from History of Clonmel, with light edits for clarity:^[14]

• In 1542 a body of [Irishmen]^[15] petitioned King Henry VIII and told a story piteous in its quaint details. The petitioners were Thomas Prendergast^[16] of Newcastle, James Keating of Moortown, James Walsh of Rathronan, James Oge Wall of Finglas, Richard son of William Butler of Kilcash, Geoffry Mockler of Mocklerstown, St. John of St. Johnstown, William Power^[17] of Rathcoole, John Comyn of Kilconnell, Richard fitz Theobald of Ballylynch, Richard son of William and grandson of John Butler^[18] of Cabragh, James Oge Butler^[19] of Lismalin, Geoffry Fanning of Ballingarry, James Laffan of Graystown, Pierce fitz Richard Butler of Moykelly and John O'Neill of Maynestown.

• They and their ancestors, they said, provided a retinue by which the Earls of Ormond as lords of the liberty of Tipperary right well governed and defended the said county. On the departure of the White Earl to England in 1430 he divided the county into certain districts among his kinsfolk assigning to each of them a proportion of the agreed retinue. These kinsfolk "entered into such a wrongfull inordynate pride and malicious division between them selfs that they fell suddenly out of their good obedience to be murderers and mansleers of either other."

• Though the Earl on his return restored the county to its " prestynate estate," his sons as Earls of Wiltshire [5th, 6th, 7th Earls of Ormond] resided wholly in England. During this period again the Ormond kinsfolk partly by joining in the Irish wars, partly by internecine strife "brought the countrie not oonely into disobedience but also in effect, into utter desolation and waste saving a few castells and so contynued till about 1524."

• The late Earl of Ormond [referring to Piers, 8th Earl, d.1539] "to the great daunger of his person at sundry tymes began to styrr soo with Syr Edmunde Butler [of Cahir] and Syr James Butler [of Kiltinane]^[20] being then men of good power and strongely allied with the Brenes [O'Briens] as with the Desmonds that he readoptid vnto him agayn moche of the power of the same retynue that were so commytted by his auncestors vnto the auncestors of the said Syr Edmonde and Syr James."

• The Kiltinane Butlers were soon brought into subjection but not so with the lords of Cahir. Edmund Butler cousin german of the Earls of Desmond and married to a daughter of Lord Power [Piers], despised the orders of the lords deputy though sworn for performance thereof. His son Sir Thomas Butler [created 1st Baron Cahir in 1543] "slakith not to sesse [cess] and exacte many kinds of inordynate exactions and taxes daily."

Sources

• Calendar of Ormond Deeds, Vol. 4 (1509-1547), compiled and translated in the 1930s by historian Edmund Curtis from records kept in Kilkenny Castle:
  • https://www.irishmanuscripts.ie/digital/Calendar%20of%20Ormond%20Deeds%20Vol.%20IV.%201509-1547/Calendar%20of%20Ormond%20Deeds%20Vol.%20IV.%201509-1547.pdf

• Burke's Peerage

• The following article has context on the conflict among the various Butler branches in the 1400s and early 1500s -- including the Dunboynes, the Polestowns, and the Cahirs, including the "Composition of 1515", in which Edmund FitzThomas Butler, Lord of Cahir, agreed to make amends with Piers Butler, the newly-titled 8th Earl of Ormond:
  • C. A. Empey and Katharine Simms, "The Ordinances of the White Earl and the Problem of Coign in the Later Middle Ages", Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. 75 (1975), pp.161-187:
    • https://www.jstor.org/stable/25506307

• History of Cahir Castle through the ages, from the blog entry (11 Sep 2020) of Rev. Patrick Comerford:
  • http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2020/09/cahir-castle-childhood-pit-stop-and.html

1. ↑ Burke, A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire (1866), p.96:
   • https://books.google.nl/books?id=1ysWkXKSrpIC&vq
2. ↑ Dictionary of Irish Biography profile for Piers Butler, Lord of Cahir (d.1464):
   • https://www.dib.ie/biography/butler-piers-a1275
3. ↑ https://archive.org/details/completepeerageo02coka/page/464/mode/2up
4. ↑ Calendar of Ormond Deeds, Vol. 4, item #26, p.20
5. ↑ Calendar of Ormond Deeds, Vol. 4, item #49, pp.43+
6. ↑ Two years later, in 1519, the Baron of Dunboyne married Joan, daughter of Piers, 8th Earl of Ormond.
7. ↑ Calendar of Ormond Deeds, Vol. 4, item #90, p.79
8. ↑ Edmund Curtis, the historian who transcribed the Ormond Deeds in the 1930s, suggests a date range of 1515-1539 for this document. However, we know today that Edmund Butler of Cahir was dead by 1523.
9. ↑ Calendar of Ormond Deeds, Vol.4, p.20. Search here for Ormond Deeds to find all 6 volumes:
   • https://www.irishmanuscripts.ie/product-category/imc-digital-editions/
10. ↑ John O'Hart (Irish Pedigrees) indicates that the same Catherine Le Poer married Sir John Grace:
    • https://www.libraryireland.com/Pedigrees2/grace-1.php
11. ↑ The marriage of Catherine Le Poer and Sir John Grace is mentioned here, with more details about their children:
    • http://megalithicireland.com/St%20Canice's%20Cathedral,%20Effigial%20Tombs.html
12. ↑ Margaret M. Phelan. “The O'Kerin School of Monumental Sculpture in Ossory and Its Environs in the 16th and 17th Centuries.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol.126 (1996), p.172:
    • https://www.jstor.org/stable/25549811
13. ↑ William P. Burke, History of Clonmel (N. Harvey & Co., Waterford, Ireland, 1907), p.300 (attributed to Wadding):
    • https://archive.org/details/historyclonmel00burkgoog/page/300/mode/2up?q=cahir
14. ↑ William P. Burke, History of Clonmel (N. Harvey & Co., Waterford, Ireland, 1907), Chapter 3, pp.22-23:
    • https://archive.org/details/historyclonmel00burkgoog/page/n40/mode/1up?view=theater
15. ↑ The author refers to them as "younger sons" of great Irish families, but the list also appears to include hereditary lords (eldest sons) of smaller landholdings, such as Geoffrey Fanning.
16. ↑ Given the family context, Thomas Prendergast of Newcastle was the likely father of James FitzThomas Prendergast (d.1575)
17. ↑ Possibly the same Sir William Power (born ca.1500) who was the younger son of Sir Piers Power.
18. ↑ John Butler of Cabragh was the son of James, 7th Baron Dunboyne (ca.1406-1445)
19. ↑ Father of Piers Oge Butler of Lismalin
20. ↑ Possibly referring to James Butler, 10th Baron Dunboyne, whose son Edmond (the next Baron Dunboyne) held lands in Kiltinan ca.1550. See History of Clonmel, p.433:
    • https://archive.org/details/historyclonmel00burkgoog/page/n485/mode/1up?view=theater