Richard Butler, 5th Viscount Mountgarret

Richard Butler
5th Viscount Mountgarret
5th Viscount Mountgarret
Reign1679–1707
PredecessorEdmund Butler, 4th Viscount Mountgarret
SuccessorEdmund Butler, 6th Viscount Mountgarret
Died27 February 1707
Noble familyButler
Spouse(s)Emily Blundell (m. 1661)
IssueEdmund Butler, 6th Viscount Mountgarret
FatherEdmund Butler, 4th Viscount Mountgarret
MotherLady Dorothy Tuchet

Richard Butler, 5th Viscount Mountgarret (died 27 February 1707) was an Irish soldier and politician.

Biography

Butler was the son of Edmund Butler, 4th Viscount Mountgarret and Lady Dorothy Tuchet, daughter of Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl of Castlehaven.

He was a captain in the French Royal Army. A devout Roman Catholic, he was imprisoned for his faith in Liverpool in 1658 under The Protectorate. On 5 April 1679 he succeeded to his father's peerage. In 1689, he was summoned to the Irish House of Lords by James II of England in the brief Patriot Parliament.[1] He raised a regiment, of which he was colonel, in support of James II in the Williamite War in Ireland.[2]

Despite his support for the Jacobites, he was not targeted by Williamite reprisals. He refused to take the Oath of Supremacy when attending the Irish House of Lords in 1692, but in 1697 he secured a reversal of the outlawry passed against his grandfather, Richard Butler.

He married, firstly, Emily Blundell, daughter of William Blundell and Anne Haggerston, in September 1661. Together they had three sons, including Butler's heir, Edmund. He married, secondly, Margaret Shee, daughter of Richard Shee, after 1682.

References

  1. ^ O'Hart, John, The Irish Parliament of King James the Second in 1689, Irish Pedigrees: or the Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation (5th Ed., 1892), Volume 2. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
  2. ^ BUTLER, Richard, 5th Viscount Mountgarret. Officers of the Jacobite Armies. Centre for Robert Burns Studies, University of Glasgow. Retrieved 15 February 2023.