The noblest Person, The wisest female:

The 1st Duchess of Ormonde and her letters

Upon viewing the painting of the countess of Ormonde with her young son in the Portrait Gallery at Kilkenny Castle, you would be forgiven for assuming that her main duty was to produce a male heir.

In fact, this was only one of her many responsibilities as co-head of one of the most powerful dynasties in early modern Ireland.

Elizabeth Butler, née Preston (1615–84), had inherited, through her mother (daughter and heir to the 10th Earl of Ormonde), more than half of the Ormonde estate, including Kilkenny Castle.

Her marriage to her second cousin, James Butler, Viscount Thurles, reunited the estate and title when he became 12th Earl. Alongside her illustrious husband, she enjoyed a dizzying ascent from Viscountess Thurles and Baroness Dingwall in her own right, to countess, marchioness, and then duchess of Ormonde.

At the peak of their power, she and the duke were the most influential couple in 17th-century Ireland.

This exhibition brings to life the woman behind the portrait by showing examples from the collection of more than 300 of Elizabeth’s surviving letters.

From her earliest letter, composed when she was a young bride in her mid-teens, to the last, sent as a great-grandmother in her late sixties, she emerges as a capable wife, wise mother, indulgent grandmother, loyal friend, generous benefactor, and demanding mistress.

Her handwritten letters reveal the importance of her letter-writing to the advancement of the interests of the Ormonde/Butler family during the tumultuous decades of the mid-17th century.

When the couple was separated, exiled, and dispossessed during the Cromwellian era, their survival was due as much to Elizabeth’s efforts as to her husband’s.

The petition letter to Cromwell that led to the restitution of a portion of the Ormonde estate and her return to Dunmore House in Kilkenny in the 1650s is the centrepiece of the exhibition.

Other letters, written to her husband, sons, friends, and agents, reveal her wide-ranging activities.

She managed the household, estates, and finances; maintained and expanded social networks; distributed patronage and charity; oversaw her children’s education and marriages; and kept a cool head during a crisis.

This exhibition showcases the duchess’s role in preserving the honour and interests of the Ormonde/Butler family.

In this correspondence we can see the vitality of Elizabeth’s writing and the material and rhetorical power of her letters.

The vigour of the letters is evident even in the way she signed her name. Elizabeth, unlike her husband, always used the terminal ‘e’ in ‘Ormonde’.

At a time when spelling was not yet standardised, Elizabeth’s consistent identification with the feminine ‘e’ tantalisingly suggests an attempt to differentiate herself from her husband and stake her own unique claim to the Ormonde name.

By adopting her spelling of Ormonde rather than her husband’s, this exhibition aims to restore the first duchess to her rightful position in the illustrious history of the Ormonde/Butlers of Kilkenny Castle.