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2ND DUKE OF JAMES BUTLER ORMONDE (166...

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Originally appearing in Volume V20, Page 298 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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2ND

DUKE OF JAMES BUTLER ORMONDE (1665-1745)  , Irish statesman and soldier, son of Thomas,
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earl of Ossory, and grandson of the 1st duke, was born in
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Dublin on the 29th of
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April 1665, and was educated in France and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford . On the
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death of his
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father in 168o he became earl of Ossory by courtesy . He obtained command of a cavalry regiment in Ireland in 1684, and having received an appointment at court on the accession of James II., he served against the duke of Monmouth . Having succeeded his grandfather as duke of Ormonde in 1688, he joined William of Orange, by whom he was made colonel of a regiment of horse-guards, which he commanded at the
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battle of the
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Boyne . In 1691 he served on the continent under William, and after the accession of Anne he was placed in command of the
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land forces co-operating with
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Sir George Rooke in Spain . Having been made a privy councillor, Ormonde succeeded Rochester as viceroy of Ireland in 1703, a
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post which he held till 1707 . On the dismissal of the duke of Marlborough in 1711, Ormonde was appointed captain.. general in his place, and allowed himself to be made the tool of the Tory
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ministry, whose policy was to carry on the war in the
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Netherlands while giving secret orders to Ormonde to take no active
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part in supporting their allies under Prince
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Eugene Ormonde's position as captain-general made him a personage of much importance in the crisis brought about by the death of Queen Anne . Though he had supported the revolution of 1688, he was traditionally a Tory, and Lord Bolingbroke was his
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political leader . During the last years of Queen Anne he almost certainly had Jacobite leanings, and corresponded with the duke of Berwick . He joined Bolingbroke and Oxford, however, in
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signing the proclamation of King George I., by whom he was nevertheless deprived of the captain-generalship . In
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June 1715 he was impeached, and fled to France, where he for some time resided with Bolingbroke, and in 1716 his immense estates were confiscated to the
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crown by act of parliament, though by a subsequent act his
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brother, Charles Butler, earl of Arran, was enabled to repurchase them . After taking part in the Jacobite invasion in 1715, Ormonde settled in Spain, where he was in favour at court and enjoyed a pension from the crown .

Towards the end of his

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life he resided much at
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Avignon, where he was seen in 1733 by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu . Ormonde died on the 16th of November 1745, and was buried in Westminster Abbey . With little of his grandfather's ability, and inferior to him in
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elevation of character, Ormonde was nevertheless one of the
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great figures of his time . Handsome, dignified, magnanimous and open-handed, and
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free from the meanness, treachery and venality of many of his leading contemporaries, he enjoyed a popularity which, with greater stability of purpose, might have enabled him to exercise commanding influence over events . 298 See Thomas Carte, Hist. of the Life of James, Duke of Ormonde (6 vols., Oxford, 1851), which contains much information respecting the life of the second duke; Earl Stanhope, Hist. of England, comprising the Reign of Queen Anne until the Peace of Utrecht (
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London, 187o) ; F . W . Wyon, Hist. of Great Britain during the Reign of Queen Anne (2 vols., London, 1876) ; William Coxe,
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Memoirs of Marl-borough (3 vols., new edition, London, 1847) .

End of Article: 2ND DUKE OF JAMES BUTLER ORMONDE (1665-1745)
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