Letters of the First Duchess of Ormonde

Elizabeth Butler, née Preston (1615–1684), was the wife of James Butler, Duke of Ormonde, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Naomi McAreavey is a lecturer of Renaissance literature at University College Dublin. She is coeditor, with Julie Eckerle, of Women’s Life Writing and Early Modern Ireland, and, with Fionnuala Dillane and Emilie Pine, of The Body in Pain in Irish Literature and Culture.

• DedicationAcknowledgementsAbbreviationsList of IllustrationsOrmonde Butler Family Table and Family TreesChronologyA Note on NamesIntroduction “The noblest person, The wisest female, and the best of wives that Ever lived”: The Duchess of Ormonde and her LettersBirth, Lineage, and MarriageThe 1641 Rebellion and Confederate WarsExile and DispossessionNegotiating the Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, 1652–1657Retirement in Dunmore, 1657–1660: Letters to the Marquess of OrmondeRestorationThe Lord Lieutenancy: The Culture of Dublin Castle, 1662–1668The Duke of Ormonde’s Dismissal: Letters to Captain George MathewDeath and LegacyA Note on the TextGeneral Description of the LettersEditorial PrinciplesThe Correspondence of Elizabeth Butler, Duchess of OrmondeEarly Marriage, 1629–1641The Confederate Wars, 1641–1648Royalist Exile in Caen, 1648–1652 The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, 1652–1657Retirement in Dunmore, 1657–1660Restoration, 1660–1662The Lord Lieutenancy, 1662–1668The Duke of Ormonde’s Dismissal, 1668–1674Final Decade, 1674–1684List of CorrespondentsPersons and PlacesGlossaryBibliography

“This is a landmark publication, enabling readers to delve deep into a rare treasure trove of letters by a leading aristocratic woman of seventeenth-century Ireland and England, spanning fifty-five years from adolescence to old age. . . .  This edition will be a much-thumbed resource for those seeking information about the wider family and three kingdoms history, as well as those with a particular interest in early modern women’s letters. It is a welcome and important contribution to scholarship on letter writing, women’s writing, and seventeenth-century Irish history, and is sure to advance the field.”