Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran

Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran

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Lieutenant-General Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran, de jure 3rd Duke of Ormonde (4 September 1671 – 17 December 1758) was an Irish peer, younger son of the 6th Earl of Ossory and the former Emelia van Nassau. His paternal grandfather was the 1st Duke of Ormonde, and his elder brother the 2nd Duke of Ormonde.

On 8 March 1693 he was created Earl of Arran in the Peerage of Ireland, and the next year, on 23 January 1694, he was further created Baron Butler, of Weston in the County of Huntingdon, in the Peerage of England. He married Elizabeth Crew, daughter of the 2nd Baron Crew and the former Anne Airmine, on 3 June 1705 in Oatlands, at Weybridge in Surrey. The marriage was childless.

Arran was a Lord of the Bedchamber to King William III, a Lieutenant-General in the Army, Colonel of the 3rd Troop of Horse Guards, Governor of Dover Castle, and Master-General of the Ordnance from 1712 to 1714.

His elder brother was attainted in 1715, whereupon all his honours were assumed to have been forfeit. However, it was later ruled that the attainder, enacted by the Parliament of Great Britain, applied only to his British titles (i.e. those in the Peerages of England and Scotland), and not to his Irish titles. Lord Arran therefore legally succeeded on his brother's death on 5 November 1745 as 3rd Duke of Ormonde in the Peerage of Ireland, but was never aware of so succeeding. He had, however, been created Duke of Arran in the Jacobite Peerage of England by the Old Pretender (Jacobite "King James III") on 2 January 1722.

On Arran's death, the Earldom of Arran, the Barony of Butler (of Weston) and the Jacobite Dukedom of Arran (such as it was) became extinct, along with the Dukedom and Marquessate of Ormonde. The rest of his de jure Irish titles, including the Earldom of Ormonde, passed to his kinsman John Butler, but remained dormant.

His claim to the Barony of Butler (of Moore Park) and the Lordship of Dingwall (both attainted along with the English Dukedom of Ormonde) passed to his niece, Lady Frances Elliot, eldest daughter of the 1st Earl of Grantham and Arran's sister, the former Lady Henrietta Butler, and eventually passed to the Earls Cowper (descendants of Lord Grantham's youngest daughter), the attainder finally being reversed in 1871 in favour of the 7th Earl.