Richard Preston, 1st Earl of Desmond

Richard Preston, 1st Earl of Desmond (died 1628) was a favourite of King James VI and I of Scotland and England. In 1609 the king made him Lord Dingwall. In 1614 he married him to Elizabeth Butler, the only child of Black Tom, the 10th Earl of Ormond. In 1619 he created him Earl of Desmond.

Richard Preston
Earl of Desmond
Died	28 October 1628
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Butler, Countess of Desmond
Detail Issue Elizabeth
Father	Richard Preston of Whitehill

Background and early life

Richard was born the third son of Richard Preston of Whitehill in Midlothian, near Edinburgh. His family was gentry of the Edinburgh area and owned Craigmillar Castle in the late 16th and early 17th century.

Family tree

Richard Preston with wife, parents, and other selected relatives. James 10th Earl d. 1529 James 9th Earl 1496–1546 Joan FitzGerald d. 1565 Thomas 10th Earl c. 1531 – 1614 Black Tom Elizabeth Sheffield John of Kilcash d. 1570 Katherine MacCarthy Theobald Viscount Tulleophelim d. 1613 Elizabeth Butler c. 1585 – 1628 Richard Preston 1st Earl Desmond d. 1628) Walter 11th Earl 1559 – 1633 'Beads' Helen Butler d. 1631 Thomas Viscount Thurles d. 1619 d.v.p.* Elizabeth Pointz 1587–1673 Elizabeth Preston 1615–1684 James 1st Duke 1610–1688 Richard of Kilcash 1615–1701 Thomas 6th Earl Ossory 1633–1680 d.v.p.* Emilia von Nassau 1635–1688 Richard 1st Earl Arran 1639–1684 Elizabeth Countess of Chesterfield 1640–1665 Walter of Garryricken d. 1700 Legend XXX Richard Preston XXX Earls & dukes of Ormond XXX Earls of Desmond *d.v.p. = predeceased his father (decessit vita patris). This family tree is partly derived from the condensed Butler family tree pictured in Dunboyne.[1] Also see the lists of siblings and children in the text.

Early life

His family placed Richard (the younger) as a page at the King's court in Edinburgh where it is mentioned in that capacity in 1591.[2]

Favourite

King James I and IV of Scotland and England had a series of personal relationships with male courtiers, called his favourites, suspected to have been the king's homosexual partners. Esmé Stewart, whom he made Earl and Duke of Lennox, seems to have been the first. After the Raid of Ruthven in 1582, the King was forced to exile Lord Lennox to France.[3]

Richard, the page, gained the king's special favour in the 1580s or 1590s after Lennox's departure. When James acceded the English throne as James I in 1603, Richard accompanied him to England and was knighted at the King's coronation in London on 25 July 1603 in the old elaborate ceremony that included the bathing of the new knight.[4] He then was made a groom of the privy chamber.[5] In 1607 Richard was appointed constable of Dingwall Castle in Scotland.[6] He bought the barony of Dingwall and on 8 June 1609 the King created him Lord Dingwall.[7] In London the King met in 1608 Robert Carr who became his favourite and seems to have supplanted the Lord Dingwall, as he was now, in that role.

Marriage and child

In 1614 the King arranged for Lord Dingwall a marriage with the rich heiress Lady Elizabeth Butler, only daughter of the Black Tom, the 10th Earl of Ormonde and widow of Theobald Butler, 1st Viscount Butler of Tulleophelim,[8] who died childless in January 1613.[9]

The King imposed this marriage on Black Tom, Elizabeth's father, who did not want the royal favourite for a son-in-law but could not oppose the King's will.[10] Black Tom died soon after the marriage on 22 November 1614.[11]

An only child was born of this marriage:

• Elizabeth (1615–1684), married James Butler and became Duchess of Ormond.[12]

Later life and death

On 19 July 1619 Lord Dingwall was created the 1st Earl of Desmond in the third creation of that title.[13] In its first creation, the Earldom of Desmond had been held by the Hiberno-Norman FitzGerald dynasty. After the failure of the Second Desmond Rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I of England, the Geraldine earldom was forfeited to the Crown in 1582 and all its heirs attainted. The title was created for the second time for James Fitzgerald – a pathetic creature of the Crown who died penniless and without issue. After Richard Preston's death, the third creation became extinct in its turn. A fourth creation of the title passed to the family of the Earls of Denbigh.

Alfred Webb tells us of this creation of the earldom of Desmond that:

Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond, in right of his mother, Joan FitzGerald, daughter of the 11th Earl of Desmond, claimed the Earldom after the death and attainder of all the heirs male. When his daughter was married to James I.'s Scotch favourite, Sir Richard Preston, the title was conferred on him. When the only child of the latter, a daughter, was about to be married to the son of the Earl of Denbigh, the title was passed to the intended bridegroom. The marriage never took place; yet the title was retained [by] the Earls of Denbigh.[14]

On 26 May 1623, King James I made the young James Butler, the future Duke of Ormond, a ward of Lord Desmond, and placed James at Lambeth, London, under the care of George Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury to be brought up as a Protestant.[15]

His wife, Elizabeth Butler died on 10 October 1628 in Wales.[16] On 28 October 1628 Lord Desmond was drowned on a passage between Dublin and Holyhead.[17][18]

Timeline
As his birth date is uncertain, so are all his ages.
Age	Date	Event
0	1580, estimate	Born, near Edinburgh.
11	1591	Page at the court in Edinburgh.[2]
23	1603, 24 Mar	Accession of King James I, replacing Queen Elizabeth I.[19]
27	1607	Made constable of Dingwall Castle.[6]
29	1609, 8 Jun	Became Lord Dingwall.[7]
34	1614	Married Elizabeth Butler.[8]
34	1614, 22 Nov	His father-in-law, Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond, died at Carrick.[11]
35	1615, 25 Jul	Daughter born.[12]
39	1619, 16 Jul	Became Earl of Desmond.[13]
45	1625, 27 Mar	Accession of King Charles I, replacing King James I.[20]
48	1628, 10 Oct	His wife died in Wales.[16]
48	1628, 28 Oct	Drowned on a passage between Dublin and Holyhead[17][18]

Notes

1. Dunboyne 1968, pp. 16–17: "Butler Family Tree condensed"
2. Paul 1906, p. 121, line 11: "I. RICHARD PRESTON, third son of Richard Preston of Whitehill, was attached to the royal household, and in 1591 is styled 'page.'"
3. Paul 1906, p. 356, line 16: "The success of the Raid of Ruthven forced King James VI. to sign an order for his departure in 1582 ..."
4. Cokayne 1890, p. 128, line 3: "... was made K.B. at his coronation, 25 July 1603 ..."
5. Crawfurd 1716, p. 92: "He was educated at the Court, and being of an agreeable and winning Deportment, he soon grew into his Majesty's special favour, attaining first the honour of knighthood, and e're long was made one of the Grooms of the Bed Chamber."
6. Paul 1908, p. 121, line 25: "... had the Constabulary of Dingwall bestowed on him 1607."
7. Paul 1906, p. 121, line 27: "...[Richard] was on 8 June 1609 created LORD DINGWALL, with remainder to his heirs and assigns whatsoever."
8. Paul 1906, p. 121, line 29: "He married, through the influence of the King, in 1614, Elizabeth Butler, widow of Theobald, Viscount Butler of Tulleophelim, and daughter and only surviving child of Thomas, tenth Earl of Ormonde and Ossory."
9. Cokayne 1895, p. 150, line 8: "TULLEOPHELIM [I.] who d. s.p. Jany. 1613. ..."
10. Carte 1851, p. cxv, line 22: "... the king obliged the earl of Ormond to marry his daughter to Sir Richard Preston, a Scots gentleman who had been bred up with him and was highly in his favour."
11. Cokayne 1895, p. 148, line 30: "He d. at Carrick, 22 Nov. 1614, aged82, having been 15 years blind."
12. Cokayne 1895, p. 150, line 5: "She [Elizabeth Preston] who was b. 25 July 1615 ..."
13. Paul 1906, p. 122, line 2: "By the influence of the Duke of Buckingham Lord Dingwall was, on the 19 July 1619, created BARON DUMORE co. Kilkenny and EARL OF DESMOND in the peerage of Ireland."
14. Webb 1878, p. 146, left column, line 15.
15. Lodge 1789, p. 43, line 28: "He was granted in Ward 26 May 1623 to Richard, Earl of Desmond, and by order of K. James I educated under the eye of Doctor George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury ..."
16. Paul 1906, p. 122, line 15: "Lord Dingwall's wife, Elizabeth Butler, died in Wales 10 October 1628 ..."
17. Cokayne 1890, p. 89, line 29: "... he [Richard Preston] died s.p.m. 28 Oct. 1628 ..."
18. Paul 1906, p. 122, line 16: "... and he was drowned on the passage between Dublin and Holyhead eighteen days later, 28 October same year [1628]."
19. Smyth 1839, p. xiii, line 17: "James I. / [Accession] / 24 March 1603"
20. Smyth 1839, p. xiii, line 18: "Charles I. / [Accession] / 27 March, 1625"

References

• Carte, Thomas (1851). The Life of James Duke of Ormond. 1 (new ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. – 1613 to 1641
• Cokayne, George Edward (1890). The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. 3 (1st ed.). London: George Bell and Sons. – D to F (for Desmond)
• Cokayne, George Edward (1895). The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant. 6 (1st ed.). London: George Bell and Sons. – N to R (for Ormond)
• Crawfurd, George (1716). The Peerage of Scotland: Containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Nobility of that Kingdom. Edinburgh: Printed for the author.
• Dunboyne, Patrick Theobald Tower Butler, Baron (1968). Butler Family History (2nd ed.). Kilkenny: Rothe House.
• Lodge, John (1789). The Peerage of Ireland. 4. Dublin: James Moore. – Viscounts (for Butler, Viscount Mountgarrett)
• Paul, Sir James Balfour (1906). The Scots Peerage, Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland. 3. Edinburgh: David Douglas. – Crawford to Falkland (for Dingwall)
• Paul, Sir James Balfour (1908). The Scots Peerage, Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland. 5. Edinburgh: David Douglas. – Innermeath to Mar (for Lennox)
• Smyth, Constantine (1839). Chronicle of the Law Officers of Ireland. London: Henry Butterworth. (for Table of reigns)
• Webb, Alfred (1878). "Desmond, John". Compendium of Irish Biography. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son. pp. 146, left column.