Theobald Butler (solicitor-general)
Sir Theobald (Toby) Butler (1650-1721) was a leading barrister and politician in late seventeenth-century Ireland, who held office as Solicitor General for Ireland. He is mainly remembered for framing the civil articles of the Treaty of Limerick, and for his eloquent but unsuccessful plea to the Irish House of Commons against the passing of the Popery Act of 1703, which allowed any Protestant son of a Roman Catholic landowner to prevent his Catholic brothers from inheriting the family property. He was a much loved "character" in Dublin, and his great popularity shielded him from  the penalties which he might otherwise have suffered as a result of his religious beliefs. Only his few enemies attacked him for his willingness to come to an accommodation with the new regime in order to preserve his own property. Family. He was born at Boytonrath, County Tipperary, second of the five sons of James and Mary Butler, who were distant cousins. The various branches of the Butler dynasty were much intermarried: James belonged to the branch of the family which was headed by Baron Dunboyne, while Mary was probably a granddaughter of Walter Butler, 11th Earl of Ormonde. In  the turmoil following the Irish Rebellion of 1641 the family lost possession of their Boytonrath estate, and Toby's maternal grandfather, another James Butler, who was a staunch opponent of the Cromwellian regime, was hanged for murder on trumped up charges in 1653 (it appears that he was not accused of murder himself, but of responsibility for crimes committed by soldiers under his command). The family settled at Ballyline near Ennis, County Clare, where Toby grew up. Barrister. He entered the Inner Temple in 1671, and was called to the Irish Bar in 1676. He practiced at first on the  Connaught Circuit, then settled in Dublin, where he spent the rest of his life. His principal estate was at Saggart in County Dublin; he also had a town house at Nicholas Street in Dublin city. He was described as an "acute and artful lawyer" and one of the best advocates of his age. He was also famous for his wit. After the Glorious Revolution, according to a well-known story, a judge of questionable political loyalties said that Butler's shirt cuffs were dirty; Butler silenced him with the retort: "but my hands are clean." Even by the standards of  the Irish Bar, he was a heavy drinker: another well-known story relates that he accepted a plea from the Court not to drink wine until he had finished his argument; but later admitted that he had cheated by eating bread soaked in wine. He was a well-known "character" who regularly frequented the taverns of Dublin, especially in the rather unsavoury district called "Hell", adjoining Christ Church Cathedral. He could be quarrelsome when drunk, and in 1693 was reprimanded for assaulting another barrister, Nicholas Fitzgerald, whom he accused, on no apparent evidence, of trying to murder him, after an  all night drinking session in Waterford. Politician. Following the arrival in Ireland of King James II, who landed at Kinsale in March 1689, Butler, who was loyal to James and a devout Roman Catholic, became for a short time a figure of some political importance. He sat in the Patriot Parliament as MP for Ennis, and was knighted. He was briefly Third Serjeant and Solicitor General, Recorder of Clonmel, second justice of the Palatine Court of Tipperary, and a Commissioner of the Revenue, and he sat on a Commission to examine the validity of Royal Charters. Treaty of Limerick. After  the downfall of James II's cause, Butler played a key role in drawing up the civil articles of the Treaty of Limerick, which were intended as a permanent settlement of Ireland's political problems; he was assisted by two other prominent Catholic barristers, John Browne and Garrett Dillon. While he has been criticised for his alleged lack of attention to points of detail, in fact the terms which he obtained were remarkably generous to the defeated side, and are a tribute to his political and legal skills. Catholic landowners (and those Protestants who had supported the Jacobite cause) who  declared their loyalty to King William III were not to suffer any penalties, and would retain their lands and the right to keep and bear arms. Unfortunately for the Catholic landowners, it quickly became clear that the dominant faction in the Parliament of Ireland did not intend to honour the Treaty: after weeks of acrimonious debate Parliament was prorogued and the issue of ratification was dropped for good. During his later years Sir Toby was troubled by a lawsuit over his Saggart estate, brought by the informer John Brenan, and another over certain lands in County Galway, which was brought  against him by Penelope, Lady Prendergast, widow of Sir Thomas Prendergast. The case reached the House of Lords in 1720, but was not concluded there: it went on for 40 years, long after Sir Toby's death. Lady Prendergast was a determined litigant who was involved in numerous lawsuits in her later years, although it is fair to say that her aim was not greed, but a wish to safeguard her son's inheritance. Death and reputation. He died in March 1721 and was buried in the churchyard of St James' Church in Dublin city. His burial in a Protestant  churchyard may simply be a tribute to his almost universal popularity; on the other hand it may be evidence that he did occasionally attend Church of Ireland services. His memorial, which still exists, and was restored by his descendants in the 1870s, has a very simply Latin inscription by his eldest son James praising "the best of fathers". This high opinion of Butler seems to have been generally shared: Jonathan Swift called him a man who was "universally beloved". One of the few dissenting voices, speaking for those embittered Catholics who had lost everything under the new regime, said that  he deserved a place in Purgatory, along with the notably accommodating judge Denis Daly, who had also recently died. Marriage and children. He married Margaret Roche, daughter of Dominick Roche, Mayor of Limerick, on whom James II during his time in Ireland conferred the titles Viscount Cahiravahilla and Baron Tarbert, and his wife Agnes Burke of Cahirmichael. They had at least five sons- James, John (the owner of Ballymount House in South Dublin), Theobald, Jordan and Henry- and a daughter Frances, who married her cousin Thomas Butler, 6th Baron Cahir.