The duke's first wife, Lady Anne Hyde, daughter of Viscount Hyde of Kenilworth, died in January 1685, leaving one daughter, Lady Mary Butler, who died in infancy. At the time of his second marriage, he was still styled Earl of Ossory.
In 1688, on the death of his grandfather, the earl succeeded to the dukedom. His wife then became a duchess. The earl was also appointed a Knight of the Order of the Garter on 28 September that year.
The duke and duchess had a son and two daughters:[3]
In 1715, because of his support for the Jacobite rising of 1715, her husband's titles were forfeited and he was obliged to go into exile. It was eventually ruled that the attainder enacted by the Parliament, applied only to his titles in the Peerages of England and Scotland, not to his Irish titles, which were later restored on behalf of his brother, Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran.[6]
The duchess is thought not to have had any contact with her husband during his long exile. Nevertheless, along with the duke and their son and daughters, the duchess was buried in the family vault at Westminster Abbey.[7]
^G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume I, page 272.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ormonde, James Butler, 2nd Duke of". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 297–298.
