Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormonde

Sir Thomas Butler (Tomás Dubh de Buitléir)
Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormonde, by Steven van der Meulen
10th Earl of Ormond; 3rd Earl of Ossory
Reign	1546-1614
Predecessor	James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond
Successor	Walter Butler, 11th Earl of Ormond
Born	February 1531 Ormond, Ireland
Died	22 November 1614 Carrick-on-Suir, Ireland
Burial	St Canice's Cathedral, Kilkenny
Consort	Elizabeth Berkeley (m.1559; divorced 1564) Elizabeth Sheffield (m.1582; d. 1600) Helena Barry (m. 1601)
Issue	James Butler Elizabeth Butler, Countess of Desmond Thomas Butler
House	Butlers of Ormond
Father	James Butler
Mother	Joan Fitzgerald
Religion	Anglicanism

Sir Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormonde, 3rd Earl of Ossory, Viscount Thurles KG (Irish: Tomás Dubh de Buitléir, Iarla Urmhamhan; c. 1531 – 22 November 1614), was an Irish peer and the son of James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond and Lady Joan Fitzgerald daughter and heiress-general of James FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Desmond. He was Lord Treasurer of Ireland and a very prominent personage during the latter part of the 16th century.

He built the Tudor Manor House extension to Ormonde Castle on his estates in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. Much of his life was taken up with a fierce feud with his hereditary foe, Gerald FitzGerald, 15th Earl of Desmond, son of James FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond. The two sides fought a pitched battle in 1565, the Battle of Affane. Butler's victory, not only in the field but also in the handling the political fallout, helped to spark the Desmond Rebellions. This struggle (1569–73 and 1579–83) desolated Munster for many years. Ormond was a Protestant and threw his great influence on the side of Queen Elizabeth I and her ministers in their efforts to crush the rebels, although he was motivated as much by factional rivalry with the Desmond dynasty as by religion.

Ormond and Queen Elizabeth met in London as children; Thomas the "son of an Irish Earl" and Elizabeth the "illegitimate daughter of Henry" shared a common ground as neither was well treated by the other young nobles in court. They were cousins, related through her mother, Anne Boleyn, a daughter of the Ormond dynasty in Ireland. Elizabeth called him her ‘black husband’. In 1588 the Queen bestowed on Ormond what a poet described as 'áirdchéim Ridireacht Gáirtéir, / ainm nár ghnáth é ar Éirionnach' (‘the high honour of Knighthood of the Garter, a title unusual for an Irishman’).