Little is known of the life of Mary Butler, Duchess of Devonshire, whose life appears to have been controlled by her domineering husband, the 1st Duke of Devonshire.
Mary was born in 1646 the youngest child of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde and his wife, Elizabeth. Ormonde was an Anglo-Irish Protestant and one of the leading agents of English authority in Ireland in the mid-17th century.
She married the Duke – then only heir to the Earldom of Devonshire – on 26 October 1662. The couple would go on to have four children together: Elizabeth, William (later 2nd Duke), Henry and James.
Their marriage was not a happy one, with the Duke being openly unfaithful, to a degree which shocked his contemporaries. It is also apparent he was highly controlling, and there is little evidence of Mary’s involvement in building projects either at Chatsworth or at Devonshire House.
She died on 31 July 1710 at Chatsworth and was buried not with her husband at Derby, but instead alongside her parents at Westminster Abbey.
