ORMOND, JAMES BUTLER, Duke of, was the first of the ancient Anglo-Irish family of Butler on whom the ducal title was conferred. The family was of illustrious antiquity. Genealogical legend carried it back to the dukes of Normandy before the conquest, and it is certain that at the dawn of the 13th c., it held the hereditary office of royal cup- bearer or butler, whence the family name. The subject of the present article was b. in London in 1610. His father, the son of the celebrated Walter, earl of Ormond. was drowned in crossi-g the channel; and the old earl having incurred the displeasure of the king, James I., and being thrown into prison, James, who'on his father's death became, as viscount ThurleS, the heirof the title, was seized as a royal ward, and placed under the guardianship of the archbishop of Canterbury. On the restoration of his grandfather to liberty, he also was released; and in his 20th year he married his cousin, lady Eliza beth Preston, and in 1632 succeeded, upon his grandfather's death, to the earldom and estates of Ormond. During the Strafford administration in Ireland, Ormond distin guished himself so much, that on Strafford's recall be recommended Ormond to the king; and in the rebellion of 1640, Ormond was appointed to the chief command of the army. -During the troubled times which followed, he conducted himself with undoubted ability, although, as a necessary consequence of the numberless divisions and subdivi sions of party which then prevailed in.Ireland, he failed to satisfy any one of the con flicting sections; and when, in 1643, he concluded an armistice, his policy was loudly i condemned as well by the friends as by the enemies of the royalist party in England. During the long contest of Charles with the parliament, Ormond continued to uphold the royal interest in his Irish government; and when the last crisis of the king's fortunes came, he resigned his Irish command, and retired to France, from which country he again returned to Ireland with the all but desperate design of restoring the royal author ity, and after a gallant but unequal struggle, was compelled, in 1650, to return once more to France. His services to the royal cause continued unremitting during his exile:
and at the restoration he accompanied Charles II. on his return, and was rewarded for his fidelity by the ducal title of Ormond. His after-life was less eventful, although he twice again returned to the government of Ireland. It was in 1679 that the well-known attempt was made by the notorious col. Blood (q. v.) upon the life of Ormond. As he was returning from a civic festival, he was attacked by Blood and a party of ruffians, and was dragged from his coach with the intention of his being hanged at Tyburn.
The attempt drew additional interest from its being commonly supposed to have been instigated by the profligate duke of Buckingham, Ormond's inveterate foe. He escaped uninjured, and lived until the year 1688. His letters and other papers are full of deep historical interest. See Carte's Life of Ormond.
ORMSBY,a co. in w. Nevada, bounded on the w. by lake Tahoe, drained by Carson river; on the Virginia and Truckee railroad; about 170 sq. m.; pop. '80, 5,410-3,254 of American birth. The surface is mountainous, well wooded, and crossed in the w. by an offshoot of the Sierra Nevada range. The soil especially in the valley of the Car son is fertile, and produces wheat, corn, oats, and barley. There are mines of gold, silver, and iron. Large amounts of lumber are exported. There are quartz, saw, and planing mills. Co. seat, Carson city.