Colonel Walter Butler
Of the Irish Musketeers
In the army of Ferdinand II., Emperor of Austria (who succeeded his brother Matthias in 1619), then commanded by Albrecht, Count of Wallenstein and Duke of Friedland, were two brave Irish soldiers of fortune—James Butler, who commanded a regiment of Irish dragoons; and his younger brother, Walter, who was colonel of a regiment of Irish musketeers.
These gentlemen were nearly related to James, then Earl of Ormond, and were driven to seek service in foreign wars by the result of a quarrel between their family and King James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, who had unjustly wrested from the Butlers their valuable estates, and bestowed them upon his Scottish favourite, Sir Richard Preston, Laird of Craigmillar (near Edinburgh), and Knight of the Bath. This gentleman, who was afterwards created Lord Dingwall in the peerage of Scotland, and Earl of Desmond in that of Ireland, 6th June, 1614, claimed Ormond in right of his wife, Lady Elizabeth Butler, who was the only daughter of Thomas, Earl of Ormond, and widow of Theobald, Viscount of Theophelim. Such was the undue partiality of James for his countryman, the Viscount Dingwall, that in 1614, when Sir Walter, eldest son of Sir John Butler, third brother of the old Earl of Ormond, inherited that title, the Ormond estates (which in ancient times were an Irish principality on the left bank of the middle Shannon, in the northern part of Munster) were bestowed upon the stranger; and the king, to enforce his claim, wrote a very peremptory letter to the Irish Privy Council. Sir Arthur Chichester, Baron of Belfast, was at that time Lord Deputy and Chief Governor of Ireland. Finding the Council averse to this injustice, James, who was notorious for entertaining the most absurd ideas of his prerogative, took the matter into his own hands, and, charging the Earl of Ormond with “non-compliance,” threw him into the Fleet prison, where he remained for eight years, enduring great want and misery, while all his old hereditary possessions were seized and confiscated, by which his family were reduced and ruined.
Preston, Lord Dingwall, was drowned in June, 1621 when on his way from Dublin to Scotland. He left an only daughter, Lady Elizabeth Preston, through whom his titles and Irish estates went afterwards to the Earls of Ossory.
The trouble in which the family became involved, and the wandering spirit which possessed the Irish, like the Scots of those days, led the earl’s two cousins, James and Walter, into the Imperial service, where they soon obtained the command of regiments, and served under John de Tscerclai, the Count Tilly, and the great Wallenstein, in most of the battles of the Thirty Years’ War.
In 1631, Walter Butler, with his battalion of Irish musketeers, formed part of the Imperial garrison which defended the town of Frankfort-on-the-Oder against the victorious army of Gustavus Adolphus.
Frankfort was even then a large town, and being capital of the middle mark of Brandenburg, was remarkable for its fairs and university. As it stood only forty-eight miles from Berlin, the imperial generals were anxious about its safety. Hannibal Count de Schomberg, the successor of old Torquato Conti, commanded the garrison, which consisted of ten thousand horse and foot. The town was surrounded by strong ramparts and gates, but was divided in two by the Oder.
At the head of eighteen thousand men, with two hundred pieces of cannon, and a pontoon bridge one hundred and eighty feet long, the warlike King of Sweden marched along the banks of the river, and appeared near the town on the 1st day of April. No troops ever presented a finer aspect than the Swedish, as they marched in several columns to the investment of Frankfort, the attack on which was planned by Sir John Hepburn, of Athelstaneford (afterwards a maréchal de camp in France), who then commanded the green brigade of Scots in the service of Gustavus. In the army of the latter were no less than fifteen thousand Scots at this time.
There is an old rhyme, which says—
“He who lyes before Frankfort a year and a daye,
Is lord of the empire for ever and aye.”
But, knowing well that the fiery King of Sweden would not remain a week if he could help it, Count Schomberg, the commander-in-chief; the Count de Montecuculi, an Italian; Campmaster-General Teiffenbach, and Colonel Herbertstein, made the most vigorous preparations to defend the place; and to Walter Butler and his Irish musketeers assigned a post of the greatest danger.
“Take him in every respect,” says the historian of Gustavus, “he was one of the bravest officers in the Emperor’s service; but as the Imperialists envied this gallant foreigner, care was taken to place him in the weakest part of the fortification; or, to speak more to the purpose, in a part that scarcely deserved to be called a fortification.” In no way either daunted or disheartened, Butler resolved to make the best of it, and ordered his Irishmen to dig a trench and form a breastwork in rear of it; and thus, after incredible labour, they formed a solid rampart in one day; but that evening he went to Count Schomberg, and represented “that the post assigned to him was almost incapable of being defended, and that unless a sally was made that very night, to prevent the Swedes and Scots from coming nearer his indifferent parapet, the place would be taken.”
But Schomberg heard him without interest or attention.
“Give me but five troops of cuirassiers, Count Hannibal,” said he, “and five of dragoons, and at the peril of life and reputation, I will undertake to make the Swedes raise the siege.”
Envious of the honour already won by the stranger, the Imperialist declined alike the offer and advice, though secretly he dispatched, on the very service coveted by Walter Butler, a certain German commander, whose cuirassiers failed to perform the duty required, for they were driven in by the Scottish Highlanders of Gustavus, and their leader was shot, while Major Sinclair, of Sir John Hepburn’s Scots musketeers, followed them almost into the town.
Covered by the Rhinegrave’s cuirassiers, under Colonel Hume, of Carrolsidebrae, Hepburn’s brigade of Scots intrenched themselves before the great gate of the town; the yellow brigade occupied the Custrin road; and the white brigade of Swedes was spread throughout the suburbs. After a smart cannonade, on Palm Sunday, the 3rd of April, the King of Sweden ordered a general assault.
“The Swedish soldiers wanting ladders for the scaling of the walls, runne to certaines Boores’ houses hard bye, whence they bring away the racks in the stables, and those others without, upon which the Boores used to lay their cowes’ meat. With these and some store of hatchets they had gotten, to a mightie strong palisadoe of the enemies’ neere the walls they goe, which they fell to hewing downe. The enemies labouring to defend the stocket or palisadoe, to it on both sides they fall; the bullets darkening the very aire with a showre of lead. The Imperialists being at length, by main force, beaten off, retire through a sally-port into the towne. Being entered within the outer port, there stay they and shoote amaine. The King calling Sir John Hebron and Colonel Lumsden unto him—‘Now, my brave Scotts’ (saies he), ‘remember your countrymen slain at New Brandenburg!’”14
The Scottish infantry advanced with their pikes in the front rank and their musketeers firing over their heads; thus a terrible slaughter was soon made of the Imperialists. “One Scottish man,” continues the quaint record of the Swedish war, “killed eighteen men with his own hand. Here did Lumsden take eighteen colours; yea, such testimony showed he of his valour, that the king after the battle bade him aske what he wolde, and he wolde give it to him.” This brave officer was Colonel Sir James Lumsden, of Invergellie, in Fifeshire, afterwards made Governor of Newcastle by the Scottish Parliament, and a major-general in the army which invaded England in 1640.
Meanwhile Gustavus was pressing with his own brigade upon the quarter occupied by Butler and his Irish musketeers, who defended themselves with incredible resolution; so much so, that when one of them was dragged over the rampart, he was asked by the Swedish king, “what soldiers these were who fought so valiantly?” “Colonel Butler’s Irish regiment,” replied the prisoner. This was at half-past one in the day, and Gustavus, on hearing it (according to Harte), drew off his brigade, and in despair of forcing a passage through the Irish, assailed the strong Gueben gate, and about four in the afternoon broke into the town through the Germans.
The Governor, Schomberg, Campmaster-General Tieffenbach, the Count de Montecuculi, Colonels Behem and Herbertstein, with most of the Imperialists, fled out of the city with great baseness, leaving the faithful Butler to fight single-handed against the tides of Swedes and Scots who surrounded his almost indefensible post. Already three Irish lieutenant-colonels, O’Neil, Patrick, and Macarthy were slain, with Captain-Lieutenants Grace and Brown, and Ensign Butler, all Irish, and many of their men. At last Walter Butler was pierced by a bullet, and had his sword-arm broken by a musket-ball, and when he fell the remnant of his gallant soldiers surrendered, and resistance was at an end.
Meanwhile the fugitive generals fled towards Silesia, and everywhere gave out that Butler and the Irish had betrayed Frankfort, by permitting the enemy to enter by their quarter, as it was the weakest; and had it not been for a providential accident, adds an historian, Butler might have been beheaded and degraded, in spite of all his gallant services; but next day, says one of the stormers, the Scottish Colonel Munro, in his history, “It was to be seen where the best service was done; and truly had all the rest (of the Imperialists) stood to it as well as the Irish did, we had returned with great loss, and without victory.” He adds, there were taken fifty standards, one colonel, five lieutenant-colonels, “and one Irish cavalier, Butler, who behaved himself honourably and well.” Hundreds of Imperialists were drowned in the Oder, and a vast quantity of plunder was taken. That night the King of Sweden gave a banquet to his principal officers and colonels, Sir John Hepburn, Munro, Lumsden, Sir John Banier, and others; and when they were assembling, “Cavaliers,” said he, “I will not eat a morsel until I have seen this brave Irishman of whom we hear so much; and yet,” he added, to Colonel Hume, “I have that to say to him which he may not be pleased to hear.”
Butler’s wounds rendered him incapable of exertion; but on a litter of pikes being formed, he was conveyed into the presence of Gustavus, who gazed at him sternly, and asked with anger—
“Sir, art thou the elder or the younger Butler?”
“May it please your Majesty,” replied the wounded man, “I am but the younger.”
“God be praised!” said Gustavus Adolphus. “Thou art a brave fellow. Hadst thou been the elder, I meant to have run my sword through thy body; but now my own physicians shall attend thee, and nothing shall be omitted that may procure thee happiness and ease.”
The action by which James Butler had kindled so much indignation in the breast of the usually placid Gustavus is now unknown; but it must have been something very remarkable to excite such angry bitterness. Had Walter Butler been a Protestant, the king would, no doubt, have endeavoured to lure him into the Swedish service; but the wounded Imperialist was as famous for his strict adherence to the duties of the Roman Catholic church as for his gallantry in the field.
While lying thus helplessly at Frankfort, he was deeply stung and mortified by the rumour so wickedly and so industriously spread by the Imperial generals, that he had occasioned the loss of the town; and he cast his honour under the protection of the generous Gustavus.
“Sir,” said the latter, “it is in my power to do your character ample justice, and in such a manner that it can never be controverted. I will bear full testimony to your faith and valour under my own hand and royal seal.”
Assuming a pen, he drew up a certificate, which set forth the heroism displayed by Butler in the strongest terms, and added, “that if the Imperial generals, instead of acting like poltroons, had performed but a fifth part of what this gallant Irishman had done, he (Gustavus) should never have been master of Frankfort, but after an obstinate siege alone.”
“This, sir,” said the king, “is no more than is due to a brave and injured man; so every general in the room will take a pride in signing this paper with me.” This was accordingly done by Sir John Banier, the Scottish colonels, and others.
James Butler, who was then at the court of Ferdinand II., at Vienna, was stung to the soul by the tidings that his brother had betrayed a post, and he wrote to Walter a letter full of the bitterest reproaches. “You have tarnished the lustre of the Imperial arms, as well as the name of Butler,” he wrote; “and Cæsar’s court-martial will make your name a bye-word of reproach.”
Walter Butler was grieved by this insolence and unkindness, and hastened to show the letter to the King of Sweden.
“Heed it not, Colonel Butler,” said he; “send our testimonial to the Emperor, and trouble yourself no more about it.”
Thirty thousand pounds’ worth of plunder, and ten baggage waggons, with all the plate of the fugitives, were taken, and all their munitions of war; however, they had buried in the earth a great quantity of arms. In 1850, a labourer, when digging a trench in a field near the outworks of old Frankfort, came upon a depôt of old weapons, decaying, and covered with rust. Among them were 2000 matchlocks, being part of the munition concealed by the garrison of Count Schomberg. As soon as his wounds permitted him to travel, Walter Butler left Frankfort, for Gustavus was too generous to detain as a prisoner one whose gallant spirit was writhing under unmerited reproaches. He travelled towards Silesia, and sought out a Colonel Behem, who had commanded a regiment of German infantry at the defence of Frankfort, and to whom he was fortunate enough in tracing the first of the slanderous reports, and challenged him to single combat on horse or foot, with sword and pistol; but, awed by the justice of Butler’s cause, his known skill and courage, and by the formidable testimonial of Gustavus Adolphus, he signed a full retractation and apology.
Butler then went into Poland, and at his own expense raised a fine regiment of cavalry, all clad in buff coats, with back and breast pieces, and triple-barred helmets. While recruiting there he daily ran the risk of being murdered by the Polish peasantry, who were averse to the Imperial service; but he marched as soon as his new levy was completed, and on his return to the Emperor’s army took possession of Prague, the capital of Bohemia. This made him more than ever a favourite of the great Wallenstein.
Soon after this exploit he married the Countess of Fondowna.
He was at Prague when the ambitious Wallenstein became false to the interests of the Empire, and fell into the deadly snare prepared for him at Egra by Colonel James Butler and others, on whose unscrupulous fidelity the Imperial court could rely. Had Walter not been a rigidly honourable man, he might have realized a large fortune by the death of his leader, who, being always fond of foreign troops, wished him to return to Ireland for the purpose of raising a body of infantry to cope with the Scottish brigades of Gustavus. For this purpose he offered him money to the amount of 32,000l. sterling by bills of exchange at Hamburg, and ready cash, which was lying useless at his palace of Sagan, on the bank of the Bober, in Prussian Silesia. But he declined the service with these remarkable words—“Poor old Ireland has been drained too much of her men already.” This anecdote, says Walter Harte in his history, I learned at Vienna.
The wild schemes and daring ambition of Wallenstein now made him indulge in the hope of dismembering the great conquests of the Empire, and seating himself upon a new throne, to be erected by the sword in northern Europe. This hope was crushed in 1634, when the great duke was spending the holidays of Christmas in the old castle of Egra in Bohemia. The garrison in this fortress was commanded by John Gordon, a Presbyterian, a native of Aberdeenshire, who was colonel of Tzertzski’s regiment, and had once been a private soldier. Wallenstein’s personal escort consisted of 250 men of James Butler’s Irish regiment, commanded by that officer in person.
James Butler (without communicating the matter to his brother Walter), John Gordon, and Major Walter Lesley, son of the Laird of Balquhan in the Garioch, on receiving private instructions from Vienna, resolved, without scruple or remorse, on removing the ambitious general from the path of the emperor for ever. Butler prepared a grand banquet, to which he invited the generalissimo’s attendants. Previous to the latter, Butler, who, felt some distrust of Lesley and Gordon, who were both Scots and Presbyterians, while he was a Catholic, made some remarks expressive of admiration for the duke.
“You may do as you please, gentlemen, in the matter at issue,” said Gordon; “but death itself shall never alienate me from the duty and affection I bear his majesty the emperor.”
Thus encouraged, Butler produced a letter from Mathias Count Galas (who, after the siege of Mantua, obtained the supreme command of the Imperial army), wherein Ferdinand II. authorized them and all his officers to withdraw “their allegiance” from Wallenstein, for all the troops had taken an oath of obedience to him by the emperor’s express order. Fully empowered by this document to do what they pleased, the three mercenaries resolved on his immediate destruction. One proposed to poison him; another suggested that he should be sent a prisoner to Vienna; a third, that he should be slain after disposing of his friends at the banquet. The last was at once adopted, and several were invited, among whom were Wallenstein’s brother-in-law, Colonel Tzertzski; Colonels Illo, William Kinski, and the secretary, Colonel Niemann. The castle was filled with soldiers on whom Gordon and Butler could rely. As the fatal evening drew on, Captain Walter Devereaux, Watchmaster Robert Geraldine, and fifteen other Irishmen, entered the keep, and took possession of a postern; while to Captain Edmund Bourke, with one hundred more, was assigned the duty of keeping the streets quiet; for Tzertzski’s dragoons occupied the town, which is the capital of its circle, and was then surrounded by a triple rampart, washed on one side by the Egra.
The banquet was protracted so long that at half-past ten the dessert was still on the table, when Colonel Gordon filled up a goblet of wine, and proposed the health of the shy and cunning John George, Elector of Saxony, the enemy of the emperor.
Butler affected astonishment, and said “he would drink to no man’s prosperity who was the enemy of Cæsar.”
Pretended high words ensued, and while the unsuspecting friends of Wallenstein gazed about them in wonder and perplexity, the doors were flung open, and Geraldine and Devereaux, with their soldiers armed with drawn swords or partizans, rushed in.
“Long live Ferdinand the Second!” cried Devereaux.
“God prosper the house of Austria,” added Geraldine; while Butler, Gordon, and Lesley, snatched up the candles, held them aloft, and drew their swords. Wallenstein’s friends saw that they were betrayed; they sprang to their weapons, all flushed with wine and with fury at this treachery; the tables were dashed over, and a deadly combat began. Colonel Illo was rushing to his sword, which was hanging on the wall, when an Irishman ran him through the heart. Tzertzski placed himself in a corner, and slew three; for the assailants, believing him to be proof to mortal weapons, were afraid of him.
“Leave me, leave me for a moment,” he continued to cry, while fighting with all the energy of despair; “leave me to deal with Lesley and Gordon—I will fight them both hand to hand—after that you may kill me; but, O, Gordon, what a supper is this for your friends.”
At that instant he pierced the young Duke de Lerida by a mortal wound, but was almost immediately overpowered by ten strokes, and, with Kinski and Tzertzski, nearly hewn to pieces. Unglutted yet with blood, Captain Devereaux, finding his rapier broken, snatched up a partizan, and, followed by thirty soldiers, rushed to the apartments of Wallenstein; who, having heard the uproar in the hall, had double-bolted his door within; and they assailed it with noise and great fury, while Butler stood, with his sword drawn, on the staircase below. Even the bold heart of Wallenstein was appalled by the unusual uproar—he leaped from his bed, and threw on a dressing-gown. He raised the window of the room; but the wall of the tower was too high for escape, and he cried aloud—
“Will none here assist me? Alas! is no one here my friend?”
Upon this Devereaux knocked again, and commanded his soldiers to burst open the door. Five times their united strength failed before it, till he applied his own shoulder to it; and, being a man of great power, he broke it to fragments, and then they beheld before them the formidable Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland and Prince of the Vandal Isles, standing near a table, in his shirt, pale and composed, but defenceless—for he had neither sword nor pistols; for Schiller asserts that he was disturbed in the study of astrology.
“Art thou not the betrayer of Ferdinand and the Empire?” cried Captain Devereaux, as he charged his partizan; “if so, now thou must die.”
Wallenstein made no reply, but opened his arms, as if still more to expose his naked breast, into which the Irish captain thrust his weapon, and he expired without a groan, while all the soldiers shrunk back, as if appalled by the act; yet his naked body, and the bodies of the Colonels Niemann, Tzertzski, Illo, and Kinski were carried in a cart through the streets of Egra, and tossed into a ditch. So perished the magnificent Wallenstein, the dictator of Germany!
James Butler and Devereaux hastened to Vienna, where the Emperor Ferdinand II. fastened round the neck of the former a valuable chain, giving, at the same time, his Imperial benison and a gold medal, saying, “Wear this, Colonel Butler, in memory of an emperor you have saved from ruin.” He then created him a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and gave him the gold key of the bedchamber, with extensive estates in the kingdom of Bohemia; and, to crown all, by an act of abominable hypocrisy, he ordered three thousand masses to be said for repose of the murdered general’s soul. Devereaux also received a gold chain with the gold key and a colonelcy; but he left the Imperial service, and returned home to Ireland in 1638.
Colonel Gordon was created a marquis of the Empire, Colonel-General of the Imperial army, and High Chamberlain of Austria. Major Walter Lesley, who was then a captain of the Body Guard, was created Count Lesley, and Lord of Newstadt, an estate worth two hundred thousand florins. He died Field-Marshal, Governor of Sclavonia, and Knight of the Golden Fleece.
James Butler enjoyed his countship only one year; for he died at Wirtemberg in the early part of the year 1634, leaving a very ample fortune, and money to found a college of Irish Franciscans, which still exists in the Bohemian capital. To Laurmayne, confessor to the emperor, he left a memorial worth twenty pounds by his will. To the Scottish and Irish colleges at Prague he bequeathed 3300l.; to the Irish students at Prague, 500l. among them equally; to his sister, 1000l.; to Walter Devereaux whose partizan slew Wallenstein, 150l. His widow, whom he left in easy circumstances, conveyed his body into Bohemia, escorted by a troop of lancers and cuirassiers, and there she interred him near his own estates, with great pomp and splendour. In 1638, Thomas Carve, an Irish priest, chaplain of Butler’s regiment, and author of a minute account of these affairs,15 obtained a commission as chaplain-general “to all the Scottish and Irish forces in the Imperial service.”
During the development and denouement of this daring conspiracy against the great Imperialist, his friend, Walter Butler, was in command at Prague, about seventy miles distant from the castle of Egra; and he was filled with horror and dismay at the part played by his brother in the dark and terrible tragedy. It was, moreover, an unfortunate event for him, as he never obtained any place at court, any military order, or rose one rank higher in the army from thenceforward—for, as a favourite of Wallenstein, he was an object of distrust to the emperor.
In the same year his brother died. Walter served with distinguished bravery at Nordlingen in Swabia, where, on the 26th of August, 1634, a general engagement was the result of Field-Marshal Gustaf Horne’s attempt to relieve the town, then besieged by the Imperialists, who obtained a complete victory; for the Swedish army was defeated with great loss, and had 4000 baggage-waggons, 80 pieces of cannon, and 300 stand of colours taken. The Scottish brigades suffered severely. In particular the Highland regiment of Colonel Robert Munro, which by the slaughter of that fatal day was reduced to one company.
By his valour and example Walter Butler, at the head of his regiment, “decided the victory in favour of the Imperialists.” To quote Harte—“He stood firm, without losing one inch of ground, for three-and-twenty hours, during a continual fire, and though 16,000 soldiers were killed in that engagement.”
Soon after this great battle he died of a severe illness. The descendants of his brother distinguished themselves repeatedly in the future wars of the grasping House of Austria, particularly in those waged against Frederick the Great, King of Prussia; and there is now living in Bohemia an old nobleman named Baron Bütler, who boasts of being the fourth in descent from James Butler of Ormond, one of the slayers of the great Duke of Friedland.
Notes
14 Swedish Intelligencer, 1632.
15 Thomas Carve (Tipperariensis), Itinerarium, 12mo. 1639-1641.