Butler did it

Sarah Whitebloom on the extraordinary career of an Irish adventurer and monarchist
William Francis Butler, a Life 1838-1910. by Martin Ryan, Lilliput Press, £17.99.
Great gateways stand guard along the roads of the west of Ireland. Such impressive iron and stone structures must surely ,protect some imposing edifice. Instead, through the portals can be glimpsed the inevitable bungalow or just a field of grass with an avenue of trees leading nowhere.
These rusty gates are virtually all that is left of a life and a ruling class which blew away some 80 years ago, a class whose reach once extended throughout Irish society. It may once have been a guilty secret but now it is irrelevant. Loyal Irishmen, from every class, were loyal also to the British Crown — and saw little contradiction in this.
William Francis Butler and his story belong to that past. Of Norman, Catholic descent rather than planter stock, Butler was part of the life behind the gates. And his life has lain forgotten as a consequence.
He was a proud Irishman, (is there any other sort?), a British soldier for more than four decades, a thinker, an influential lay Catholic, an early supporter of indigenous peoples and a fervent monarchist. And he later emerged as a supporter of Home Rule.
Butler was also opinionated to the point of professional suicide and became embroiled in the infamous Lady Colin Campbell divorce case. He also had a knack for making friends with people in high places Victor Hugo, Parnell, Churchill, Stanley, Eugenic Napoleon and Rider Haggard.
Martin Ryan details Butler's career assiduously. And, despite the subject's relatively privileged start in life, it does not all make for happy reading. Born in 1838, Butler was the seventh child of a Tipperary family, descended from a cadet branch of the Lords of Dunboyne. As such, he followed the well-trodden path to a career in the British Army.
He joined up at the age of 20 and did not retire until his 67th birthday. It was not the glittering career of a warrior for the most part and certainly not at first. But it almost ended in what could be described as a Dreyfus-style case of shame against Butler from which he fought his way back to exoneration and eventual esteem.
In the great tradition of 19th-century adventurers, Butler travelled the globe during his Army years, mostly the pink bits — India, Canada, Ghana, South Africa, Egypt, Sudan and Ireland. Butler was almost always well out of the line of fire, serving as quartermaster or embarkation officer.
But, while the day job as a soldier did not appear especially distinguished, Butler did embark on several treks in the Canadian interior and witnessed the end of the way of life of the plains Indians. In 1872, he wrote a highlyacclaimed account of these travels, The Great Lone Land, and a follow-up, The Wild North Land. Several years later he was to write Red Cloud, an Indian adventure story. Later still he wrote biographies of Gordon and General Sir Charles Napier.
Nevertheless, reading Ryan's account, it is tempting to think that Butler was out for the best possible pension he could get — while still at work. He was a full 27 years into his Army career when he finally led men into battle. He actually acquitted himself very well; the trouble, however, was that it was part of the campaign to relieve Gordon at Khartoum — and there is no need to recall how that episode ended.
But Butler hindered his own promotion prospects. He was in the habit of writing frequent complaining cables to his superiors, and one of his biggest supporters stated: "He is one of those men who imagine they have been, and who are convinced they are, always in the right."
His promotion path was slow, compared to contemporaries, and it cannot have been helped by him being named, along with three others, by Lord Colin Campbell in his sensational divorce trial. At 20 days, it is still the longest on record. Butler was widely criticised for his refusal to appear in court, while the other accused did so, and despite urgent pleas from the Lady concerned.
The Tablet at the time maintained that he did not appear because he did not wish to legitimise a divorce. But this sounded rather lame, even then. Despite this, he was despatched in 1898 as the General Officer Commanding to South Africa. And it was there, towards the end of his career, that Butler's story takes a diversion into the extraordinary.
He was determined not to get drawn into trouble between the British and the Boers. And he wrote to London to warn of the dangers of the situation in South Africa. But his warnings were not heeded, perhaps because of all those previous cables.
Butter ended up being accused of siding with England's possible enemies and failing to prepare adequately. Once war broke out and he was back in the UK, he became a nationally reviled figure: abuse was poured on him. The War Office could have exonerated him, by producing his well-documented warnings of the situation, but failed to do so.
He had to wait until 1903 before a commission discovered the truth and cleared his name. In the end Butler's Army life ended on a higher note than those of many of his more powerful contemporaries. And he retired back to Tipperary, from where he was to take an active part in Irish life.
There was no contradiction in this for him. His story of allegiance was the story of his time. And, anyway, he always knew he was right.