Butler came from an obscure branch of the great Anglo-Irish clan, and was maintained at Lincoln’s Inn, largely at the Duke of Ormonde’s expense, in the hope that ‘he may attend your grace, and undertake some of your affairs to manifest that your exhibition to him hath not been misspent’. As lord steward, Ormonde was able to grant him the office of steward of the palace court, in reversion to Henry Wynn, and he became chief legal adviser to the Queen. In 1680 he was among the suspected promoters of the Meal-Tub Plot. He was instrumental in obtaining a new charter for Tavistock in 1682, where his wife had inherited considerable property from her first husband, and was nominated recorder, despite the Earl of Bedford’s objections. He presented the corporation’s loyal address to the new King in February 1685, and was returned to Parliament in the next month. A very active Member of James II’s Parliament, he was appointed to 18 committees, including those to inspect expiring laws and to recommend erasures from the Journals. But his principal concern was with the bill to enable his patron’s grandson to make a jointure, which he introduced, chaired and carried to the Lords. In 1688 James’s agents reported that ‘the mayor and corporation are entirely at the devotion of Sir James Butler, their recorder’, and that he would be reelected with another candidate ‘that favours the dissenting interest’ to be recommended by himself.4Bodl. Carte 217, f. 419; CSP Dom. 1680-1, p. 615; HMC 15th Rep. VII, 108; HMC 7th Rep. 744; CJ, ix. 732, 735; Devon and Cornw. N. and Q. xv. 322.
Nevertheless, Butler apparently did not stand again, and in 1698 he lost his position of master of St. Katharine’s hospital, worth £700 per year, for mismanagement. He died shortly after making his will in January 1704. He left most of his property in St. Clement Danes, Richmond and Tavistock to his nephews, but no later member of the family entered Parliament.5Luttrell, iv. 400, 444; PCC 32 Ash.