Background
Butler was born at Knaresborough, the son of Piers Butler, 16th Viscount Mountgarret and Eglantine Christie. Two years later he succeeded his father in the viscountcy, which had been created in 1550.
Butler was born at Knaresborough, the son of Piers Butler, 16th Viscount Mountgarret and Eglantine Christie. Two years later he succeeded his father in the viscountcy, which had been created in 1550.
He was educated at Eton and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst before joining the Irish Guards.
He was commissioned in the Irish Guards in 1957, retiring in the rank of captain in 1964. After retiring from the Irish Guards, he was president of Yorkshire Cricket Club between 1984 and 1990. He moved to the 2,000-acre (81 km2) estate in South Stainley, near Ripon, after selling his family home, Nidd Hall, in the mid-1960s.
He became the most likely heir to the title of Earldom of Ormond(e) (created 1328), the 16th century Earldom of Ossory and thus Chief Butler/Chief of the Butlers of Ireland (dormant since the death of the last Marquess of Ormonde), but submitted no claim to these Irish peerages to the British monarch.
Mountgarret later married Jennifer Susan Wills, a member of the Wills tobacco family, daughter of Captain Doctor of Medicine Wills, on 29 April 1970, but divorced in 1983.