Margaret Butler, Countess of Ormond

c. 15th century–1542

Margaret Butler, Countess of Ormond, was the daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond, and the wife of Sir William Boleyn. Through her inheritance and marriage she connected the Irish Butler earls with an ambitious English gentry family. Her children included Thomas Boleyn, and she was therefore the grandmother of Anne Boleyn, Mary Boleyn and George Boleyn. She lived into the early years of Henry VIII’s reign.

Margaret appears occasionally in historical fiction tracing the origins of the Boleyn family, including novels centred on Anne and Mary Boleyn. She is rarely developed as a major character because surviving evidence concerns property and lineage more than personality. Her significance lies in the wealth, aristocratic connection and Irish claims that helped the next generation rise at court.

Alison Weir’s The Grandmother’s Tale is set in the Grandmother's Tale by historian Alison Weir is an e-short and companion piece to Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession, the second spellbinding novel in the Six Tudor Queens series. Alison Weir’s In the Shadow of Queens places Margaret Butler, Countess of Ormond within a narrative shaped by court politics and dynastic power and family, marriage and personal loyalty.