He married Anne Mathew and with her had one son, Colonel Edward Butler, who was killed at the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709.
After the death of his first wife, he married Henrietta FitzJames, the illegitimate daughter of King James II and Arabella Churchill, on 3 April 1695.
Under James II of England he was Privy Councillor of Ireland, Lieutenant of the County of Kilkenny, and Colonel of the 2nd Regiment of Irish Horse.
At the Glorious Revolution, he might probably have secured his old estates of 10,000 acres (40 km2) in Kilkenny and 5,000 in Wexford, if he had consented to give his allegiance to William III of England instead of following Sarsfield and James II into exile in France.
O'Callaghan says: "The successive claimants of the title of Galmoy were officers in France down to the Revolution; in whose armies, as well as in others, various gentlemen have honourably represented a name, of which the illustrious General Lafayette is related to have said, in the war for the independence of the United States of America, that 'whenever he wanted anything well done, he got a Butler to do it.