Short answers, pulled from the story.
Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond, also known as Red Piers or Piers Ruadh, was an Irish nobleman born around 1467 from the Polestown branch of the Butler family. He served as Lord Deputy of Ireland and Lord Treasurer, and his tenure as earl was interrupted when he was required to surrender the title to Thomas Boleyn in 1528.
Henry VIII wanted the titles of Ormond and Wiltshire for Thomas Boleyn, whose mother was Margaret Butler, second daughter of the 7th Earl of Ormond, and whose daughter Anne was rising at the English court. On the 17th of February 1528, Butler and his co-heirs were induced to resign their claims, with Cardinal Thomas Wolsey facilitating the arrangement. Butler was created Earl of Ossory as compensation.
The earldom of Ormond was restored to Piers Butler on the 22nd of February 1538, following the death of Thomas Boleyn in that same year. Butler had held the substitute title of Earl of Ossory for a decade before regaining Ormond.
Piers Butler married Lady Margaret FitzGerald in 1485, the daughter of Gerald fitz Maurice FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare. The marriage was explicitly political, arranged to heal the breach between the Butler and FitzGerald families, two of the most powerful dynasties in Ireland.
Piers Butler died on the 26th of August 1539 and was buried in St Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny. He had only regained the Earldom of Ormond the previous year, in 1538.
Piers Butler was succeeded as 9th Earl of Ormond by his eldest son James, born in 1496 and known as James the Lame. James married Lady Joan FitzGerald, daughter and heiress of the 10th Earl of Desmond, and lived until 1546.