1.11.k. THIRD MARQUESS OF BUTE.* Wiles Disraeli in 1870 published
Lothair, his hero, the rich and sentimental young noble who had turned Roman Catholic, was at once identified as the third Marquess of Bute, whose conversion had caused some stir in the winter of 1868-69. Sir . - David Hunter Blair, who has written an interesting memoir
of his old friend, protests that " never in truth did any hero of fiction bear less resemblance to his fancied prototype " than did Lothair to the late Lord. Bute. But there can of course be no doubt that Disraeli, who had a keen journalistic sense, borrowed the motive of his novel from the true story which had been exciting Protestant. England and Presbyterian Scotland for two or three years before his book appeared. John Patrick, third Marquess of Bute, had succeeded in infancy to the many titles and the vast estates of his father, who died in 1848. The first Marquess, son of George the Third's un- popular favourite, had brought the great Windsor estates in South Wales into the family ; his son, who died before him, had married the heiress of the Earls of Dumfries and thus added large Ayrshire estates to the Bute possessions. The second Marquess, grandson of the first Marquess, was a shrewd and farsighted administrator of the lands which he inherited. He foresaw the coming prosperity of the South Wales coalfield. He invested very large sums of money in the docks of Cardiff and must be regarded as one of the chief makers of that great port. All his titles and estates devolved upon his only child by his second wife, Lady Sophia Hastings. The career of this child, six months old at his father's death, was naturally watched with curiosity. When his mother died in 1859, there was a long and unseemly litigation over the boy's person between two of the guardians appointed by the Court of Chancery, General Stuart and Lady Elizabeth Moore. The General won the case and, on a further appeal to the House of Lords, obtained power to send the boy to Eton or Harrow rather than to Loretto. When, after leaving Harrow—where the present Primate was his class-mate—Lord Bute went up to Christ Churoh, entering as one of the last batch of " noblemen " with Lord Resebery, the late Duke of Hamilton, and the late Duke of Northumberland, it was soon rumoured that he meditated joining the Roman Church. Thus he continued, despite himself, to excite public attention throughout his youth. ins coming of age was celebrated with much pomp early in 1868, and at ''John: Patrick. Third Marquess of Buts. 1L2'. : A ilawls. IIy the Bight Rev. Sir David Hunter Blair. Lend= : John Murray. Wis. net4 the end of the year he was received into the Roman communion by the well-known Monsignor Capel. Readers of Lothair in 1870 could not have failed to connect the novel with the young peer of whom they had heard so much. Lord Bute's passion
for the Holy Land, to which he made his third visit or pilgrimage in 1869, must have impressed Disraeli, who for all his cynicism was a Zionist at heart.
The author shows, however, that there was no great resemblance between the energetic Lord Bute whom he knew in manhood and the somewhat anaemic Lothair. Lord Bute had an uncommonly active mind and was keenly interested in many things outside the ordinary experience of men of his class. He took his part in public affairs, and, in accepting nomination as Mayor of Cardiff in 1890, he was the first peer to hold such office in any English or Welsh borough since the Reform Bill. He gave liberally but not without discrimination to institutions in South Wales and Scotland. Thus he was one of the chief founders of University College, Cardiff, and he enabled the Cardiff library to acquire the Welsh manuscripts in the Phillippe collection.
In Scotland he is remembered for his strenuous and successful efforts to uphold the independence of St. Andrews University against the claim of Dundee University College to absorb it. The author tactfully passes over this episode in a brief sum- mary, but the long and acrimonious dispute showed that Lord Bute, when he chose to exert his energies, could fight hard for a cause in which he believed. Few people who know the facts can doubt that he was right. The one and only speech that he made in the House of Lords was concerned with the affairs of St. Andrews. Like his father, he showed himself a capable man of business and greatly increased the productivity of his
estates. An ardent Conservative, he founded the Western Mail of Cardiff and carried it on at a loss for years until it had enough Conservative readers in Liberal Wales to make it independent of his support. But he was a scholar by temperament. History, architecture, and theology interested him most. In the Scottish Review, which he founded and controlled till his death in 1900, he printed many of his own essays on obscure problems in
Scottish history and encouraged other students. He had considerable sympathy with the few advocates of Scottish Home Rule. In view of some Scotsmen's insistence on the use of " Britain " and " British " where foreigners always say " Eng- land " and " English," we may note that in 1887 Lord Bute objected to the use of the word " British " in reference to the occupation of Egypt :-
" I dislike the word British,' which really only means Cymro-Celtic. It has a tendency to confound us with the English and to obscure to the popular mind the extent to which our forefathers in 1706 tried to make us a more English province. To every one their due ; to the Westminster Parliament that of the bombardment of Alexandria and the rest of it."
But Lord Bute did not, and could not, suggest an alternative adjective for the population of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. He translated the whole of the Roman Breviary into English and printed it at his own charges. One curious
and interesting outcome of his mediaeval studies was his attempt to revive the production of wine in this country. At Castell Coch, near Cardiff, in 1876 Lord Bute planted French vines, and he was so far successful that in 1893 " the entire crop of forty hogsheads, or about a thousand dozen, of the wine realized a price which recouped all the expenses incurred during the previous eighteen years." Some of this vintage fetched as much as one hundred and fifteen shillings a dozen at a public auction. The author does not say whether this wine-growing experiment has been continued.
Lord Bute's most absorbing and most expensive hobby was architecture. Within about thirty years he did a great deal of building. He restored and partly rebuilt the huge pile of Cardiff Castle, under the advice of William Surges, who also rebuilt for him the mediaeval fortress of Castell Coch, near Cardiff. When his ancestral home, Mountatuart, in Bute, was burnt down he built the great red palace which is familiar
to all visitors to the Clyde. The ',architect, Sir R. Rowand Anderson, says in a note that he once asked Lord Bute, in connexion with a piece of work that had been delayed, " Why not let it be finished and off your mind ? " Lord Bute replied,
" But why should I hurry over what is my chief pleasure ? I have comparatively little pleasure in a thing after it is finished." Thus he took twenty-one years to consider all the details of Mountatuart and left it unfinished. The biographer records that Lord Bute proudly invited Burgos to inspect the ceiling of the great drawing-room, with its lining of panelled mirrors on which were painted clusters of grapes and vine-leaves. " Burgas looked up, shrugged his shoulders, muttered ' I call that damnable,' and walked on." Lord Bute restored with much care and good taste the old castle at Rothesay. He bought the estate of Falkland and spent its whole revenue in restoring the old royal palace to something of its ancient splendour. He bought also the beautiful ruins of Pluscarden in Moray and made the priory habitable again after the lapse of centuries. He acquired the site of the ruined priory adjacent to the remains of St. .Andrews Cathedral, and he conceived the idea of rebuilding that great cathedral, though, perhaps fortunately, only one other Scottish peer, himself a Free Church- man, offered to help in what would have been a most costly undertaking. Lord Bute unquestionably aroused fresh interest in the historical monuments of Scotland, both by his writings and by his example. Opinions may differ as to the merit of some of his restorations, but on the whole he deserved the gratitude of those who care for mediaeval architecture. He died young at the age of fifty-four, but his many works keep his memory green.
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