In Dei Nomine. Amen. Omnibus et singulis praesentes literas inspecturis, lecturis, vel legi audituris, fidem notumque facimus Nos Terrae Sanctæ Custos, devotum Peregrinum Illustrissimum Dominum Dominum Joannem, Marchionem de Bute in Scotia, Jerusalem feliciter pervenisse die 10 Mensis Maii anni 1865; inde subsequentibus diebus præcipua Sanctuaria in quibus Mundi Salvator dilectum populum Suum, immo et totius generis humani perditam congeriem ab inferi servitute misericorditer liberavit, utpote Calvarium ... SS. Sepulchrum ... ac tandem ea omnia sacra Palestinæ loca gressibus Domini ac Beatissimæ ejus Matris Mariæ consecrata, à Religiosis nostris et Peregrinis visitari solita, visitasse.
In quorum fidem has scripturas Officii Nostri sigillo munitas per Secretarium expediri mandavimus.
Datis apud S. Civitatem Jerusalem, ex venerabili Nostro Conventu SS. Salvatoris, die 29 Maii, 1865.
L.S. De mandato Reverendiss. in Christo Patris
F. REMIGIUS BUSELLI, S.T.L., secret.
+ Sigillum Guardiani Montis Sion.
(There is an image of the Descent of the H. Spirit, and of the Mandatum.)
"It touched and interested me extremely," Bute said many years later, "to find myself described in this document as 'devotus Peregrinus,' and this for more than one reason. The phrase, in the first place, seemed to link me, a mere schoolboy, with the myriads of devout and holy men, saints and warriors, who had made the pilgrimage before me. 'Illuc enim ascenderunt tribus, tribus Domini.' And then I remembered that I descended lineally through my mother's family, the Hastings', from a very famous pilgrim, the 'Pilgrim of Treves,' the Hebrew who went to Rome during the great Papal Schism, sat himself down on one of the Seven Hills, and dubbed himself Pope. When Martin V. (Colonna) was recognised as lawful Pope, my ancestor returned to Rome and, I believe, reverted to the Judaism from which he had temporarily lapsed. But this celebrated journey earned him the title, par excellence, of the Pilgrim of Treves; and the name of Peregrine has been borne since, all through the centuries, by many of his descendants, of whom I am one." All this is so curiously characteristic of Lord Bute's half serious, half whimsical (and always original) manner of regarding out-of-the-way corners of history and genealogy, that it seems worth reproducing in this place.