THE COMMUNION OF ST. MARGARET, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND
1867, A long vacation cruise
A great part of the Long Vacation of 1867 was spent by Bute in a cruise to the north of Scotland and to Iceland, in the yacht Ladybird, which he had recently purchased. "On Sundays in my yacht," he writes to a friend from Edinburgh on July 13, 1867, "I am to conduct Presbyterian services. There is a book of prayers approved by the Church of Scotland for the purpose: instead of sermon, some immense bit of Scripture, e.g. the whole Epistle to the Romans." This letter, by the way, is dated "Feast of S. Anicete"—a rare instance of hagiographical inaccuracy on the writer's part. July 13 is not the festival of St. Anicetus, P.M. (who is commemorated on April 17), but of an earlier Pope and Martyr, St. Anacletus.
Bute visited St. Andrews during this cruise—a fact to which he made interesting reference on a memorable occasion many years subsequently.[[5]] It was, however, in quest of the relics of another ancient saint and martyr, dear for centuries to Scottish Christians under the title of St. Magnus of Orkney, that Bute spent much time in far northern waters during the summer of 1867. Magnus Earl of Orkney, if not a martyr in the technical sense any more than St. Oswald (called King and Martyr) and some others of the early English Saints, was yet a Christian hero who died a violent death at the hands of his enemies. It was in the little island of Egilshay that he was slain in A.D. 1116 by his treacherous cousin Haco; and there Bute landed from his yacht, kissing (as he records) the sacred ground as he touched the land, and recommending—he does not say with what result—his companion, Mr. George Petrie, F.S.A., to do the same. After visiting the ancient church, dedicated to the saint, though its round tower is probably far older than the time of St. Magnus, Bute spent a long time at Kirkwall in the study of its noble cathedral, where he obtained leave to take the reputed bones of the saint from their resting-place in the great pier on the north side of the choir. A minute inspection of these bones, conducted by himself, Mr. Petrie, two local doctors, and an apothecary, convinced him that the skull (an unusually large one, of a very degenerate type, with an old sword-cut in it over which there was a new growth of bone) was not in the least likely to be that of St. Magnus; and there were other remains in the cavity, clearly those of a different person. This conclusion was confirmed by subsequent investigations (nineteen years later) which Bute made in Orkney, and to which reference is made on a later page.[[6]] These details are worth mention, as testifying to the scrupulous care with which he was always anxious to examine any supposed relic of antiquity (whether the remains of a saint or anything else) before giving credence to its authenticity.
1867, St. Magnus of Orkney
To the memory, and for the personality, of St. Magnus himself, Bute always cherished a lively devotion and veneration,[[7]] which was shown not only in some of his later writings, but in a hymn of seven stanzas which he composed at this time in honour of the saint, and which was printed in the Orcadian over the signature "Oxonian." It is a free paraphrase of the Latin vesper hymn assigned to St. Magnus in the Aberdeen Breviary on his feast day (April 16), and has more merit than was claimed for it by its author, who described it in a letter to Mr. Petrie as "a very indifferent attempt." Another poetical composition of his dating from this period was a pretty set of verses entitled "Our Lady of the Snows," which was published anonymously this year in the Union Review (then edited by Dr. F. J. Lee) after being declined by the editor of the Month.[[8]] He wrote to Miss Skene from Thurso on July 16, 1867:
I am tickled pleasurably by the opinion of the editor of the Union about my little poem. Are we to conclude that the standard of the Month is the higher of the two, as it rejects what the Union admits, and even describes as "feeling and beautiful"? I confess that till now that had not been the result produced on my mind by a comparison of their respective "Poet's Corners."
1867, Lady Elizabeth Moore