Cardiff Castle,
July 29, 1871.
MY DEAR MISS SKENE,
As there is, I fear, little chance of my being in Oxford just now, I will not delay longer in replying to your kind letter.
I had not seen the reports to which you refer, although I knew that they had been circulated by the scandalmongers of the press. I may tell you at once—I had meant to do so before—that there is no truth in them whatever. There is no engagement between Miss —— and myself, and nothing is less likely than that there ever should be. I will tell you all about it some day when I see you, or in a future letter: I cannot write more about it at present, except to say that here I am thrown out on the world again, feeling very lonely and desolate. My future, indeed, looks pretty blank just now, as you may imagine easily enough. There is nothing for it but to go on one's way, trying to do one's duty—and literature. I have also a considerable taste for art and archæology, and happily the means to indulge them. When I return from Ober Ammergau, whither I go next month, to see the Passion Play, I shall do a little yachting in home waters, and then return here for the autumn and winter. There is plenty to do here, of course; and building, archæology, and writing will perhaps help me to forget my troubles. After Christmas this place will be unbearable, and I think I shall go to Bute.
Yours ever very sincerely,
BUTE.
1872, Engagement and Marriage
Whatever may have been the disappointment or mortification occasioned to Bute by the episode in his life referred to in the above letter, they were amply compensated for, and indeed wholly forgotten, in the happiness of the event which he was able to announce to his friends at the close of this year. This was his engagement to the Hon. Gwendoline FitzAlan Howard, eldest daughter of the first Lord Howard of Glossop by his first wife. The marriage took place at the Oratory Church on April 16, 1872, Archbishop Manning officiating, assisted by five Oratorian fathers. Bute's cousin, Lord Mauchline (afterwards Earl of Loudoun), wearing Highland dress, was the best man, the principal bridesmaid being the Hon. Alice Howard of Glossop, who married Lord Loudoun in 1880. Mgr. Capel said the Nuptial Mass and preached the sermon; and the register was signed by the Duke of Cambridge, the Dukes of Northumberland and Argyll, and Mr. Disraeli. The wedding aroused an extraordinary amount of popular interest and even excitement; and the Spectator commented with satiric surprise on the fact that the London newspapers devoted entire pages to describing the ceremony, which actually occupied—but that perhaps was less astonishing—thirty columns of the Cardiff Western Mail. How distasteful this public excitement was to the chief actors in the ceremony may be gathered from a letter written by Bute to a friend in Rome a fortnight later:
Cardiff Castle,
April 29, 1872.
The whole thing went off very well; the religious part of it, which most concerned us, was very well done, and, I hear, pleased and impressed the many Protestants who were present. I suppose you will have seen descriptions and pictures of it. You will understand that to the principals the whole thing—I mean the secular part of it—was absolutely detestable. As Lord Beauchamp says: "There is only one thing more disagreeable than being married in London, and that is being married in the country." Of course we have been extremely quiet ever since, and expect to be so. My Lady is the last person in the world to "rout one out" and want to make a flare-up and a splash.
The Pope sent presents to us both,[[5]] and I wrote to Mgr. Howard to express our gratitude, enclosing a letter of thanks in very indifferent Latin, which I composed and we both signed; but it was not to be given if it was contrary to etiquette.