1847-1861
John Patrick, third Marquess of Bute, Earl of Windsor, Mountjoy and Dumfries, holder of nine other titles in the peerages of Great Britain and of Scotland, and a baronet of Nova Scotia, was fifteenth in descent from Robert II., King of Scotland, who, towards the end of the fourteenth century, created his son John Stuart, or Steuart, hereditary sheriff of the newly-erected county of Bute, Arran and Cumbrae, making to him at the same time a grant of land in those islands. His lineal descendant, the sixth sheriff of Bute, who adhered faithfully to the monarchy in the Civil Wars, and suffered considerably in the royal cause, was created a baronet in 1627; and his grandson, a stalwart opponent of the union of Scotland with England, was raised to the peerage of Scotland as Earl of Bute, with several subsidiary titles, in 1702. Lord Bute's grandson, the third earl, was the well-known Tory minister and favourite of the young king, George III., and his mother—a faithful servant of his sovereign, a man of culture and refinement, admirable as husband, father, and friend, and withal, by the irony of fate, unquestionably the most unpopular prime minister who ever held office in England. His heir and successor made a great match, marrying in 1766 the eldest daughter and co-heiress of the second and last Viscount Windsor; and thirty years later he was created Marquess of Bute, Earl of Windsor, and Viscount Mount joy. Lord Mountstuart, his heir, who predeceased his father, married Penelope, only surviving child and heiress of the fifth Earl of Dumfries and Stair; and the former of those titles devolved on his son, together with valuable estates in Ayrshire. The second marquess, who succeeded to the family honours the year before Waterloo, when he was just of age (he had already travelled extensively, and had paid a visit to Napoleon at Elba), earned the reputation of being one of the most enlightened and public-spirited noblemen of his generation. During the thirty-four years that he owned and controlled the vast family estates in Wales and Scotland, he devoted his whole energies to their improvement, and to promoting the welfare of his tenantry and dependents. His practical interest in agriculture was evinced by the fact that the arable land on his Buteshire property was trebled during his tenure of it; and foreseeing with remarkable prescience the great future in store for the port and docks of Cardiff, he spared neither labour nor means in their development. He was Lord-Lieutenant both of Glamorgan and of Bute, and discharged with tact and success the office of Lord High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland in 1842, on the eve of the ecclesiastical crisis which ended in the secession of more than 400 ministers of the Establishment. His political opinions were in the best sense liberal, and he was a consistent advocate of Catholic Emancipation, even when that measure was opposed by the Duke of Wellington, whom he generally supported. A few hours before his death, which occurred at Cardiff Castle with startling suddenness in March, 1848, he had expressed the confident hope that his successor, if not he himself, would live to see Cardiff rival Liverpool as a great commercial seaport.
1847, Birth at Mountstuart
Lord Bute was twice married—first to Lady Maria North, of the Guilford family, by whom he had no issue; and secondly, three years before his death, to Lady Sophia Hastings, second daughter of the first Marquess of Hastings. By this lady, who survived him eleven years, he had one child, John Patrick, the subject of this memoir, who was born on September 12, 1847, at Mountstuart House, the older mansion of that name in the Isle of Bute, which was burnt down in 1877 and replaced by the great Gothic pile designed by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson. Old Mountstuart was an unpretending eighteenth-century house, built by James, second Earl of Bute (1690-1723), a few years before his early death. It was the favourite residence of his son the third earl, George III.'s prime minister, who is commemorated by an obelisk in the grounds not far from the house. The wings at the two extremities escaped the fire, and are incorporated in the modern mansion.
Here, then, on the fair green island which had been the home of his race for nearly five centuries, opened the life of this child of many hopes, who within a year was by a cruel stroke of fate to be deprived of the guardianship and guidance of his amiable and excellent father. The second marquess died, as has been said, deeply regretted, in the spring following the birth of his heir; and the manifold honours and possessions of the family devolved upon a baby six months old. Up to his thirteenth year the fatherless boy was under the constant and unremitting care of a devoted mother, whose memory he cherished with veneration to the end of his life. Sophia Lady Bute was a woman of warm heart and deep personal piety, tinged, however, with an uncompromising Protestantism commoner in that day than in ours. One of her fondest hopes or dreams was the conversion to her own faith of the numerous Irish Catholics whom the development of the port of Cardiff, and the rapid growth of the mining industry, had attracted to South Wales; and the venerable Benedictine bishop who had at that time the spiritual charge of the district, and for whom Lord Bute had a sincere regard and respect, used to tell of the band of "colporteurs" (peripatetic purveyors of bibles and polemical tracts) whom the marchioness engaged to hawk their wares about the mining villages of Glamorgan.
Lord Bute's upbringing as a child was, by the force of circumstances, under entirely feminine influences and surroundings; and to this fact was probably to some extent due the strain of shyness and sensitive diffidence which were among his life-long characteristics. He seems to have been inclined sometimes to resent, even in his early boyhood, the strictness of the surveillance under which he lived. His mother once took him from Dumfries House to call at Blairquhan Castle, driving thither in a carriage and four, as her custom was. While the ladies were conversing in the drawing-room, a young married daughter of the house took the little boy out to see the gardens, ending with a call at the head gamekeeper's. A day or two afterwards the châtelaine of Blairquhan received a letter from Lady Bute, expressing her dismay, indignation, and distress at learning that her precious boy had actually been taken to the kennels, and exposed to the risk of contact with half a dozen pointers and setters. When reminded many years later of this incident (which he had quite forgotten), Lord Bute said, in his quiet way: "Yes, I was kept wrapped in cotton wool in those days, and I did not always like it. The dogs would not have hurt me, and I am sure that I made friends with them."
1859, Death of Lady Bute
Lady Bute died in 1859, leaving behind her, both in Scotland and in Wales, the memory of many deeds of kindness and benevolence. Her husband had made no provision whatever in his will for the guardianship of his only son, who had been constituted a ward in Chancery two months after his father's death, his mother being nominated by the Lord Chancellor his sole guardian. Lady Bute's will recommended the appointment as her son's guardian of Colonel (afterwards Major-General) Charles Stuart, Sir Francis Hastings Gilbert, and Lady Elizabeth Moore, who was distantly related to the Bute family through the Hastings', and had been one of Lady Bute's dearest friends. Sir Francis Gilbert being at this time absent from England in the consular service, the Court of Chancery appointed as guardians the two other persons named by Lady Bute.
It seems unnecessary to describe in detail the prolonged friction and regrettable litigation which were the result of this dual guardianship of the orphaned boy; yet they must be here referred to, for it is beyond question that they were not only detrimental to his happiness and welfare during his early boyhood, but could not fail seriously to affect the development of his character in later years. The child was deeply attached to Lady Elizabeth Moore, who had assumed the entire charge of him after his mother's death; and his letters written at this period give evidence not only of this attachment, but of his very strong reluctance to leave her for the care of General Stuart, who insisted that it was time that a boy of nearly thirteen should be removed from the exclusively female custody in which he had been kept from babyhood. Lady Elizabeth, yielding partly to her own feelings, and partly to the earnest and repeated solicitations of her young ward, was ill-advised enough, instead of committing him as desired to the care of her co-guardian, to carry him off surreptitiously to Scotland, and to keep him concealed for some time in an obscure hotel in the suburbs of Edinburgh. Here is the boy's own account of the affair, written from this hotel to a relation in India[[1]] (he was between twelve and thirteen years of age):—
I prayed, I entreated, I agonised, I abused the general; I adjured her not to give me up to him. She was shaken but not convinced. So we went to Newcastle, to York, and to London, where I got a bad cold, my two teeth were pulled, etc., etc. We were delayed some time there, and meanwhile my prayers and adjurations were trebled: Lady E. was convinced, and promised not to let me go. She got one of the solicitors to the Bank of England in the City to write a letter to Genl. S. for her, as civil as possible, but declining to give me up; to which the general returned a furious answer, conveying his determination to appeal to the Vice-Chancellor about the matter. After a month we became convinced that the Vice-Chancellor would decide against us; and on the night of April 16th Lady E. left the hotel secretly, and with her maid and me shot the moon to Edinburgh, where we arrived at 7 next morning.[[2]]