Relics of St. Magnus
A letter which Bute addressed (in Latin) to the Cardinal Archbishop of Prague as to reputed "reliques" of St. Magnus preserved in the cathedral there elicited no response. "The reliques of St. Magnus themselves," Bute wrote in some displeasure, "could not be more voiceless than the Cardinal of Prague in regard to my (I hope) courteously-worded request." Through Cardinal Manning, however, information finally reached him that the relics at Prague (venerated there for several centuries) included a shoulder-blade. This was missing from the bones in Kirkwall Cathedral—so far satisfactory; but they also included a shin-bone (crus), whereas the shin-bones (crura) at Kirkwall were complete and intact.[[11]] Bute's final conclusion (and the incident is recorded as showing the curious interest with which he pursued such minute investigations) was that the bones at Kirkwall were not St. Magnus's at all, but probably those of Earl St. Rognwald, nephew to St. Magnus, another Norse saint and hero venerated in the same locality. He thought it worth while to insert in the Review a letter from Orkney informing him that there was a tradition in Egilsay that one would always find an open flower on the site of the martyrdom, and that the writer had found there on December 10, after heavy snow and gales, several daisies in full bloom.[[12]]
The first two years of Bute's connection with the Scottish Review were perhaps among the busiest of his life, not only because of the assiduous care which, as we have seen, he devoted to the conduct and control of that journal, but also by reason of the increasing duties which devolved on him in connection with his extensive estates. To the latter he made very considerable additions at this period, increasing his Buteshire property in 1886 by the acquisition of the island of Cumbrae from the trustees of the sixth Earl of Glasgow, and also purchasing in the following year the important estate of Falkland in Fife, to which was annexed an office of the greatest interest to him, the hereditary keepership of the ancient palace of Falkland. In Cardiff, also, there was a great increase of business connected with the reorganisation of the vast docks. The new Roath Dock was opened in 1887 by his six-year-old heir, Lord Dumfries (his first appearance in public), and on the same day his youthful daughter cut the first sod of Roath Park, for which he had made a free gift of land valued at £50,000. His generosity was further shown after the disastrous failure of the Cardiff Savings Bank, when it was sought to make him liable as honorary president of the institution. As soon as it was judicially decided that there was no claim whatever against him, he voluntarily contributed £3,000 towards making up the deficiency. In the previous year he had manifested his liberality towards his Scottish tenants by obtaining (in view of the prevalent agricultural depression) an independent valuation of his farms in Bute, and reducing the rents by a third. It was not without reason that the local Liberal newspaper, in many respects even vehemently hostile to him, described him as "a just and generous landowner"; whilst in Cardiff this handsome tribute was paid to him by one extremely well qualified to pronounce an opinion: "As regarded his estates, he was, of course, a most excellent and liberal landlord, as all who had the privilege of being his tenants would certainly admit."
FALKLAND PALACE.
1889, A cathedral foundation
Much of Bute's correspondence at this period is taken up with a scheme which he had greatly at heart, namely, the establishment of the full liturgical service of the Church at Oban, where his diocesan (the Bishop of Argyll and the Isles) had his see, and where he himself had built a handsome church. He was concerned that the canonical office of the Roman Breviary, for which he had so high a veneration, should not be recited daily in a single cathedral church throughout Britain;[[13]] and he incurred a great deal of trouble and expense in his efforts that this reproach should be wiped out at least in one church in Scotland. He defrayed the whole cost of organ and organist, choirmen and chorister-boys, instituted and supported a convent-school for the education of the last-named, and paid a chaplain for the exclusive work of presiding in choir and singing the daily Mass. The question of providing a chaplain exercised him much, and he wrote to a friend in Italy on this point:
May 8, 1886.