PLUSCARDEN—BUTE AS ARCHITECT—PSYCHICAL
INTERESTS—CONCLUSION
1898-1900
The latest addition made by Bute to his large landed possessions in Scotland was one which on several accounts was the source of much interest to him during the last years of his life. Just as the chief attraction of Falkland, which he purchased in 1887, had been the fact that it included the ancient royal palace and its hereditary Keepership, so the principal inducement to him to acquire, as he did in 1897 from the Earl of Fife, the Morayshire estate of Pluscarden, was that he thereby came into possession also of one of the most beautiful and interesting ecclesiastical relics in Scotland.[[1]] This was the roofless church, as well as considerable remains of the domestic buildings, of Pluscarden Priory, founded by King Alexander III. seven centuries before for monks of the little-known Order of the Cabbage-valley.[[2]] In the middle of the fifteenth century Pluscarden had passed into Benedictine possession; and connected with this change of ownership were several architectural problems of the kind which it always interested Bute to attempt to solve. He had a dislike of the word "restoration," as applied to ancient edifices which were, and still are, so often spoiled in the process; but he expended much time and care, and not inconsiderable sums of money, in putting the different portions of the venerable buildings—choir, chapter-house, dormitory, and calefactory—into such repair as was possible. He was deeply moved and gratified at being able to arrange, in the summer of 1898, for the celebration of Mass (the first for fully three hundred years) by a Scottish Benedictine monk, in the perfectly-preserved oratory of the prior's lodgings.
PLUSCARDEN PRIORY.
It was characteristic of Bute's scrupulous regard for tradition and order, that before taking possession of Pluscarden he applied to Rome, through the Bishop of Aberdeen, for a sanatio, in other words, a sanction of his acquisition of the property of the Church, and asked if he should, as a preliminary step, give the refusal of the buildings to the Benedictines of Fort Augustus. A reply was received in September, 1897, from Cardinal Ledochowski, Prefect of the Congregation of Propaganda, to the effect that such an offer was not necessary, and that the great benefactions already made by Lord Bute to the Catholic Church were to be considered as ample compensation.
Building achievements
Pluscarden Priory was the last, and to himself not the least interesting, of the many ancient and historic buildings to the maintenance of which Bute was in a position to apply his profound archæological knowledge as well as the architectural skill and taste which made him, as it was expressed by one well qualified to pronounce an opinion, "the best unprofessional architect of his generation." It will be appropriate in this place to give a brief conspectus of the principal building operations which he undertook in the course of the thirty-two years between his coming of age and his too early death.