THE WESTERN MAIL--ROME AND THE COUNCIL--RETURN TO MOUNTSTUART
1869-1871
Although Bute's attraction towards a life of simplicity and retirement
was, even in his early manhood, as it remained throughout his life, one
of his most marked characteristics, he never allowed this to interfere
with such public duties as he conceived to be rendered incumbent on him
by the responsibilities of his position. His first public appearance
in Cardiff, apart from the celebrations connected with his majority,
seems to have been in his capacity as chairman of the local Benefit and
Annuitants Society, when he acquitted himself to the general
satisfaction. In 1869 he accepted the honorary colonelcy of the
Glamorgan Artillery Volunteers. "It seemed to be expected of me," he
wrote to a friend, "and though there was never a man of less military
proclivities than myself, I regard the Volunteer movement as an
excellent one, and desire to encourage it.[1] I look forward also,
under proper guidance, to learning something about {84} guns, though I
fear ours can hardly be said to be altogether up-to-date. But I hope
to be instrumental in bringing about some improvement in that respect."
On November 11, 1869, he appeared in uniform at the inspection of the
regiment at the new drill-hall, which he had just erected at a cost of
over L10,000.
A few months previous to the date just mentioned, Bute had, not without
serious consideration, embarked on an enterprise which, while entailing
heavy expenditure on himself, was to have a considerable and permanent
effect on the industrial and political life not only of the
rapidly-growing town of Cardiff, but of the whole of South Wales. This
was the launch of the _Western Mail_ newspaper, of which the first
number was published in May, 1869. At this time the principal paper in
the district was the Liberal (weekly) _Cardiff Times_, started in 1857,
the year in which Colonel James Frederick Crichton Stuart was first
elected M.P. for Cardiff. Bute was entirely out of sympathy with the
political views of his kinsman, and had openly declared himself on
coming of age an adherent of the Conservative party. He wrote to a
friend at Oxford after the formation of Mr. Gladstone's first Ministry:
I suppose I may call myself--you would certainly call me--an
old-fashioned Tory. The inclusion of Bright in the Cabinet shows that
the new Government is Radical, naked and unashamed. And whatever else
I am, anyhow I am not a Radical.
[Sidenote: 1869, Launching a newspaper]
Deeply and intelligently interested as he was in the future development
of Cardiff, which he was to do so much to promote, Bute's conviction
was that a really healthy public opinion in the district {85} could not
be created or maintained if only one school of politicians was to have
the chance of making its voice heard. This was the main reason which
determined him, with full foreknowledge of the heavy financial burden
it would entail on him, of starting and supporting a Conservative daily
paper in the heart of Liberal Wales. The local Liberals were, of
course, disappointed and indignant; and the "Leap of the wolf into the
fold," as they described the new journalistic venture, was very
bitterly commented on both in the _Cardiff Times_ and in its successor,
the _South Wales Daily News_. The "underhand influence of the Castle,"
the "Castle propaganda," the "pouring out of gold from the Castle
coffers," were the constant theme of discussion in the opposition
press, whose acrimony was not diminished by the steadily growing power
and influence of the Conservative organ. Yet although Bute was for
some years the actual owner of the _Western Mail_, not the slightest
trace of his personal influence is to be found in its columns during
those early years, nor the least suggestion that he made use of the
paper to serve any private ends of his own. "Not a single line that
has ever appeared in the _Western Mail_ has been written or inspired by
the Marquis of Bute," wrote the Editor when his paper had reached a
position of security and success; and the statement was literally and
exactly true. The _Western Mail_ won the confidence of the people by
strongly upholding their rights at such times of crisis as the serious
upheaval in the coal and iron industries in 1873; and one of its most
appreciated tributes was that received from a leading Nonconformist
minister: "Though you are Conservative in name you are Liberal in
practice." After eight {86} years' connection with the paper Bute
relinquished all financial interest in it in 1877. He considered
himself that this journalistic enterprise had cost him from first to
last not less than L50,000. "I have never grudged it," he once simply
said when questioned on the subject.
With these new interests at home, Bute did not lose sight of his
intention (expressed in a letter quoted in the last chapter) of
spending the winter of 1869 and the succeeding spring in Rome, and he
arrived there in the last days of November, taking up his residence at
the Palazzo Savielli in the Piazza SS. Apostoli. He wrote shortly
before Christmas:
It is of particular interest to me to find myself living within a
stone's-throw of the building which sheltered for so many years my
unfortunate kinsmen (if I may be allowed so to call them) the exiled
Stuarts.[2] Their cenotaph by Canova in St. Peter's (paid for by their
Hanoverian supplanter on the throne!) strikes me always as one of the
most pathetic and beautiful monuments of modern Rome.
[Sidenote: 1869, Papal infallibility]
Bute was of course drawn to Rome, like so many others at this time, by
the event on which the eyes of all Christendom were turned with curious
if widely varying interest--namely, the opening of the Vatican Council
by Pius IX. Bute was present at the solemn inauguration on December 8,
when more than 700 mitred prelates walked in procession to St. Peter's,
preceded by the splendid silver {87} processional cross, set with
precious stones, which he had presented to the Pontiff a few days
previously. A day or two after the imposing ceremony he records a
curious little incident in a letter to a friend:
I heard that the titular Abbot of Westminster, the head of the
Benedictine Order in England, called to report his arrival on some high
dignitary, dressed not in his habit but in the get-up of an elderly
English clergyman. He was told that if he wanted to process with the
abbots he must attire himself accordingly, and was asked if he
possessed the insignia of his office. "Certainly," he replied. "I
have the ring of the Abbots of Westminster," pulling out of his
waistcoat pocket the identical ring worn by Feckenham, the last abbot
in the reign of Queen Mary! The lamentable sequel to the story is that
as he was mounting the steps into St. Peter's on the opening day of the
Council, the precious ring, which he had not taken the trouble to get
fitted to his finger, fell off, rolled down the steps, and was never
heard of again. If this is true it seems very deplorable.
During his sojourn in Rome Bute had opportunities, which he was not
likely to neglect, of meeting many interesting people, and hearing much
at first hand, and from both sides, of the weighty matters under
discussion at the Council. The prelate of whom he saw most, and to
whom he was very sincerely attached, was Mgr. Clifford, Bishop of
Clifton, who with the Archbishops of Paris, Vienna, and St. Louis, and
Bishop Dupanloup of Orleans, were prominent among the opponents of the
definition of Papal Infallibility. With the leaders of the opposite
party also he had from time to time considerable intercourse, and in a
letter addressed to {88} him nearly thirty years later by the venerable
Cardinal Gibbons, now (1920) the sole survivor of the Fathers of the
Council, his Eminence reminded Bute of a long drive he had taken with
himself and Archbishop Spalding of Baltimore, a very strong
pro-definitionist, and of their interesting talk on that occasion about
the great subject of the day. Bute's own habit of mind, and the
influence exercised on his judgment by Bishop Clifford, undoubtedly
predisposed him to sympathise with those opposed to the definition; and
he shared the apprehensions of many of his friends among that
party--apprehensions not justified in the event--that the step if
carried through might result in a serious defection from the Church. A
subsequent letter from him, however, will show what with instant and
edifying submission of heart and mind he accepted the decree when once
it had been promulgated by the supreme authority which he never for a
moment questioned.
[Sidenote: 1870, Society in Rome]
Bute was not so preoccupied with these grave matters but that he found
time for a certain amount of social intercourse with the distinguished
and cosmopolitan society gathered that winter in the Eternal City. He
made friends with the Papal Zouaves, and often accepted the hospitality
of the officers of that pleasant international corps, with one of whom,
Captain the Hon. Walter Maxwell, he became very intimate. He liked to
watch the Zouaves at rifle-practice in the Borghese Gardens, visited
the officers on guard at the Colosseum and elsewhere, and entertained
them once at a famous supper of which the recollection long survived in
the corps. About Christmas time he was present at a great reception
given at the Palazzo Bonimi by Mr. and Mrs. Delabarre Bodenham, and
records a {89} "twenty minutes' conversation with Archbishop Manning,
in a quite empty little room opening out of the reception hall." Soon
after New Year he attended a dinner given in a cafe in the Corso by the
British Committee of the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta, and
made a speech reported by one of those present to be "the best speech
of the evening and very well received." His name is also recorded as
having been present at many notable religious functions--among others
the imposing funeral service, in the church of the Holy Apostles, of
the Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany, at which the Pope assisted and gave
the final absolution. Bute saw much, during these weeks in Rome, of
the savants and scholars--by no means all sympathisers with the Papal
regime--then resident in the city, and his modesty of demeanour,
earnestness, and intelligence made a very favourable impression on the
varied society with which he was brought into contact. In those days
he liked to be amused as well as interested; and there was plenty of
amusement to be found at that time in the kaleidoscopic throngs of
visitors which the unique and unrivalled charms of Rome attracted
within her gates. One of his most agreeable acquaintances--quite
outside ecclesiastical and antiquarian circles--was Olivia Lady
Sebright, the clever and charming sister of an Irish peer who had been
his contemporary at Oxford. Her lively persiflage was doubtless a
pleasant and piquant contrast to the discourses of Bute's learned
acquaintances; and it was often jestingly remarked in Anglo-Roman
society that Lady Sebright seemed to do all the talking and Lord Bute
all the listening. He alludes to her in one of his letters as "a very
vivacious lady, who would {90} have her joke even in the Catacombs."
Lady Sebright was included in the party which Bute invited to join him
in the yachting cruise in the Mediterranean which he made after leaving
Italy in the summer of 1870.
Bute did not remain in Rome for the final Congregation of the Council
on July 18, 1870, when 533 bishops voted in favour of the _schema_ "De
Ecclesia," with the added clauses on Papal Infallibility. Two only
voted "Non placet," the Bishops of Ajaccio and of Little Rock,
U.S.A.[3] The decree was immediately confirmed by the Pope in the
midst of a terrific thunderstorm; and on the same day Napoleon III.
declared war against Prussia. In a letter to H. D. Grissell, dated
five days before the occupation of Rome by the troops of Victor
Emmanuel, Bute tells how he first heard of the momentous event:
Cardiff Castle,
_September_ 15, 1870.
How can I tell in what a state this may find you at Rome? the Pope
perhaps gone to Malta, and the whole place in revolution, tempered only
by the presence of Italian troops.
My first act on returning to England was to go to Clifton to see
[Bishop] Clifford. He was away, but two of his chaplains received me
and told me {91} of the definition, of which I have now received from
you the awful description. My mind bowed itself at once before the
definition, and I believed the doctrine _ex animo_. I have since found
that many most pious Catholics, most heartily willing to believe
anything on the Church's authority, do not see that that authority
exists in this case. They argue in this way: I. It is admitted that an
OEcumenical Council approved by the Pope can bind the soul. II. To be
OEcumenical it is necessary for the Council to be _closed_, the decrees
signed by a majority of the Fathers, then published and received in the
whole world. III. This is not at present the case with the Vatican
Council.[4]--_Ergo_.
Whether there is anything in all this I am not personally concerned to
enquire. There seems to me no doubt that external disobedience and
denial of the doctrine are, as things now are, sinful; though some may,
and doubtless do, hold a hope that God will some day teach us by His
Church that this definition of the Vatican Council is not, after all,
part of the revealed truth. Such thoughts sometimes make me unhappy,
and I endeavour (which is what our confessors advise) to drown them by
practical Catholic work and such attempts at piety as I am capable of.
I repeat--from the moment of the definition I had not one doubt of the
truth of the doctrine in the bottom of my soul. The conviction that
the doctrine is truly part of God's Eternal Truth--even though it may
not yet be officially made known to us as part of that "faith" of which
St. Paul speaks when he says, "Being justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord JESUS Christ"--still remains in me; and it
seems to me that I could never cease to hold it until, or unless, the
Church laid down the contrary. {92} Let us leave the matter here: I
shall write no more of it.
Our voyage home was very happy and successful. We travelled across
Corsica by carriage, after a week in a quiet Sardinian bay, in sight of
Garibaldi's home at Caprera. We were nearly three weeks between Nice
and Cannes, where Lady Sebright left us; then about a fortnight at the
Balearic Isles--Palma is charming. We touched at some Spanish ports,
passed ten days at Gibraltar, and ran up from Cadiz for a week at
Seville; then eight days at Lisbon and Cintra. Never in England or out
of it have I seen cathedrals worked so splendidly as the few Spanish I
saw. I could not have conceived the grandeur of the fabric,
establishment, and functions of Seville--_infinitely better than St.
Peter's_. Not having witnessed any great solemnity, I fail to imagine
what they must be like. Some of the Peninsular practices are very
interesting, such as the use of the double ambon, and the Portuguese
practice of administering a glass chalice with wine to communicants.[5]
George Lane Fox was married to Miss Slade by the Archbishop [Manning]
on Saturday. I gave her for a marriage present that rosary of emeralds
you used to admire so much; and she at once wrote to ask my consent to
its being altered into a necklace! which I refused to give.
G---- (from Parker's) is down here working at my books; he wears a
cassock, with red worsted slippers embroidered with coloured glass
beads. H told me (1) that Llandaff Cathedral was only a whited
sepulchre, and (2) that he doubted if Liddon {93} would ever succeed in
introducing Christianity into St. Paul's Cathedral.[6]
Thank God, it is only within the Church (and that, one trusts and
hopes, but for a season) that consciences have been disturbed by the
troubles of the Definition. These have had no apparent effect on the
accession of converts. Lord Robert Montagu has just been received, and
I hear of others. I had lately a long discussion with a clever,
well-read, and agreeable Protestant, and he told me it appeared to him
quite immaterial, once granted the infallibility of the Church--the
only real question--in what precise place or person it resided.
[Sidenote: 1870, Foundations at Cardiff]
I have set up a great screen and rood in the Fathers of Charity's
church here, and got it opened daily from 2 to 8 p.m., which enables me
sometimes to pay a visit to the _Santissimo_. The change seems
appreciated, and many persons come to pray. I hope Our Lord will
sanctify them out of His holy Tabernacle.
I am about starting a convent of Sisters of the Good Shepherd about a
mile from this town, in a beautiful spot. Their church will contain a
tribune for the public, and they will sing High Mass, Vespers, and
Benediction on Sundays and holidays of obligation. Burges is to do the
chapel, wherein I propose to erect a large gothic baldequin. The
building is now an old barn. The whole will, I think, though simple,
be very nice, and a great consolation to me.
I expect to be here till the end of this month, and after that I have a
few visits to pay; but I hope to be in Bute by November 1, and intend
to stay there all the winter. The place is very charming, {94} and is
my real home. I have not been there since I became Catholic, and the
people are all, I fear, very strongly prejudiced; so I am afraid I
shall have rather a rough time of it--at least at first. Will you not
leave Rome and all its troubles, and pay a good long visit to Sneyd and
me in a country where the Church is in a missionary character? If so,
come and pass Christmas at least with me in Bute. We shall be
delighted to see you, and you will be away from all sorts of
disagreeable things, for a time at least.
Always yours most sincerely,
BUTE.
Before leaving Cardiff for his home in Scotland, which he had not
visited for two years, Bute attended the annual congress of the Iron
and Steel Institute at Merthyr, was present at the banquet given to the
congress by the South Wales ironmasters, and accompanied several of the
excursions to the great works in the district in which he was
interested. The letter which he wrote on the day of his arrival in
Bute to his old friend at Oxford showed what his feeling was about the
usurpation of the States of the Church by the Sardinian monarch.
Mountstuart,
Rothesay,
_October_ 26, 1870.
MY DEAR MISS SKENE,
I ought to have written to you long ago, and really do not know what to
say--except "mea culpa." There will be much to tell you when we next
meet.
I am quite firm, thank GOD, in the Church. I have outgrown any
"convert enthusiasm" I may ever have possessed; but I have long ceased
to think of anything else even as a possibility, or to {95} feel
anything novel in Catholic practices. I am quite quiet, and I think,
thank GOD, so far doing pretty well.
You ask me about Rome. As to politics, my feeling in favour of the
Temporal Power is very strong. Of course it had its faults, the
extreme leniency of the criminal tribunals being probably the worst;
but, putting the question of right aside, a Christian could institute
no comparison between the Italian and the Pontifical Governments.
Religiously, Rome is neither so good nor so bad as the extreme people
would make it out. It was very edifying, and there was a great deal of
piety--more conspicuous, perhaps, among the foreigners than the Romans,
but of course that was to be expected, as the former came on purpose.
The sanctuaries of Rome are very precious, especially the Holy Reliques
and the graves of the Martyrs, and I love them very much.
At the same time I think that this dreadful Revolution may be possibly
a scourge in the hand of GOD to bring about His Will, though every
Catholic must be appalled at the wickedness of the new Pontius Pilate
and his accomplices. Perhaps the fiery trial may destroy some abuses,
stop some things one does not like to see, and bring about others more
profitable to Rome herself and to us.
As to the Greeks in America, it is impossible for me, I am sorry to
say, to have anything to do with supplying them with my own or any
other Liturgical books for use in their (as we believe) schismatic
worship.
Always most sincerely yours,
BUTE.
[Sidenote: 1870, The Roman situation]
It is evident from one or two of his letters already quoted, that Bute,
who was well aware of the strong feeling aroused among the people of
his titular island by his conversion to the Roman Church, {96} had felt
some natural apprehension as to their possible attitude towards him
when he returned after a somewhat prolonged absence to live amongst
them. "I have been getting along very comfortably here," he wrote soon
after his arrival at Mountstuart, "but have so far no opportunity of
knowing what the people think of me behind my back." A letter
addressed a little later to the same correspondent in Oxford is
interesting in this connection.
Mountstuart,
_November_ 10.
I am getting on very well here up to this, and doing my best to
popularise myself by going about among the people. Yesterday, for
example, I attended both a funeral and a marriage. I believe this was
much appreciated, and at the marriage I was very warmly received, was
begged to do them the honour of signing the "lines," etc., etc. The
oddest part of the matter was that at the funeral the Rothesay tag-rag
outside _cheered_ me as I left the churchyard. I thought the prayers
at both ceremonies (of course extemporary) were intended to do me a
little good: there was nothing in them with which I could not heartily
concur, but a good deal of stress was laid on the "One Oblation offered
once for all"--"the full and free Redemption which is by faith in
Christ's death," etc., which are, I find, commonly supposed to be ideas
irreconcileable with the teaching of the Holy Roman Church--why, I
can't conceive, unless it is for want of reading St. Alphonsus Liguori.
Here at Rothesay we have a chapel and schools, a superannuated bishop,
Dr. Gray, and a young Scottish priest educated in France, Mr. George
Smith, a man of piety and learning.[7] The whole {97} island contains
about 500 Catholics, either Highlanders or Irish. I have had one of
the rooms here made into a chapel, than which no meeting-house can be
barer. Mass is said here on Sundays and holidays, preceded by a very
simple English service. Last Sunday I was at Largs, on the mainland
opposite, and heard an early Mass in a very poor cottage--said in the
kitchen on a small chest of drawers. The house was crowded by the
congregation, standing on the stairs, in the passages, and all the
rooms. They are wonderfully devout. Out of the East I never saw such
a sight.
Yours ever most sincerely,
BUTE.
[Sidenote: 1870, Life at Mountstuart]
Bute spent nearly the whole winter and spring of 1870-1871 at his
beautiful Scottish home, to which he was deeply attached. As he came
to know his neighbours better--and he took much pains to cultivate
friendly relations with them all--the stiffness, which was, perhaps, as
much the result of his own shyness and reserve as of their lack of
sympathy with his religious opinions, to a great extent wore off, and
his simplicity, courtesy, good sense, and kindness of heart won for him
little by little the high place in their regard which he ever
afterwards maintained. He was from the first on the friendliest terms
with the Presbyterian clergy of the island as well as with his own
pastor, and had also established very cordial relations with Mr.
(afterwards Sir) Charles Dalrymple, then and for the following fifteen
years member for the county, and resident in the island. This cordial
acquaintanceship ripened, after the marriages of Bute and of Dalrymple,
into a warm {98} friendship between the two families which terminated
only with death.[8]
Liturgical matters engrossed at this time, as always, a good deal of
Bute's attention, and are dealt with in many of his letters. Thus, in
March, 1871, he writes very seriously about the "truly scandalous
proceedings" at the London pro-cathedral, news of which had reached him
in Scotland, and which the context shows to have consisted in the
wearing of dalmatics instead of folded chasubles at some Lenten
function in the church in question. As will be seen from a later
letter, he arranged for the ceremonial of Holy Week and Easter to be
carried out as far as possible in his tiny chapel at Mountstuart; and
we find him giving minute instructions to his friend Grissell, who was
to spend that season as his guest in Bute, as to bringing the
requisites for the celebrations, including "18 yellow candles, rather
slim and 18 inches long, a paschal candle 3 feet long and 1-1/2 inches
thick, a book on ceremonies, five grains of incense, and a wooden
clapper for Maundy Thursday." "We had the rites of the Holy Week," he
wrote subsequently to Miss Skene, "performed in my little chapel, for
the first time in Bute since the change of religion three centuries
ago. They seldom, if ever, take place in Scotland, and our priest here
had never (so he told me) officiated in his life before on Good Friday!
You may be surprised to hear that, having no choir to execute the
liturgical chant, we adopt as far as {99} we can the methodist style of
singing emotional hymns during the services."
[Sidenote: 1871, Bute as philologist]
After Easter Bute stayed for a while in London, and then returned to
Cardiff, where he remained in residence for the greater part of the
year. He took regular lessons in Welsh at this time from one of the
Cardiff clergy, and quickly mastered the language scientifically,
though he never learned to speak it fluently.
The science of philology (the late Dean Howell wrote) seemed to cost
Lord Bute no effort, for he was a born philologist, and appeared to
penetrate and solve linguistic difficulties as it were by instinct.
Another thing that used to astonish me was his familiarity with, and
wide knowledge of, the Authorised Version of the Bible; for at that
time (1871) he could not have been more than 23 or 24 years of age.
His retentive memory (which I have never seen equalled) enabled him to
quote exactly lengthy passages; and if I chanced to quote a Welsh word
from Scripture for illustrative purposes, he would give the English
rendering of the whole passage from memory with ease and perfect
accuracy. His tastes and accomplishments were essentially mediaeval;
and history, art, and archaeology had for him an inexhaustible charm.
Bute had a little before this shown his practical interest in art by
not only presiding at a Fine Art Exhibition in the drill-hall which he
had erected, but by exhibiting there valuable plate and pictures,
including a painting executed by himself. A little later he was in the
chair at the annual meeting held at Cardiff of the Palestine
Exploration Fund, recounting in very interesting fashion his own
travels in that country. And in July, 1871, he took an {100} active
part in the congress of the British Archaeological Institute held at the
Town Hall, entertaining the members at a reception at the Castle and a
banquet at Caerphilly. He also spoke at the congress, taking many of
the distinguished visitors by surprise with the extent of his knowledge
and information on the subjects special to the Institute.
[Sidenote: 1871, Belmont and Llanthony]
Soon after the meeting of the Archaeological Congress, Bute left England
for Ober Ammergau to witness the Passion Play, which had been postponed
for a year owing to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. He then
joined his yacht at St. Malo, and after a cruise off Devon, Cornwall,
and the Channel Islands returned to Cardiff for the autumn. During
this time he paid several visits to the Benedictine Priory at Belmont,
near Hereford, where his liturgical tastes found satisfaction in the
solemn rendering of the Divine service by the monastic community. One
of the fathers then resident there[9] has some interesting
recollections of these periodical visits:
Lord Bute came to Belmont three or four times, I think, in the year
before his marriage. He left on us the impression of a modest,
unassuming, and extremely intelligent young man with serious tastes,
who seemed quite at home in the simple surroundings of a monastery. He
frequented the Divine Office regularly, and followed all the Church
functions with interest. He joined the Fathers at coffee after meals,
and conversed very pleasantly, telling us sometimes of his Cardiff
interests or of his early experiences and travels. He was a good deal
with {101} Prior Vaughan,[10] of course; but as I was acting
guestmaster and about his own age, I walked out with him several times,
and we talked of many subjects, chiefly, perhaps, archaeological or
theological topics. I remember his telling me of a conversation with a
Protestant clergyman who came to interview him, possibly with hope of
influencing an unformed mind. Lord Bute proposed for discussion the
precise theological value of the verse on the Precious Blood[11]--
"Cujus una stilla salvum facere
Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere;"
and I gathered that they soon came to an end of the poor parson's
divinity, and of his efforts to "snatch a brand from the burning."
The prior took Lord Bute to Llanthony, where they saw "Father
Ignatius," who told them that he reserved the Holy Eucharist under
three rites--Anglican, Greek, and Roman. He also said (which struck
Lord Bute as very whimsical) that he insisted on his visitors keeping
strict silence when walking over a field in which his cloisters were
one day to be built.[12]
[1] As a little boy of twelve Bute had been enrolled as an honorary
member of the 1st Bute Rifle Volunteers, and had occasionally appeared
in the dark-grey uniform with blue facings. When the Cardiff Yeomanry
went on service in the South African War, Bute showed his patriotism by
subscribing L500 to the funds of the corps.
[2] The kinship was undoubted, if somewhat remote. Bute was fifteenth
in direct male descent from King Robert II. of Scotland, the lineal
ancestor of James VIII. (the "Chevalier de St. George"), to whom the
Pope made over the Palazzo Santi Apostoli as a residence in 1720, the
year of the birth of Prince Charles Edward.
[3] The caustic comment in Vatican circles was, of course, that it was
a case of the "Little Rock" in conflict with the Rock of Peter; but it
should be added that the two dissentient prelates, immediately after
voting against the decree, left their places and prostrated themselves
before the Papal Chair in token of their submission. Similarly every
one of the eighty-eight bishops who had voted "Non placet" in the
Congregation of July 13--not, of course, against the dogma, but against
the opportuneness of its definition--accepted the decree without
qualification as soon as it was officially promulgated.
[4] On October 20, 1870, a month after the forcible occupation of Rome
by the Piedmontese troops, Pius IX. issued a brief proroguing the
Council. It has never been either closed or reassembled.
[5] Fr. Herbert Thurston, S.J., in a learned article in _The Month_
(October, 1911), has shown that the custom of offering a "purification"
of unconsecrated wine and water to lay communicants, after their
reception of the Host, was practically universal in England down to the
period of the Reformation, and was continued until the reign of James
II. The practice is still generally observed at Ordination Masses, and
on one or two other rare and special occasions.
[6] The learned and eloquent Professor of Exegesis had been appointed a
canon of St. Paul's by Mr. Gladstone in the spring of this year, and
had preached his first sermon under the dome as canon-in-residence on
September 11, four days before the above letter was written.
[7] Father George Smith, who had studied at St. Sulpice, and was an
excellent scholar and theologian, became Bishop of Argyll and the Isles
in 1893, occupying the see for a quarter of a century until his death
in 1918.
[8] Long after the termination of his political connection with Bute,
Sir Charles Dalrymple used to recall with pleasure the remark once made
to him on Rothesay Pier by a Buteshire farmer of the old school: "Weel,
sir, we've got three things to be thankful for in the Isle of Bute, and
forbye they all begin with an M: we've a gude mairquis, and a gude
member, and a gude meenister."
[9] Right Rev. J. I. Cummins, O.S.B., now (1920) titular Abbot of St.
Mary's, York.
[10] This was Dom Roger Bede Vaughan, younger brother of Cardinal
Herbert Vaughan of Westminster. He was cathedral prior of Belmont from
1862 to 1872, and in 1877 became Archbishop of Sydney, N.S.W. He died
in 1883.
[11] From the Eucharistic hymn _Adoro Te devoie_, written by St. Thomas
of Aquin about A.D. 1260, and known as the "Rhythmus S. Thomae
Aquinatis." Sixteen English versions of it have been published at
various times.
[12] The Rev. J. Leycester Lyne--commonly known as "Father
Ignatius"--was at this time endeavouring, with no great success, to
establish an Anglican Benedictine monastery among the Black Mountains
of Wales. About a year previous to Bute's visit he had laid the
foundation of the conventual buildings.
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