BUTE, MARQUIS OF,
a title in the peerage of Great Britain, possessed by a branch of the
Stewart family descended from Sir John Stewart, a natural son of King
Robert the Second. The Scotch title is earl of Bute, and dates only from
1703. The higher title of marquis was conferred in 1796, on the fourth
earl, the son of the celebrated prime minister in the early part of the
reign of George the Third.
Sir John
Stewart, the founder of this noble family, received from his father,
about 1385, a grant of lands in the Isle of Bute, the ancient patrimony
of the Stewarts, Malcolm the Second, sometime before the year 1093
having granted Bute to Walter the first lord-high-steward of Scotland,
who gave it to a younger son, with whom and his posterity it remained
about a century, when it was re-annexed to the possessions of the
lord-high-steward, by the intermarriage of Alexander Stewart with Jean,
daughter and heiress of James, lord of Bute. The island of Bute
afterwards became subject to the Norwegians, but did not long remain so,
and it would appear that on its restoration to the Scottish crown, it
reverted to the possession of the family of the high-steward, for in the
fatal battle of Falkirk betwixt the English and Scotch in 1296 the men
of Buteshire, known at that time by the name of the lord-high-steward’s
Brandanes, served under Sir John Stewart, and were almost wholly cut off
with their valiant leader.
Along with the
lands, King Robert the Second conferred on his son above named, Sir John
Stewart, the hereditary office of sheriff of Bute and Arran. These
Robert the Third confirmed by charter, ‘dilecto fratri nostro, Joanni
Senescallo de Bute,’ 11th November 1400. There is a tradition
that Sir John Stuart’s mother’s name was Leitch. Although designated
“Sir” in Duncan Stewart’s History of the Stewarts and by peerage
writers, who generally follow each other, no authority is given for the
title, and he is not so called in any contemporary document. Of the
different varieties of spelling of the name of Stewart, the Bute family
have preferred that of Stuart, the mode of orthography adopted by Mary
queen of Scots on going to France, there being no w in the
alphabet of that country.
A descendant
of this Sir John Stewart in the seventh generation, Sir James Stuart of
Bute, grandfather of the first earl, was created a baronet by King
Charles the First, 28th March 1627. He was a firm adherent of
that unfortunate monarch, and early in the civil wars garrisoned the
castle of Rothesay, and, at his own expense, raised a body of soldiers
in the king’s cause. He was appointed by his majesty his lieutenant over
the west of Scotland, and directed to take possession of the castle of
Dumbarton. Two frigates were sent to his assistance, but one of them was
wrecked in a storm, and Sir James was ultimately obliged to retire to
Ireland, to avoid imprisonment. His estate was sequestrated, and on
recovering possession of it, he was obliged, by way of compromise, to
pay a fine of five thousand marks, imposed by parliament in 1646. When
Cromwell obtained possession of Scotland, the castle of Rothesay was
again taken out of his hands, and a military force placed in it. Sir
James was also deprived of his hereditary office of sheriff of Bute, and
declared incapable of any public trust. He died at London in 1662, and
was buried in Westminster Abbey. By his wife, Isabella, eldest daughter
of Sir Dugald Campbell of Auchinbreck, baronet, he had two sons and
three daughters. His eldest son, Sir Dugald Stuart, succeeded him, and
died in 1672, leaving a son, Sir James Stuart, the third baronet of the
family, and first earl of Bute.
Sir Robert
Stuart of Tilliecultry, the second son, was appointed a lord of session,
25th July, 1701. He was also a commissioner of justiciary and
was created a baronet 29th April 1707. He was member of
parliament for the county of Bute, and one of the commissioners for the
union, which he steadily supported. In 1709 he resigned his seat on the
bench in favour of his nephew Dugald Stuart of Blairhall, the brother of
the following.
Sir James
Stuart of Bute, the third baronet of the elder branch, succeeded his
father in 1671. On the forfeiture of the earl of Argyle in 1681, he was
solicited by government to take the management of the county of Argyle,
and in April 1683 he was appointed colonel of the militia of the
counties of Argyle, Bute, and Dumbarton, and in June 1684 sheriff of the
district of Tarbert. In the following February he was appointed sheriff
of Argyleshire, and on the 25th March was admitted a member
of the faculty of advocates. He supported the revolution, and early
declared his adherence to King William and Queen Mary. On the accession
of Queen Anne, at which time he was member of the Scots parliament for
the county of Bute, he was sworn a privy councillor. In 1702 he was
named one of the commissioners to treat of a union, with England, which
did not then take effect. By patent, dated at St. James’, 14th
April 1703, he was created in the peerage of Scotland, earl of Bute,
viscount of Kingarth, Lord Mountstuart, Cumbrae, and Inchmarnock, to
himself and his heirs male whatever, and took the oaths and his seat as
a peer in parliament, 6th July 1704. He opposed the union
with England, and did not attend the last Scottish parliament, in which
the union treaty was discussed and finally agreed to. His lordship died
at Bath, 4th June 1710, and was buried with his ancestors at
Rothesay. His epitaph in Latin is quoted in Crawford’s Peerage. He was
twice married, first to Agnes, eldest daughter of Sir George Mackenzie
of Rosehaugh, Lord Advocate in the reigns of Charles the Second and
James the Seventh.
James, the
second earl of Bute, the only son of this marriage, inherited, after
much litigation, the extensive estates of his grandfather, Sir George
Mackenzie of Rosehaugh. After the accession of George the First he was
appointed one of the commissioners of trade and police in Scotland,
lord-lieutenant of the county of Bute, and a lord of the bed-chamber.
During the rebellion of 1715 he commanded the Bute and Argyle militia at
Inverary, and prevented any outbreak in that part of the country. He was
one of the representatives of the Scots peerage at the general elections
of 1715 and 1722. He died in January 1723, at the age of thirty-three
years. He married Lady Anne Campbell, only daughter of Archibald first
duke of Argyle, and by her (who afterwards married Fraser of Strichen,
in the county of Aberdeen) he had two sons and four daughters. James,
the second son, succeeded to the large estates of his great grandfather,
Sir George Mackenzie, and assumed the additional surname of Mackenzie.
This gentleman, who was a member of parliament for different places in
Scotland, from 1742 to 1784, was envoy extraordinary to the king of
Sardinia in 1758, where he lived in a splendid style for some years. In
April 1763, he was constituted keeper of the privy seal of Scotland, and
sworn of the privy council. He was deprived of the privy seal in June
1765, but reinstated in office for life in 1766. He married his cousin,
Lady Elizabeth Campbell, fourth daughter of the great John duke of
Argyle and Greenwich, but had no surviving issue. Her ladyship died in
July 1799, and her husband, Mr. Stuart Mackenzie, only survived her
about nine months, dying of grief for her loss 6th April
1800, in his eighty-second year. An arch within the rails of the duke of
Argyle’s monument in Westminster Abbey contains a bust of Mr. Stuart
Mackenzie, by Nollekens, and a tablet, with mathematical instruments,
and an appropriate inscription. As he left no make issue, the succession
to his Scottish estates fell to be regulated by an entail executed by
Sir George Mackenzie in 1689. Although the latter was one of the first
lawyers of his day, his settlements were so ambiguously worded that they
gave rise to protracted litigation. His estates were claimed by the Hon.
James Archibald Stuart Wortley, next brother of the first Marquis of
Bute, and his nephew, Lord Herbert Windsor Stuart, second son of the
Marquis. The judgment of the court of session was in favour of the
former, and, on appear, it was affirmed by the House of Lords, 4th
March 1803. [see MACKENZIE, SIR GEORGE.]
John, third
earl of Bute, the first and favourite minister of George the Third, was
born in the Parliament close, Edinburgh, May 25, 1713. The lofty old
buildings in that famed locality, which formed the fashionable flats of
the early part of the last century, where so many of the Scots nobility,
judges, and eminent citizens of the capital, at one period resided, were
destroyed by the great fire of 1824, and the whole close has been
remodelled to such an extent with modern improvements that it has lost
all its original features, and to complete the change the good old name
of Close, which connected it with St. Giles’ cathedral, “and which,”
says Wilson, “is pleasingly associated with the cloistral courts of the
magnificent cathedrals and abbeys of England, has been replaced by the
modern, and, in this case, ridiculous, one of Square.” [Memorials of
Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 118.] The third earl of Bute received his
education at Eton, and succeeded his father in 1723, when he was only
ten years old. In April 1737 he was chosen one of the representative
peers of Scotland, and re-chosen at the general elections of 1761, 1768,
and 1774. In 1738, he was made a knight of the Thistle. On the landing
of the Pretender in Scotland in 1745, the earl proceeded to London, and
offered his services to the government. Under the act of 1747,
abolishing the heritable jurisdictions, he had an allowance of two
thousand pounds for the sheriffship, and one hundred and eighty-six
pounds, nine shillings and threepence for the regality of Bute; in all,
two thousand one hundred and eighty-six pounds nine shillings and
threepence, in full of his claim of eight thousand pounds.
At an
exhibition of private theatricals his lordship attracted the notice of
Frederick, prince of Wales, in consequence of which he was invited to
court, and, in October 1750, was appointed by his royal highness, a lord
of his bed-chamber. After the death of the prince, he was, in 1756,
nominated by the widowed princess, groom of the stole to her son, the
young heir-apparent, afterwards George the Third. In this capacity he
obtained unbounded influence with the princess of Wales, in consequence
of which the tutors of her son, the earl of Harcourt and the bishop of
Norwich, resigned their offices, and their successors, Lord Waldegrave
and the bishop of Lincoln, also opposed him unsuccessfully. Two days
after the accession of George the Third to the throne, in October 1760,
Lord Bute was sworn a privy councillor, and appointed groom of the stole
to his majesty. In March 1761, on the dismissal of the Whig ministry, he
resigned that office, and was appointed one of the principal secretaries
of state. The same year, on the resignation of the princess Amelia, he
was appointed ranger and keeper of Richmond park, and invested with the
order of the garter; and, May 29, 1762, he was constituted first lord of
the treasury. He signalized his administration by the patronage which he
extended to literature, and it was by his recommendation that a pension
was conferred on Dr. Johnson. Home, the author of the tragedy of
‘Douglas,’ was also indebted to him for a place. His principal measure,
as prime minister, was the conclusion of a treaty of peace with France,
after a sanguinary and expensive war, the peace of Paris being concluded
February 10, 1763; but the English nation, intoxicated with the
successes which had crowned the British arms, disapproved of the treaty,
and the earl became so unpopular as a minister that he and his country
were attacked in the most scurrilous terms by Wilkes and other party
writers, through the medium of the ‘North Briton,’ and similar
unprincipled publications. He was also accused of bestowing many
lucrative government offices on his countrymen, and a popular odium was
excited against Scotsmen in London, which has long since happily passed
away. Even Dr. Johnson himself, with all his enlargement of feeling, was
remarkable for the prejudice which he entertained against the natives of
Scotland.
On 8th
April, 1763, Lord Bute suddenly retired from office; and although he
never afterwards openly interfered with public business, he retained the
confidence of the king, and was, but without reason, suspected of
exerting a secret influence over the royal counsels. He was even blamed
as the author of the Stamp Act, which kindled the first flame of discord
between Great Britain and her North American colonies. The remainder of
his life was spent in retirement chiefly at a residence at Christchurch
in Hampshire, in the cultivation of literature and science. He employed
the architect Robert Adam to build a splendid mansion for him at Luton
Hoo, in Bedfordshire, where he accumulated a valuable library, and one
of the richest collections of paintings, especially of the Dutch and
Flemish schools, in the kingdom. The architects George and Robert Adam,
and Joshua Kirby, were all employed and munificently encouraged by him.
His favourite study was botany, and he wrote, in nine vols. 4to, a
botanical work which contained all the different kinds of plants in
Great Britain, and only sixteen copies of which were printed, though the
expense exceeded a thousand pounds. Butea, a genus of plants belonging
to the natural order Leguminosae, was named after him. In 1765, his
lordship was elected one of the Trustees of the British Museum. He also
held the office of chancellor of the Marischal college, Aberdeen, and on
the institution of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1780 he was
chosen their president. He was an honorary fellow of the Royal College
of Physicians at Edinburgh, and to him the university of that city was
indebted for its botanic garden. He died at London, March 10, 1792. He
married, Aug. 24, 1738, Mary, only daughter of Edward Wortley Montagu,
M.P., eldest son of Sidney Wortley Montagu, second son of Edward first
earl of Sandwich, K.G. Her mother was the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, whose own name was Pierrepont, the daughter of Evelyn, first
duke of Kingston. The countess was born at Pera, during her father’s
embassy at Constantinople, in February 1718, and on the death of her
father in February 1761, she succeeded to the liferent of his vast
estates in Yorkshire and Cornwall, her brother, Edward Wortley Montagu,
having been disinherited on account of the eccentricity of his conduct.
On the 3d April of the latter year she was created a peeress of Great
Britain by the title of baroness Mountstuart of Wortley, in Yorkshire,
with remainder to the heirs make of her body, by her husband the earl of
Bute, and died at Isleworth 6th November 1794, in her 77th
year, having had five sons and six daughters. The eldest son, John,
succeeded as fourth earl.
The second
son, the Hon. James Archibald Stuart, (Wortley Mackenzie,) born in 1747,
was M.P. from 1768 to 1806, during which period he sat thrice for the
county of Bute. In 1779 he raised the ninety-second regiment of foot,
and on 27th December of that year was appointed its
lieutenant-colonel commandant. In 1780 he proceeded with his regiment to
the West Indies, where his health was severely affected by the extreme
heat of the climate. At the peace of 1783, the regiment was disbanded.
In 1794 he succeeded his mother, the baroness Mountstuart, in her
extensive property in Yorkshire and Cornwall, and in consequence
assumed, by sign manual, the surname of Wortley, 17th January
1795; and six years afterwards, namely in 1800, he also succeed his
uncle, the Right Hon. James Stuart Mackenzie, in his estates in
Scotland, his claim to which, as already stated, was confirmed by a
final decision of the House of Lords, in 1803, on which he took the
additional name of Mackenzie for himself only. Mr. Stuart Wortley
Mackenzie married in 1767 Margaret, daughter of Sir David Cunninghame of
Milnecraig, in Ayrshire, baronet, by Lady Mary Montgomery, daughter of
Alexander, ninth earl of Eglinton, by whom he had issue and subsequently
lord president of the council, was in 1826 created Baron Wharncliffe in
the peerage of the United Kingdom, and dying in 1845 was succeeded by
his son John Stuart Wortley, second Lord Wharncliffe.
The Hon.
Frederick Stuart, the third son of the third earl, was M.P. for Bute,
and died at London, 17th May 1802, in the fifty-first year of
his age, unmarried.
The Hon. Sir
Charles Stuart, the fourth son, a distinguished general, was made a
knight commander of the Bath in January 1799, for his conquest of
Minorca, in November of the preceding year, and died in May 1801. His
eldest son, Charles Stuart, for his diplomatic services, was, in January
1828, created Baron Stuart de Rothesay, in the peerage of the United
Kingdom, but dying in 1845, without issue, his title became extinct.
The Hon.
William Stuart, the fifth son, born in March 1755, was educated for the
church at winchester school, and at the university of Cambridge, and in
1779 was presented by his father to the vicarage of Luton. In 1793, he
was installed a canon of Windsor and consecrated bishop of St. David’s,
and on 25th November 1800 was translated to the
archiepiscopal see of Armagh and primacy of Ireland. He married 3d May
1796, a daughter of Thomas Penn, Esq., proprietor of Pennsylvania, and
left issue. He died in 1805.
John, the
fourth earl and first marquis of Bute, eldest son of the third earl,
born 30th June 1744, was elected M.P. for Bossiney in 1768,
and rechosen at the general elections of 1768 and 1774. He was created a
British peer by the title of Baron Cardiffe of Cardiffe castle in
Glamorganshire, 20th May 1776, and being one of the auditors
of imprest, when that particular office was abolished in 1782, as
compensation seven thousand pounds a-year was settled on him for life.
In 1779 he was appointed envoy-extraordinary and plenipotentiary to
Turin, and in 1783 ambassador extraordinary to the court of Madrid. On
the death of his father in 1792 he became fourth earl of Bute, and in
1794 he succeeded his mother as Baron Mountstuart. He was created
marquis of Bute, earl of Windsor, and Viscount Mountjoy, in the peerage
of the United Kingdom, by patent to him and his heirs male, 27th
February 1796. Being a second time appointed ambassador to Spain, he
landed at Cadiz, 25th May 1795, and proceeded to Madrid,
where he remained till, in consequence of the prevalence of the French
faction, the Spanish court declared war against Great Britain, 5th
October 1796. His lordship was a privy councillor, lord lieutenant, and
custos rotulorum of Glamorganshire, and also lord-lieutenant of the
county of Bute, keeper of Rothesay castle, a trustee of the British
Museum, having been so appointed in March 1800, vice-president of the
Welsh charity, and doctor of laws. He was twice married. His first wife
was Charlotte-Jane, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Herbert, Viscount
Windsor in Ireland, and Baron Mountjoy in England, (who died in 1758,
when his titles became extinct), and by her the marquis had ten
children.
The eldest
son, John Lord Mountstuart, born 25th September 1767, married
123th October 1792, Elizabeth, daughter and sole heiress of Patrick
Crichton, earl of Dumfries, and died 22d January 1794. He had two sons;
John, the elder, became sixth earl of Dumfries, in right of his mother,
in 1803 []see DUMFRIES, earl of], and succeeded as second marquis of
Bute, in 1814. Lord Patrick Stuart, the younger, born 20th
May 1794, a posthumous son, was raised to the rank of a marquis’ son in
1817, and is heir presumptive to the titles.
Lord Herbert
Windsor Stuart, the second son, died in 1825. Lord Evelyn James Stuart,
the third son, was a colonel in the army, and died 16th
August 1842.
The Hon.
Charles Stuart, lieutenant Royal Navy, the fourth son, was lost in the
Leda frigate, going out to the West Indies 11th December
1795, in the 212st year of his age, before his father had been elevated
to the dignity of marquis.
Lord Henry
Stuart, the fifth son, born 7th June 1777, was appointed, 1st
March 1805, envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the court of
Wurtemberg. He married 5th July 1802, Lady Gertrude Emilia
Villiers, only daughter and heiress of John earl of Grandison in
Ireland, by whom he had issue. He died in 1809, in his thirty-third
year, and his lady survived him only eleven days. His eldest son, Henry
Stuart of Dromana, county Waterford, born 8th June 1803,
assumed, with his brothers and sisters, the additional name of Villiers,
and he was raised to the peerage of the United Kingdom ad Lord Stuart de
Decies, in May 1839.
Lord William
Stuart, the sixth son of the first marquis, born 18th
November 1778, served in the royal navy, in which he had the rank of
captain in 1799. He commanded the Champion employed in the blockade of
Malta, from September 1798 to September 1800, and took the Bull-dog,
which he carried from under the batteries of Gallipoli, 15th
August 1801. He afterwards commanded the Lavinia frigate, in which he
rendered essential assistance to the members of the British factory at
Oporto, in the protection of their persons and property on their
expulsion from Portugal in 1807, and he received their formal thanks for
his conduct on that occasion, conveyed through Mr. Warre their consul.
He married in 1806 the Hon. Georgina Maude, the daughter of Cornwallis
Viscount Hawarden, and by her had one daughter, who died unmarried, in
1833.
Lord George
Stuart, the seventh son, born at Turin, 4th March 1780, was
also in the navy, and was singularly unfortunate in his experience of
the dangers of the sea, having thrice suffered shipwreck. Hi was
midshipman on board the Providence, sloop of war, Captain Broughton, on
a voyage of discovery in the Pacific ocean, when it was wrecked on a
coral reef near Formosa, 17th May 1797. All hands, however,
were saved, and his lordship returned to England from China the same
year. In 1804 he was made captain, and placed in command of the
Sheerness of 44 guns, employed in the West Indies, when that vessel was
lost in a gale of wind off Trincomalee, in December of that year, or the
following January. On this occasion also all the crew were saved. In
1800 he had married Jane, daughter of Major-general James Stewart (by
whom he had issue), and in 1805 his lordship and his lady sailed from
Penang in the Commerce, but that vessel was lost in Madras Roads in
December of the same year, when several of those on board were drowned.
Lord George, however, and his lady got safe on shore. He died a
rear-admiral and C.B., 18th February 1841.
The first wife
of the marquis of Bute died 28th January 1800, and he
married, secondly, 7th Sept. the same year, Frances, second
daughter of the late Thomas Coutts, Esq., banker in London, sister of
the Countess of Guilford, and had issue, Lady Frances, married to the
earl of Harrowby, and Lord Dudley Stuart, born 11th January
1803, married a daughter of Lucien Bonaparte, prince of Canino, by whom
he had a son, an officer in the army. The marquis died at Geneva, 16th
November 1814, and the titles descended to his grandson.
John, second
marquis of Bute, and sixth earl of Dumfries, born 25th
September 1767, son of John, Lord Mountstuart. He had succeeded his
maternal grandfather as earl of Dumfries, 7th April 1803. On
the 26th August 1805 he assumed, by sign manual, the arms and
surname of Crichton, before that of Stuart. He married first in 1818
Maria, eldest daughter of George Augustus, third earl of Guilford, who
died in 1841; secondly in January 1845, Sophia daughter of the marquis
of Hastings, by whom he left, at his death, 18th march 1848,
John Patrick, 7th earl of Dumfries, 6th earl and
3d marquis of Bute, born in 1847.
