on the 28th of September. He still corresponded with the king, and returned again to London next year, but in May 1765, after the duke of Cumberland’s failure to form an administration, Grenville exacted the promise from the king, which appears to have been kept faithfully, that Bute should have no share and should give no advice whatever in public business, and obtained the dismissal of Bute’s brother from his post of lord privy seal in Scotland. Bute continued to visit the princess of Wales, but on the king’s arrival always retired by a back staircase.
The remainder of Bute’s life has little public interest. He spoke against the government on the American question in February 1766, and in March against the repeal of the Stamp Act. In 1768 and 1774 he was again elected a representative peer for Scotland, but took no further part in politics, and in 1778 refused to have anything to do with the abortive attempt to effect an alliance between himself and Chatham. He travelled in Italy, complained of the malice of his opponents and of the ingratitude of the king, and determined “to retire from the world before it retires from me.” He died on the 10th of March 1792 and was buried at Rothesay in Bute.
Though one of the worst of ministers, Bute was by no means the worst of men or the despicable and detestable person represented by the popular imagination. His abilities were inconsiderable, his character weak, and he was qualified neither for the ordinary administration, of public business nor for the higher sphere of statesmanship, and was entirely destitute of that experience which sometimes fills the place of natural aptitude. His short administration was one of the most disgraceful and incompetent in English history, originating in an accident, supported only by the will of the sovereign, by gross corruption and intimidation, the precursor of the disintegration of political life and of a whole series of national disasters. Yet Bute had good principles and intentions, was inspired by feelings of sincere affection and loyalty for his sovereign, and his character remains untarnished by the grosser accusations raised by faction. In the circle of his family and intimate friends, away from the great world in which he made so poor a figure, he was greatly esteemed. Samuel Johnson, Lord Mansfield, Lady Hervey, Bishop Warburton join in his praise. For the former, a strong opponent of his administration, he procured a pension of £300 a year. He was exceptionally well read, with a refined taste for books and art, and purchased the famous Thomason Tracts now in the British Museum. He was learned in the science of botany, and formed a magnificent collection and a botanic garden at Luton Hoo, where Robert Adam built for him a splendid residence. He engraved privately about 1785 at enormous expense Botanical Tables containing the Different Familys of British Plants, while The Tabular Distribution of British Plants (1787) is also attributed to him. Bute filled the offices of ranger of Richmond Forest, governor of the Charterhouse, chancellor of Marischal College, Aberdeen (1761), trustee of the British Museum (1765), president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1780) and commissioner of Chelsea hospital.
By his marriage with Mary, daughter of Edward Wortley Montagu of Wortley, Yorkshire, who in 1761 was created Baroness Mount Stuart of Wortley, and through whom he became possessed of the enormous Wortley property, he had, besides six daughters, five sons, the eldest of whom, John, Lord Cardiff (1744–1814), succeeded him as 4th earl and was created a marquess in 1796. John, Lord Mount Stuart (1767–1794), the son and heir of the 1st marquess, died before his father, and consequently in 1814 the Bute titles and estates came to his son John (1793–1848) as 2nd marquess. The latter was succeeded by his only son John Patrick (1847–1900), whose son John (b. 1881) inherited the title in 1900.
BUTE, the most important, though not the largest, of the islands constituting the county of the same name, in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, about 18 m. S.W. of Greenock and 40 m., by water, from Glasgow. It is bounded on the N. and W. by the lovely Kyles of Bute, the narrow winding strait which separates it from Argyllshire, on the E. by the Firth of Clyde, and on the S. and S.W. by the Sound of Bute, about 6 m. wide, which divides it from Arran. Its area is about 49 sq. m., or 31,161 acres. It lies in a N.W. to S.E. direction, and its greatest length from Buttock Point on the Kyles to Garroch Head on the Firth of Clyde is 1512 m. Owing to indentations its width varies from 113 m. to 412 m. There are piers at Kilchattan, Craigmore, Port Bannatyne and Rothesay, but Rothesay is practically the harbour for the whole island. Here there is regular communication by railway steamers from Craigendoran, Prince’s Pier (Greenock), Gourock and Wemyss Bay, and by frequent vessels from the Broomielaw Bridge in Glasgow and other points on the Clyde. Pop. (1891) 11,735; (1901) 12,162.
The principal hills are in the north, where the chief are Kames Hill (911 ft.) and Kilbride Hill (836 ft.). The streams are mostly burns, and there are six lochs. Loch Fad, about 1 m. S. of Rothesay, 212 m. long by 13 m. wide, was the source of the power used in the Rothesay cotton-spinning mill, which was the first establishment of the kind erected in Scotland. In 1827 on its western shore Edmund Kean built a cottage afterwards occupied by Sheridan Knowles. It now belongs to the marquess of Bute. From Loch Ascog, fully 1 m. long, Rothesay derives its water supply. The other lakes are Loch Quien, Loch Greenan, Dhu Loch and Loch Bull. Glen More in the north and Glen Callum in the south are the only glens of any size. The climate is mild and healthful, fuchsias and other plants flowering even in winter, and neither snow nor frost being of long continuance, and less rain falling than in many parts of the western coast. Some two-thirds of the area, mostly in the centre and south, are arable, yielding excellent crops of potatoes for the Glasgow market, oats and turnips; the rest consists of hill pastures and plantations. The fisheries are of considerable value. There is no lack of sandstone, slate and whinstone. Some coal exists, but it is of inferior quality and doubtful quantity. At Kilchattan a superior clay for bricks and tiles is found, and grey granite susceptible of high polish.
The island is divided geologically into two areas by a fault running from Rothesay Bay in a south-south-west direction by Loch Fad to Scalpsie Bay, which, throughout its course, coincides with a well-marked depression. The tract lying to the north-west of this dislocation is composed of the metamorphic rocks of the Eastern Highlands. The Dunoon phyllites form a narrow belt about a mile and a half broad crossing the island between Kames Bay and Etterick Bay, while the area to the north is occupied by grits and schists which may be the western prolongations of the Beinn Bheula group. Near Rothesay and along the hill slopes west of Loch Fad there are parallel strips of grits and phyllites. That part of the island lying to the east of this dislocation consists chiefly of Upper Old Red Sandstone strata, dipping generally in a westerly or south-westerly direction. At the extreme south end, between Kilchattan and Garroch Head, these conglomerates and sandstones are overlaid by a thick cornstone or dolomitic limestone marking the upper limit of the formation, which is surmounted by the cement-stones and contemporaneous lavas of Lower Carboniferous age. The bedded volcanic rocks which form a series of ridges trending north-west comprise porphyritic basalts, andesite, and, near Port Luchdach, brownish trachyte. Near the base of the volcanic series intrusive igneous rocks of Carboniferous age appear in the form of sills and bosses, as, for instance, the oval mass of olivine-basalt on Suidhe Hill. Remnants of raised beaches are conspicuous in Bute. One of the well-known localities for arctic shelly clays occurs at Kilchattan brick-works, where the dark red clay rests on tough boulder-clay and may be regarded as of late glacial age.
As to the origin of the name of Bute, there is some doubt. It has been held to come from both (Irish for “a cell”), in allusion to the cell which St Brendan erected in the island in the 6th century; others contend that it is derived from the British words ey budh (Gaelic, ey bhiod), “the island of corn” (i.e. food), in reference to its fertility, notable in contrast with the barrenness of the Western Isles and Highlands. Bute was probably first colonized by the vanguard of Scots who came over from Ireland, and at intervals the Norsemen also secured a footing for longer or shorter periods. In those days the Butemen were also called Brandanes, after the Saint. Attesting the antiquity of the island, “Druidical” monuments, barrows, cairns and cists are numerous, as well as the remains of ancient chapels. In virtue of a charter granted by James IV. in 1506, the numerous small proprietors took the title of “baron,” which became hereditary in their families. Now the title is practically extinct, the lands conferring it having with very few exceptions passed
