John Patrick, Third Marquess of Bute, K.T. (1847-1900) Part 24

ANNO DOMINI MDCCCC

MORTEM IN CHRISTO OBEUNTIS

CUJUS COR

IN TERRAM SANCTAM

SUPREMA TESTAMENTI CAUTIONE

DELATUM

GUENDOLINA CONJUX

IN HORTO

HUIC DOMINUS FLEVIT AEDICULAE

ANNEXO

QUATUOR ADSISTENTIBUS FILIIS

ID NOVEMBR EODEM ANNO

PROPRIIS RELIGIOSE MANIBUS

SEPELIVIT

[1] Conversing with a friend not long before his death, Bute thus characteristically referred to the point of view from which he regarded his acquisition of these two interesting estates. "Having bound myself to provide landed property of a certain value for my younger sons, I looked about for places which I might play with during my own life, and leave to them afterwards. Hence Falkland and Pluscarden."

[2] The Valliscaulians ("Val des Choux" was the name of their first house, in Burgundy), founded about 1193 by Viard, a Carthusian lay-brother, had about thirty houses, most of them in France. There were none in England, but three in Scotland--Pluscarden, Beauly, and Ardchattan, of which the last two became Cistercian priories a century before the Reformation. The Order dwindled and became finally extinct about thirty years prior to the French Revolution.

[3] Lord Merries held the office of Lord-Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorks from 1880 until his death in 1908.

[4] These are described in much detail, and copiously ill.u.s.trated, in the "Proceedings of the Soc. of Antiq. of Scotland" (vol. x. 3rd series, pp. 307 _seq._).

[5] This appreciation, specially written by the distinguished architect for the present biography, is given in Appendix V.

[6] Lord Bute's second son (and successor as Keeper of Falkland Palace), the late Lieut.-Col. Lord Ninian Stuart, M.P., who fell gallantly in action in 1915, further enriched the Chapel Royal in 1906, by hanging on its walls some magnificent Flemish "verdure" tapestries of the seventeenth century.

[7] Paisley.

[8] Whithorn.

[9] St. John's Lodge.

[10] Called by the people the "media naranja," or half orange.

[11] "He gave his heart to the consummation of his works, and by his watchful care brought them to perfection."--Ecclesiast. x.x.xviii. 31.

[12] See Mr. F. W. H. Myers' remarkable obituary notice Appendix VI.

[13] Written by Dowager Lady Bute, and translated into Latin at her request by the author of this memoir.

{231}

APPENDIX I (p. 2)

ENGLISH PRIZE POEM

(Written by Bute at Harrow School, _aet._ 15-.)

_Subject_: EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE.

(The footnotes are the young author's own)

When the long requiem's a.s.suaging strain Sounds high and solemn through the holy fane, And loud and frequent in the darkened pile The organ's heavy swell is heard the while, Askest thou, pilgrim stranger, wherefore low, In prayer unceasing, mournful hundreds bow; Why choral hymns unceasingly arise, And thuribles with incense cloud the skies, While dying tapers glimmer pale and low Upon the bloodless alabaster brow That only represents the hero now?

Read sculptured on a grave that royal name, So often blown abroad by noisy fame: Yes; low as other men, the caitiff tomb Has dared to shroud his splendour in its gloom!

Edward, who once the Knight of England shone, Lies cold and stiff beneath this sculptured stone.

The brilliant Phosphor of a brighter day Too soon in night is pa.s.sed for aye away!

The lordly thistle blooms in purple pride; The shamrock cl.u.s.ters by her sheltering side;[1]

And, though from each full many a spray is riven, Unshaken yet they rise to friendly heaven.

The golden lily, even in her tears, Full many a flower of vernal promise bears; {232} The pomegranate hangs fruitful on the tree; The olive waves o'er many an eastern sea; And strong beneath her eagle's sable wings The pine upon her fir-clad mountains clings; The rose alone, the fairest of them all,[2]

Is doomed to see her bud of promise fall!

The green genista's golden bloom is shed, Her brightest offspring numbered with the dead.

O! plundered flower, O! doubly plundered bloom Whose fairest fragrance only feeds the tomb!

'Tis said that when upon a rocky sh.o.r.e The salt sea billows break with m.u.f.fled roar, And, launched in mad career, the thundering wave Leaps booming through the weedy ocean cave; Each tenth is grander than the nine before, And breaks with tenfold thunder on the sh.o.r.e.

Alas! it is so on the sounding sea; But so, O England, it is not with thee!

Thy dec.u.man is broken on the sh.o.r.e: A peer to him shall lave thee never more!

Ring forth, O mournful harp--no n.o.bler strain Than this to-day shall e'er be thine again.

See where amid her ruined towns and towers France broods upon her country's shattered powers.

Ask her his glories--at the fatal name Her olive cheek grows red with burning shame, The tear starts flashing to her careworn eye, She points where stiff and cold her children lie, Beneath the b.l.o.o.d.y sod of many a plain, By victor Edward's dreaded arrows slain; From where on Cressy's dark and trodden ground Two kings were slain and princes died around, To where Limoges' streets ran red with blood, And lives of thousands fed the crimson flood; Or where, again, in Poitiers' fatal lane The flower of all her gay n.o.blesse were slain, And trodden down amid the gory clay, In useless valour threw their lives away; {233} While many a lordly tower and holy spire Fell blackened ruins to the invader's fire.

But not upon thy fields, O France, alone Like meteor shot from sphere of light he shone.

Rise, Spain, and witness how thy fair Castile Has bled upon Najarra's fatal hill, When sullen Najarilla's voiceless flow Rang to the buckler's clang and falchion's blow, And legions melted as a morning's snow.

But own that, when before his victor brand He stretched defenceless all the humbled land, It then was Edward's voice that stemmed the tide, And Guzman only for his treason died.

Ungrateful Pedro! gilt and sceptred slave!

Ill hast thou merited the crown he gave!

"The crown he gave," and now, alas! has he Who was the heir to England's sovereignty No diadem except the cerecloth band, No sceptre but the taper in his hand!

The glory that embalms his brilliant name Alone is deathless through the voice of fame; Or where, adorned in many a loyal heart, It burns unmoved till life itself shall part-- It lives undying there. What other throne So meet for him who called those hearts his own?