Interview: Rosemary Hannah, historian, on The Third Marquess of Bute By Lee Randall Published on Monday 7 May 2012 00:00 HE WAS a feminist, an anti-vivisectionist, an architectural conservationist, and an ardent champion of Scottish independence. Defying the conventions of his class and era, he was a demonstrative father and husband, a man free of pretension, allergic to sycophancy, but easily hurt His conversion to Catholicism, aged 21, was described as a "perversion" in the Scottish press, and inspired Benjamin Disraeli to write the roman-à-clef Lothair. In his final years, he was instrumental in saving St Andrews University from extinction. Above all, however, we remember the Third Marquess of Bute for his buildings - the High Gothic humour of Cardiff Castle; the Renaissance-themed Falkland Palace; the Arts-and-Crafts glories of Dumfries House; and magnificent, ostentatious Mount Stuart. In each case, Bute was more than a patron of the arts, he was a creative, hands-on collaborator with abundant ideas gleaned from his travels and a lifetime's immersion in history. As Rosemary Hannah writes in The Grand Designer, her new biography of John Patrick Crichton Stuart: "Bute's final obituary is the awe on the faces of those who encounter [his beautiful buildings] for the first time." Hannah, who's based in Ayshire, is the Church History Co-ordinator for the Theological Institute of the Scottish Episcopal Church. She tells me that the inspiration for this massive undertaking surprised her while she was mucking out the pigs. It began as my PhD thesis, back in 1995. I was in a very bad place. My husband was in love with another woman; my business had just failed; and my mother had just died. I desperately needed a way back to a meaningful occupation. The idea came to me like a parcel descending from heaven, that I could research the Third Marquess, who I knew to be a fascinating figure, and on whom very little work had been done. It was the start of a 17-year-long love affair - and like most, by the end of it, I was very well aware of the weaknesses of my beloved, as well as of his strengths. She gained access to Bute's personal archive, and consulted 15 major archives in total, sifting through mountains of primary material. Researching was like stepping into a soap opera. You had the letters, the diaries - the most intimate personal thoughts of the people there - and as you step into the documents the story unravels in completely unexpected ways. I hadn't expected to find out, for instance, that Bute saved St Andrews University, because that isn't the popularly told story of what happened. He was very unfortunate that the story was told by the losers instead of the victors because they owned a newspaper, and at the time, Bute was beginning his final walk to death. Bute was the only son of his father's second marriage. His arrival, on 12 September, 1847, was a terrible blow to his uncle Lord James, who anticipated inheriting the title along with his older brother's vast wealth. His holdings were largely concentrated in Cardiff, a city he was instrumental in developing, though the Second Marquess had extensive properties in England and Scotland, too. On his mother's side, Bute was a Hastings. In the days before dialysis, successive generations were felled by Bright's disease (kidney failure). A year after Bute's birth his father died and the youngster was raised by his mother, Sophia, an intelligent and fascinating character, herself descended from a countess and a marquess. Her older sister, Flora, had been a lady in waiting to Queen Victoria's mother, but she was shunned and humiliated by the young queen who mistakenly believed Flora was pregnant by her mother's comptroller Sir John Conroy. But Flora's swollen belly was a fatal cancer, and her shabby treatment created an enmity between the families that Bute felt keenly - so keenly that he would refuse to join the Church of England partly on the grounds that Victoria was its head. Once widowed, Sophia was badly treated by Lord James, who denigrated her at every opportunity, and denied her access to the family's homes, fortune, and servants - she was forbidden to issue orders while staying at any Bute house - despite the fact that her son was, in fact, the heir. She fought back, cannily surrounding herself with women to preserve her reputation. Though she baulked at sending Bute to school, she gave him an education by taking him travelling and ensuring that those around him engaged him with his surroundings, encouraging him to read, and ask questions. As Hannah makes clear, despite his lack of early formal education, Bute amassed extensive knowledge because he had the time and the money to explore his interests. Sadly, Sophia succumbed to Bright's disease at the end of 1859. Her 12-year-old son immediately ordered a death mask and her coffin, while his nominated male guardian, Charles Stuart, dithered, not arriving until 48 hours after Sophia's death, only to leave again to celebrate the New Year with friends. Stuart also fought incessantly with Bute's female guardian, Lady Elizabeth Moore. The custody battle that ensued is too complicated and protracted to detail here, but its very existence is key to understanding Bute, says Hannah. I think it is possible that Bute's history of depression, which is so important for his story, does have its roots in the custody battles and his very troubled adolescence. But the important thing is that he found his own cure [for his depression]. Walking - endless exercise - was part of it, but more than anything else, work. So his great beautiful houses are the net result not just of the dedication of his artists and architects, but of his own hard graft. He was deeply involved in the building of all of them. When you walk into the astonishing space that is the Great Hall at Mount Stuart, you are seeing depression transfigured into beauty. Bute's upbringing also explains why he was such a lover of women. Not in a cheap, tacky, carnal way - though it would be fair to say that there's every indication that his relationship with his wife was a deeply physical and passionate one. Bute had a great, great value for female company. He grew up surrounded by a circle of intelligent, highly motivated, artistic, highly political women. He grew up just presuming that women would be interested in all the subjects that men were interested in, and were just as competent. His mother certainly felt that she was as competent as any male lawyer, and she was certainly more competent than his dreadful uncle. Throughout his life Bute supported female education - even appointing and paying for the first female lecturer at St Andrews University. He liked women. As he moved through a society that was often largely male, if he meets a woman he's naturally going to talk to her. The Disraeli novel, Lothair, is very interesting. Disraeli's a great observer. In Lothair, after dinner, Lothair goes straight to the women and starts talking to them. Disraeli, who also liked women a lot, notices this and it's obviously marked down as odd. Bute has no concept in his mind at all that male conversation might be more valuable than female conversation. Another driving force in Bute's life was a profound, questing spirituality, which not only led him to abandon his Scottish Presbyterian background for the Church of Rome, but also reveals itself in his antipathy for anti-Semitism and curiosity about paranormal activity. His conversion shocked Britain. To be born into one of the recusant [Scottish] families who refused to become Protestant is reasonably respectable, it's like you can't help it. To choose to convert is always seen in that period as a "perversion." Bute loathed how big a scandal this became, but the Presbyterian church, especially in the Victorian era, was a very bad home for somebody who loved ritual, incense, candles, stained glass and beauty, and who found their urge for religion most easily fed by these things. Bute wouldn't join the Church of England, and rejected the stances of the Scottish Episcopal Church. He tried very hard, but the final straw was his attempt to give stained glass windows to the church in Cumnock. They only wanted geometric designs, because anything else is an icon. I think that showed him just how impossible his position was going to be. The Catholic church claims to be the one true church, and there is a tradition of spirituality. It was going to appeal to a highly emotional, highly intelligent, highly cultivated young man. He wanted something he could connect to passionately. Equally passionate was his dedication to building. He fell in love with the Gothic style as a child, and was only 18 when he met the flamboyant architect William Burges, later hired to work on Cardiff Castle. Burges designed the building and every bit of interior decoration, as well. "Burges" style is very playful, even when he's not working for Bute. And Bute was one of these people who worked best as part of a team. If you worked with William Burges on anything, then you were the junior partner, but as he became older and more experienced, Bute takes a more leading role in his buildings. Not long after marrying Gwendolen Mary Ann Fitzalan-Howard, the eldest daughter of Lord Howard of Glossop, Bute conceived of a chapel at Mount Stuart where he recreated designs he'd seen visiting the Holy Land. It was only after a fire razed the central section of the house in December of 1877, that he created the lavishly decorated home beloved of visitors today. Hannah writes, "Nothing about Bute suggests he had much taste for personal grandeur; it was the pleasure of working on the designing and building of his projects that impelled him... He was deeply and personally involved in all his projects. Lesser crafts-people awaited Bute's visits, ideas and judgements with a mixture of pleasure and trepidation. He was also extremely price-conscious. Bute travelled frequently, often in search of cures for health problems, such as the psoriasis that flared up in response to stress. In his absence, Gwen oversaw construction at Mount Stuart during much of 1884. Hannah writes that "she had innate perfectionism and the desire to achieve all that [Bute] wished her to." Legend has it that in the entire house, only two column capitals repeat a design. The folklore of the house is that the carver guilty of this slip was sacked. For all of its Gothic excess, the building was nevertheless designed to incorporate central heating and electricity. However sympathetic Bute was to aspects of Gothic idealism, he was realistic, as was his architect. The building looks as if it is supported on soaring marble columns and stout timber beams. In reality, the framework of the house is the metal girders which support it in all directions; in walls, between floors and within pillars. As Hannah's book amply demonstrates, Bute was an exceptional man. Having spent nearly 20 years in his company, she probably knows him better than anyone. What does she consider to be his greatest triumphs? I think his relationships with his intimates are remarkable. He is a devoted and involved father until he becomes very ill at the end and his marriage is a huge achievement. His ability to value women and to support them in whatever they wanted to do. The fact that he absolutely and utterly forbade corporal punishment in his schools. And his buildings - which are just astonishing - Cardiff, Falkland and Mount Stuart being the most important. Saving St Andrews University is a huge achievement as well. Another of his great achievements is the way that, in a period with no pharmacology to treat depression and very little understanding of what could be done for it, he learned how to manage it. He gets fits of the blues, but it doesn't take over his life. Finally, dying well was another great achievement. It is a very difficult thing to face the knowledge that you are going to die - very slowly and painfully - especially if you're inclined to depression. Gwen makes a point of saying that he was amazingly cheerful. Bute was very afraid of Bright's disease, which was the way he knew he was going to die [Bute died in 1900 aged 53]. He knew what was coming, with no illusions, and faced it with great calm and cheer. Yes, faith will help, but nothing will make it easy. It's a great achievement to make your dying as easy as you can to those around you. It takes great generosity of spirit to try to keep your focus outside yourself and do what useful things you can. Gwen could only cope by pretending that he might get better. Bute could only cope by facing the fact that he was dying. Yet he didn't force his knowledge on her and only talked in private to his friends about what was happening. That takes great courage. The Grand Designer, by Rosemary Hannah, is published by Birlinn on 17 May, priced £25. Masterpieces from Mount Stuart: The Bute Collection, a selection of Old Master paintings, is at the Scottish National Gallery, on The Mound, from 18 May-2 December; admission free.