John Patrick, Third Marquess of Bute, K.T. (1847-1900) Part 6

Dumfries House, _Christmas Eve_, 1867.

I was for two nights at Blenheim at the end of term; they were rather full of Lady Portarlington's[3] {64} conversion, and told me also that the young Norths had been received and their mother was about to be.

We heard there also of the reception of Lord Granard and Lord Louth--an unusual event, I imagine, in Ireland.

I met at Blenheim an old Admiral, Sir Lucius Curtis[4] (at least eighty), who became a Catholic, he told me, soon after Newman, more than twenty years ago. Two men connected with Aberdeen, George Akers of Oriel[5] and William Humphrey,[6] the Bishop of Brechin's chaplain, are both going over, I hear, almost at once. Akers is, I believe, an able man; but a more distinguished convert is Clarke, fellow of St.

John's[7] (and a famous rowing man). George Lane Fox and Hartwell Grissell are both _certain_, I believe. So you see Oxford is moving.

[Sidenote: 1868, Fatality at Christ Church]

The friends.h.i.+p between Bute and Capel, begun at Danesfield, was strengthened during the summer term of 1868, the latter part of which Mr. Capel spent at Oxford, in residence at the Catholic presbytery. He arrived there a day or two after a sad fatality at Christ Church, the shock of which was deeply felt by all--even the most wild and thoughtless--of the members of the House. A letter from Bute thus describes it:

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Ch. Ch., _May_ 14, 1868.

One of the most frightful accidents I have ever known took place here last night. A man called Marriott, whom I knew well, one of the sporting set (he rode my horse in a steeplechase only last term), fell out of the top windows of Peckwater, and died in about half an hour.

You may conceive what a state Ch. Ch. is in.... Mr. Capel is coming next Wednesday, and I am sure his visit will do good. Indeed I think this opportunity an admirable one, when the sight of death has awakened many from the dream of sensuality in which they habitually lie asleep.

A letter to the same correspondent next day gives a curious picture of the state of feeling at the House:

Ch. Ch., _May_ 15, 1868.

_Another_ fatal accident! What days we are living in. Yesterday afternoon some undergraduates were shooting crows with saloon pistols about Magdalen Walks, when one of them got shot through the stomach and died almost at once. He was an Exeter man.

We are all in black and white at the House, and _very_ sad and depressed. Last night a number of us dined at the "Mitre," so as to keep away from the House. It was a strange meal--much noisy talk and a good deal drunk, but every now and then came long miserable pauses, and talk about Marriott in low, frightened tones. Afterwards they came down to my rooms for coffee, and as we sat here we could hear the pa.s.sing bell tolling from St. Aldate's. Some, almost in desperation, rushed off to the billiard-room and played pool in a gloomy sort of way. It was anything to keep away out of the House. I a.s.sure you the gloom and misery of it all are excessive. I hear men saying that they simply _dare_ not die.

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I do feel that Mr. Capel will find men here not unprepared to listen to him. _Left to themselves_, they are evidently making desperate efforts to forget it all....

I had seen him lying in the ground-floor room where he died--totally unconscious, and breathing with great difficulty. The Senior Censor came in when I was there, and read over him the prayers for the dying.

This was the very clergyman who told me a few months ago that he did not believe in prayer.... I went into the room again after the men had gone to the billiard-room. It was the room of a friend of his: the walls covered with pictures of horses and actresses, and whips and spurs and pipes. The body lay on a mattress on the floor, covered with a sheet. It was all dreadful, and I tried in vain in that room to say a _De Profundis_ for him. As I went out I met men coming in carrying the coffin.

A letter three days later gives an account of the funeral:

Oxford, _May_ 18.

We all a.s.sembled in the cathedral, in mourning, at 2.30 p.m. The Dean read the funeral service, making repeated and most painful slips of the tongue. Then the choir sang a really lovely anthem, "In the sight of the unwise he seemed to die, but he is at peace." All were much moved; and the man next me was, I think, crying, as indeed I was myself. We walked in procession, two and two, to Peck., then formed a lane to Canterbury Gate, through which the hea.r.s.e pa.s.sed, his friends following it down to the station. All in profound silence, broken only by the tramp of feet and the tolling of the bell. Everything inky black, except as much of the Dean's surplice as a huge black scarf and stole let be seen. The coffin was all black, with no cross {67} or anything else to relieve it. I heard great disgust expressed at the G.o.dless gloom of it all.

I have mentioned Mr. Capel's visit to several; and they have all hailed it, I may say, with pleasure. What has happened here has made many think and say, "Now is the time to arise from sleep." Only they are so chained by the habits of their lives and by the fear of what the worldly consequences may be if they follow their consciences.

[Sidenote: 1868, Capel at Oxford]

Mr. Capel, of whose visit to Oxford, and its possible results, his friend entertained such sanguine hopes, was at that time a man of very attractive personality, pleasing alike in appearance, manner, and address, and possessed of a singular gift of eloquence. Bute's hope, no doubt, was that his earnestness, sympathy, and tact might have a soothing effect on the nerves of his friends, still quivering from the shock of the recent catastrophe; and to some extent his antic.i.p.ations were justified. Several of the undergraduates made Mr. Capel's acquaintance, and were pleased and touched by his unaffected kindness.

One of them, he found, had been for some months resolved to make his submission to Rome; and by Mr. Capel's advice he asked for an interview with the Dean and frankly informed him of his intention, adding, apparently, that he thought it highly probable that his example would be followed by others. Capel wrote on May 31 to Mrs. Scott Murray:

The Dean of Christ Church is in a great state of mind, having just heard from B---- not only of his own decision, but of the likelihood of others taking a like step. Pusey, I hear, has written to the Dean to the effect that any secessions which might take place were to be attributed not to the {68} teaching of the High Church party, but to his (the Dean's) bad government of the college! Meanwhile Liddon has issued a peremptory mandate prohibiting the undergraduates of the House from making my acquaintance. As Bute puts it, this is a clear case of shutting the stable door after the horse had been stolen. All those who want to know me, I think, already do.

Dr. Liddon expressed a desire, a little later, to meet Mr. Capel, who thus describes the interview:

I saw Liddon for an hour and a half on Sat.u.r.day. Our meeting was quite cordial: our conversation quite courteous, but quite unsatisfactory, for he kept s.h.i.+fting his ground, and slipped away like an eel from every point I raised. To me his mind seems as confused as Pusey's, which is saying much. Yet to a section of people here he is more than Pope, a little G.o.d, whose every word they accept as an oracle from heaven. Poor good people! It is hard to understand such idolatry: it is, I think, a peculiar product of Oxford, and of one school here.

Bute is in admirable dispositions, and during the month of May has been leading the life of a true Christian. The long delay has tried him much: yet his spiritual progress since last summer has been extraordinary. I am simply amazed at some of the things he has told me. May our dear Lord be eternally blessed for all He has done, and is doing, for this soul so dear to Him.

[Sidenote: 1868, Religious studies]

The long vacation of 1868 was, as has been seen, chiefly devoted to a yachting tour in the North Sea, and a visit to Russia, undertaken by Bute in the companions.h.i.+p of Lord Rosebery. The autumn months after the celebration of his majority were {69} spent quietly at Cardiff and in Scotland, as much time as he could spare being given to a course of reading recommended to him by Mr. Capel, partly by way of preparation for his reception into the Church of his choice. He refers to this in an interesting letter to his attached friend at Oxford, written soon after his coming of age.

_October_ 5, 1868.

You may imagine how busy I have been and am since my birthday. Still I find time every day for some serious reading, as to which I have had competent advice. I am going through some of the writings of S.

Cyprian, S. Ambrose, and S. Gregory, and doing a little liturgical study. Then there are the 12th cent. lives of Ninian and Kentigern, and Ad.a.m.nan's Columba, all of great interest to me; and I have sent for Boethius's lives of the Bishops of Aberdeen. Theiner's great work, not long ago published in Rome,[8] I find most valuable, and throwing a flood of light on the mediaeval relations between Scotland and the Holy See.

For devotion I have St. Bernard (his Letters): a very simple prayer-book, such as children use; and the Latin Psalter. I wish you were able to use this;[9] there is a beauty and fulness of meaning in the Latin version which I think no modern language can give--except, you will say (and as to that you have a right to speak)[10] possibly Greek. I sometimes dream of trying my hand at a new English version of the Psalms; but that is part of {70} a larger scheme which it is perhaps presumptuous of me even to think of.[11]

It was natural that when the long-antic.i.p.ated time at length came for actually taking the step prepared for with such anxious deliberation, Bute should turn to the only Catholic priest with whom he was in any degree intimate. More than thirty years later Monsignor Capel, who had then been for some time resident in California, wrote in a San Francisco newspaper a short account of Bute's conversion, the steps that led up to it, and his own part in receiving him into the Church.

A course of reading was suggested, I seeing him from time to time.

Newman's pathetic hymn, "Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom," was often on his lips. In course of time he was fully convinced that the true Church is an organic body, a Divine inst.i.tution, the source of all spiritual power and jurisdiction, and the channel of sacramental grace, under the Vicar of Christ, the Bishop of Rome.

Finally, after an hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in the convent chapel at Harley House, London,[12] he determined to ask admission to the Church.

[Sidenote: 1868, Third visit to Holy Land]

Bute's conditional baptism, profession of faith, and first Communion took place quite privately on December 8, 1868 (the Feast of the Immaculate Conception), in the chapel of the Sisters of Notre {71} Dame, Southwark.[13] Mr. Capel officiated at all these acts, with the authorisation of the Bishop of Southwark (Dr. Grant), who himself a.s.sisted at them. The event was not generally known until the New Year, and it was generally believed, and has indeed often been stated since, that the reception took place on Christmas Eve. The young neophyte left England a few days after the event, and was well out of hearing by the time the excited comments of the public and the press on his action had begun to make themselves audible.

Cardiff Castle, Cardiff, _December_ 16, 1868.

MY DEAR MRS. SCOTT MURRAY,

Circ.u.mstances have induced me to come to the resolution of making the pilgrimage to the Holy Land a _third_ time. Lady Loudoun and myself are going together in my yacht, which is coming round, with her in it, to Nice in January.

I am going abroad on Monday next, and expect to arrive at Nice on Wednesday, this day week. I venture on your kindness to propose myself as your guest.