John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute

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The Rt Hon. The Earl of Bute

Prime Minister of Great Britain
In office 26 May 1762 – 16 April 1763
Preceded by	The Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Succeeded by	George Grenville

Born	25 May 1713 Parliament Square, Edinburgh
Died	10 March 1792 Grosvenor Square, London
Political party	Tory

John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, KG, PC (25 May 1713 – 10 March 1792), styled Lord Mount Stuart before 1723, was a Scottish nobleman who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain (1762–1763) under George III.

A close relative of the Campbell clan (his mother was a daughter of the 1st Duke of Argyll), Bute succeeded to the Earldom of Bute (named for the Isle of Bute) upon his father's death in 1723. He was brought up thereafter by his maternal uncles, the 2nd Duke of Argyll and the 3rd Earl of Ilay, and studied at Eton College and the University of Leiden, Netherlands. On 24 August 1736, he married Mary Wortley Montagu (daughter of Edward and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu), bringing the large Wortley estates to his family. In 1737, due to the influence of his uncles, he was elected a Scottish representative peer, but he was not very active in the Lords and was not reelected in 1741. For the next several years he retired to his estates in Scotland to manage his affairs and indulge his interest in botany.

During the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, Bute moved to London, and two years later he there met the Prince of Wales. Bute soon became a close associate of the Prince. Upon the Prince's death in 1751, the education of his son, Prince George, the new Prince of Wales, became a priority and in 1755 Bute was appointed as his tutor. Bute arranged for the Prince and his brother Prince Edward to follow a course of lectures on natural philosophy by the itinerant lecturer Stephen Demainbray. This led to an increased interest in natural philosophy on the part of the young prince and was one in a series of events that led to the establishment of the George III Collection of natural philosophical instruments. Furthermore, following the death of the Prince's father, Bute became close to the elder's widow, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, the Dowager Princess of Wales. It was rumoured that the couple were having an affair, and indeed soon after John Horne (an associate of the Prince of Wales) published a scandalous pamphlet alluding to a liaison between Bute and the Princess. Rumours of this affair were almost certainly untrue, as Bute was by all indications happily married, and he held sincere religious beliefs against adultery.

Wikisource has an original article from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica about:

Bute, John Stuart, 3rd Earl of

Because of the influence he had over his pupil, Bute expected to rise quickly to political power following George's accession to the throne in 1760, but his plans were premature. He was elected again as a Scottish representative peer in 1760 indeed appointed the de facto Prime Minister, and was successful in ending the Whig dominance and the Seven Years' War, but King George began to see through him, and turned against him after being criticised for an official speech which the press recognised as Bute's own work. The journalist John Wilkes published a newspaper called The North Briton, in which both Bute and the Dowager Princess of Wales were savagely satirised. Bute resigned as prime minister shortly afterwards, though he remained in the House of Lords a Scottish representative peer until 1780. He remained friendly with the Dowager Princess of Wales, but her attempts to reconcile him with George III proved futile.

For the remainder of his life, Bute remained at his estate in Hampshire, from where he continued his pursuit of botany and became a major literary and artistic patron. Among his beneficiaries were Samuel Johnson, Tobias Smollett, Robert Adam, and William Robertson. He also gave considerably to the Scottish universities. His botanical work culminated in the publication of Botanical Tables Containing the Families of British Plants in 1785.

He died in London and was buried on the Isle of Bute in Scotland.

The flowering plant genus Stuartia is named after him.

[edit] Issue

Arms of John Stuart

Lady Mary Stuart (born c. 1741), who married James Lowther, later the 1st Earl of Lonsdale, on 7 September 1761.
John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute (30 June 1744 – 16 November 1814)
Lady Anne Stuart (born c. 1745), who married Lord Warkworth, later the 2nd Duke of Northumberland, on 2 July 1764.
The Hon. James Archibald Stuart-Wortley (19 September 1747 – 1 March 1818)
Lady Jane Stuart (c. 1748 – 28 February 1828), who married George Macartney, later the 1st Earl Macartney, on 1 February 1768.
The Hon. Sir Charles Stuart (January 1753 – 25 May 1801)
The Hon. Most Rev. William Stuart, Archbishop of Armagh (Church of Ireland) (March 1755 – 6 March 1822)
Lady Caroline Stuart (before 1763–January 1813), who married The Hon. John Dawson, later the 1st Earl of Portarlington, on 1 January 1778.

[edit] Styles from birth to death

Lord Mount Stuart (1713-1723)
The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Bute (1723-1738)
The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Bute, KT (1738-1760)
The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Bute, KT, PC (1760-1762)
The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Bute, KG, PC (1769-1762)

[edit] References

Political offices
Preceded by: The Earl of Holdernesse	Secretary of State for the Northern Department 1761–1762	Succeeded by: George Grenville
Preceded by: The Duke of Newcastle	Prime Minister 1762–1763	Succeeded by: George Grenville
Preceded by: The Duke of Newcastle	Leader of the House of Lords 1762–1763	Succeeded by: Unknown
Peerage of Scotland
Preceded by: James Stuart	Earl of Bute 1723–1792	Succeeded by: John Stuart