A Little Place In The Country

Mount Stuart Monument










Mount Stuart Greenhouse


The Alley











Mount Stuart Rear








Mount Stuart Front Entrance






Bute Ferry

The family home is a little place on the Isle of Bute named Mount Stuart. The current head of the family is Johnny Bute, 7th Marquess of Stuart

March 10, 1792, John Stuart, 3rd earl of Bute and advisor to the British king, George III, died in London. Although most Americans have never heard his name, Lord Bute played a significant role in the politics of the British empire that spawned the American Revolution. Bute became Prince George’s tutor and also befriended George’s mother, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, the dowager princess of Wales. (Trivia: the city of Augusta, GA is named after her) This relationship, although never proven to be sexual, resulted in a tremendous scandal when written about by John Wilkes. Wilkes abhorred Bute and named his newspaper North Briton as a direct insult to Bute’s Scottish origins.

Prince George became King George III in 1760, while Britain was in the midst of the Seven Years’ War with France. The king, along with Bute, who was now his advisor, worried that the tremendous expense of the war in North America would drive Britain to bankruptcy. William Pitt had transformed the American branch of the war, known as the French and Indian War, from disaster to triumph argued for a preemptive strike against Spain in 1761. The king, with Bute’s guidance, rejected Pitt’s idea, and forced him to resign.

The squabbling between Bute, Pitt and Wilkes had a lasting impact on Anglo-American politics. In 1763, the new first lord of the treasury, George Grenville, began taxing the American colonies to help refill Britain’s coffers. Wilkes’ arrest made him a martyr in the eyes of many at home as well as in those of the American colonists as they strained under the taxes imposed by Grenville’s ministry. A condition that directly led to the American revolution.