Mountstuart, John Stuart, Viscount
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- Mountstuart, John Stuart, Viscount
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(1744 - 1814), e. s. of 3rd E. of Bute [S]; educ. Harrow and Winchester; MP 1766 - 76; m. 1 1766 Hon. Charlotte Jane Windsor (d. 1800), dau. of 2nd Vct. Windsor [I], 2 1800 Frances Coutts; FSA 1776; FRS 1799; sty. Vct. Mountstuart - 1792 when suc. fa. as 4th E.; cr. M. of Bute 1796; env. Turin 1779 - 82; amb. Madrid 1783, 1795 - 6; BM Trustee 1800 - 14; d. Geneva.
1764 - 5 [Geneva by 4 Mar. 1761] Turin (Jul. - 14 Sep. 1764), Florence (21 Sep. - ), Siena (by 29 Sep. for three months), Rome (winter 1764 - 5), Naples (mid-Mar. - late Apr.), Rome (by 2 May - 14 Jun.), Rimini (19 Jun.), Bologna (20 Jun.), Ferrara (21 Jun.), Venice (by 29 Jun. - 13 Jul.), Vicenza (23 Jul.), Verona (24 Jul.), Milan (25 Jul.)
1779 - 82 Turin (13 Dec. 1779 - 12 Jun. 1781; 17 Nov. 1781 - Nov. 1782)
Early in 1761, Lord Mountstuart was sent on an extended grand tour under the supervision of Colonel James Edmonstone of Newtoun. They travelled to Geneva, where Mountstuart was placed under the instruction of Professeur Paul Henri Mallet. He spent over three years there and Liotard painted an exceptional whole-length pastel of him (priv. coll.). He visited Voltaire with his father's political associate the Earl of Holderness in December 1763 and also came to know Edward Gibbon (of whose Roman Club he subsequently became a member).1
Mallet travelled with Mountstuart and Edmonstone to Turin in 1764. Mountstuart continued to study under the former rather than at the Academy there, and presumably saw Louis Dutens, his uncle James Stuart Mackenzie's former tutor, who had remained en poste at Turin. Mountstuart's studies no doubt continued during his unusually long sojourn of three months at Siena in the autumn. With his arrival in Rome in the winter of 1764 - 5, Mountstuart's grand tour progressed along more conventional lines. The Abb? Grant gave him 'particular' attention and he employed the cicerone Colin Morison: Grant commented on the fluency of his Italian. When Wilkes, who had attacked his father in the North Briton, reached Rome in February 1765 Mountstuart and his companions were the only British travellers not to call on him. While in Rome he commissioned the whole-length portrait by Batoni (Clark/Bowron 312; priv. coll.) which was not finished until 1767 and testifies, like earlier portraits by Zoffany and Liotard, to the sitter's taste for extravagant costume. Mountstuart also patronised George Willison.
During his stay of over six weeks at Naples, Mountstuart's movements were monitored by William Hamilton, subsequent letters to whom survive. Soon after his return to Rome he became a close friend of James Boswell, whose diaries and letters of the period, March to 27 July, record Mountstuart's activities and conversations in considerable detail.2 On 27 May Mountstuart's friend Baron Werpup was buried in the Protestant cemetery, where a monument was subsequently erected at his expense; on the 28th Mountstuart and Boswell went on a tour of the Vatican. Boswell's journal gives a full account of the party's progress, and its quarrels, on the way to Venice, where Lord Bute's old friend General William Graeme placed his house at Mountstuart's disposal. Mountstuart was there on 12 July when he came of age, but on the 16th he received a letter from his father summoning him back to England. Boswell travelled with Mountstuart and his party as far as Milan.
In 1779 he was appointed envoy in Turin, an office he held for four years. Sir James Harris then wrote how he was glad Mountstuart 'had chosen a line of business, tho' I confess I think he might have fix'd on one more useful to the public & more advantageous to himself. I know well his turn to magnificence & am not surprised at his immoderate train; he will eclipse the Bourbonites as much in real capacity, as in exterior shew & parade'.3 His son John (1767 - 94) was with him, accompanied by a tutor, Mr Batty,4 and Lady Mountstuart gave birth to another boy on 1 March 1780 (George, 1780 - 1841, later an Admiral). During the earlier part of his residence his younger brother William Stuart was also with him. Mountstuart took leave between 12 June and 17 November 1781, and finally left Turin late in November 1782.5
1. Gibbon, Misc. Works, 1:200. 2. Boswell, Italy, 78ff. 3. Pembroke Papers, 1:381. 4. Ibid., 357. 5. Horn, 1:126.
F. R.