STUART, Hon. John (1767-1794), of Cardiff Castle, Glam.

Stuart was the heir of the dynastic marriage which brought to his father Lord Bute the Windsor estates in Glamorgan, and soon after he came of age his father secured his return for the boroughs seat.R. D. Rees ‘Parl. Rep. S. Wales 1790-1830’ (Reading Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1962), ii. 527. He had evidently been pressed to offer himself for his university, but did not consider it. His father was in the political wilderness, having offended the King by taking office in the Fox-North administration, but on 16 Apr. 1792 (after his father’s death) he wrote to the King, begging forgiveness. Insisting that he was ‘lukewarm’ in support of ‘the party’, he added, ‘my son has never taken his seat, whom I have purposely, and against his will, kept out of the way; for why should I also ruin that young man?’ Bute was forgiven and his son, now Viscount Mountstuart, who had been considered favourable to repeal of the Test Act in Scotland in April 1791, was listed a Portland Whig in December 1792 and was included by Windham in his provisional ‘third party’ list soon afterwards. In May 1793 he replaced his father as lord lieutenant of Glamorgan: Bute had informed the Duke of Portland, 20 Jan. 1793, that he regarded himself as a locum tenens for his heir.Cornwallis Corresp. ii. 42; Geo. III Corresp. i. 749; Portland mss PwF8619. Mountstuart died a month after falling from his horse while hunting, 22 Jan. 1794.Gent. Mag. (1794), i. 95, where 20 Jan. is given as the date of death.