Whatever may have been the disappointment or mortification occasioned to Bute by the episode in his life referred to in the above letter, they were amply compensated for, and indeed wholly forgotten, in the happiness of the event which he was able to announce to his friends at the close of this year. This was his engagement to the Hon. Gwendoline FitzAlan Howard, eldest daughter of the first Lord Howard of Glossop by his first wife. The marriage took place at the Oratory Church on April 16, 1872, Archbishop Manning officiating, assisted by five Oratorian fathers. Bute's cousin, Lord Mauchline (afterwards Earl of Loudoun), {106} wearing Highland dress, was the best man, the principal bridesmaid being the Hon. Alice Howard of Glossop, who married Lord Loudoun in 1880. Mgr. Capel said the Nuptial Mass and preached the sermon; and the register was signed by the Duke of Cambridge, the Dukes of Northumberland and Argyll, and Mr. Disraeli. The wedding aroused an extraordinary amount of popular interest and even excitement; and the _Spectator_ commented with satiric surprise on the fact that the London newspapers devoted entire pages to describing the ceremony, which actually occupied--but that perhaps was less astonishing--thirty columns of the Cardiff _Western Mail_. How distasteful this public excitement was to the chief actors in the ceremony may be gathered from a letter written by Bute to a friend in Rome a fortnight later: Cardiff Castle, _April_ 29, 1872. The whole thing went off very well; the religious part of it, which most concerned us, was very well done, and, I hear, pleased and impressed the many Protestants who were present. I suppose you will have seen descriptions and pictures of it. You will understand that to the principals the whole thing--I mean the secular part of it--was absolutely detestable. As Lord Beauchamp says: "There is only one thing more disagreeable than being married in London, and that is being married in the country." Of course we have been extremely quiet ever since, and expect to be so. My Lady is the last person in the world to "rout one out" and want to make a flare-up and a splash. The Pope sent presents to us both,[5] and I wrote to Mgr. Howard to express our gratitude, enclosing {107} a letter of thanks in very indifferent Latin, which I composed and we both signed; but it was not to be given if it was contrary to etiquette. I find it the custom of Protestants, when they are married by an Archbishop, to present that dignitary with a pair of gloves--theirs being always white kid sewn with gold. I think I shall have a pair of cloth-of-gold _chirothecæ_ made for Abp. Manning, and shall get Burges to design them. I know the Roman ones are often made of spun silk, but you can have them of other stuff, too, can you not?