William Skene, the eminent Celtic scholar and historiographer-royal for Scotland, had proposed writing an article for the _Review_ on the question of reunion between the Episcopalian and Presbyterian Churches; and this gave Bute an opportunity of ventilating his deep-seated animosity against what he considered the hopelessly Erastian element inherent {136} in, and (as he believed) essential to, Anglicanism. He wrote from Raby Castle on October 11, 1887: If Dr. Skene advocates Bishop Wordsworth's views, he is likely to find himself strongly controverted in the next number. What the Bishop means by reunion is the unconditional surrender of the Scottish nation to a foreign body, whose marriages form 2 per cent. of those celebrated in Scotland. This seems to me simply insane impertinence. A reunion between Presbyterians and Catholics looks to me far less unlikely; for the very essence of the Presbyterian position--that the sacramental character of Order belongs only to the presbyterate, the episcopate being merely its full exercise--is at least a discutable[16] question with _us_, and we are already agreed on Christ's Divine Headship "on earth as it is in heaven": whereas the Anglicans have nailed their colours to the mast on the first point, and have abandoned every shred of Catholic principle on the second. Their doing this last is indeed the sole reason why they exist at all, either in England or in Scotland. The withers of the historiographer-royal were probably quite unwrung by this rather polemical outburst, the fact being that Dr. Skene had (as he himself mildly explained) no sympathy at all with Bishop Wordsworth's views on reunion, which his article was designed not to support but to confute.[17] [1] The vintage of 1885 was also a very good one. "The Mayor of Cardiff," Bute noted in his diary in July, 1892, "has bought three dozen of my 1885 wine--like, but in his opinion better (and I really think it is) than, my Falernian here." [2] It may be worth while to point out that the suggested Welsh name for the wine is based on a mistaken etymology. The word "Swanbridge" has nothing to do with swans, but is from the Norse or Danish proper name Sweyn (Swegen, Swain or Svend). The narrow neck of land connecting the place, at low tide, with the island of Sully is the "bridge" or "brigg" forming the second half of the word. Norse names are common all along the south coast of Glamorgan. [3] It is to be observed, in reference to this, that the occasion referred to was that of an exclusively Scottish deputation to Pope Pius IX.--an occasion on which Bute doubtless thought it congruous and becoming to appear wearing only the decoration of the highest Order of Scottish chivalry. [4] By a singular sequence of events, the persecuting parent (who was afterwards created Lord Donington) followed his daughter's example a few years later, and died a devout member of the Catholic Church in 1895.