He was educated at Harrow School, and succeeded his father as Marquess of Bute in October 1900, when he was nineteen years old.

On reaching his majority in June 1902, he received the Honorary Freedom of the Burgh of Rothesay,[2] and later the same month took the oath and his seat in the House of Lords.

[8] In the 21st century, revelations by Antony Beevor, in his study of the Spanish Civil War, The Battle for Spain, that the 4th Marquess, a Roman Catholic, had donated the proceeds from the sale of the estate's properties in Cardiff to help finance the regime change war by General Franco's Nationalist faction.

[9] While this was done as a reaction to both the Red Terror and the religious persecution the Second Spanish Republic had unleashed against the Catholic Church in Spain, the revelation caused the 4th Marquess to be posthumously accused of Fascism and led to unsuccessful demands to the National Trust for Scotland for the renaming of Bute House.

The lavish Roman Catholic Wedding Mass, at Bellingham Castle in the village of Castlebellingham in County Louth, Ireland, was followed by a party at Mount Stuart House in Scotland.