THE CHARITY that runs the estate formerly owned by the 4th Marquess of Bute has dismissed calls to change the name of the First Minister's official residence over claims the aristocrat helped fund General Francisco Franco's nationalists in the early months of the Spanish Civil War.
The impetus for the demand to change the name of Bute House comes from a nine-year-old book by the award-winning military historian Antony Beevor on the 1936 - 1939 war which connects the Marquess of Bute to the man who was to become Spain's fascist dictator.
For four decades the Catholic Church was said to be closely allied with General Franco's dictatorship.
But the Mount Stuart Trust, which owns and administers the Bute Estate and holds the records of the 4th Marquess of Bute has said they can find no evidence that money went to Franco or the nationalists.
Beevor's The Battle For Spain book claims that the "devoutly Catholic" Marquess of Bute sold "vast freeholds which he owned in the city of Cardiff and denoted the proceeds to the nationalist movement."
Records show that the sale of the "South Wales Estates" was completed in December, 1938, towards the end of the Spanish Civil War. It is understood£3 million was raised.
Retired physician Graham Sharp who called for the National Trust for Scotland to change the name of the historic Edinburgh property saying that the memory of the many Scots who fought and died in the fight against fascism in Spain is "besmirched" by the name given to the First Minister's Robert Adam-designed neoclassical residence in the historic New Town of Edinburgh.
The Spanish Civil War started as a coup by the Spanish military against the democratically elected government on 18 July, 1936 and led to three years of war and then four decades of fascist dictatorship under General Franco.
Author Antony Beevor
The struggle is often regarded as a rehearsal for World War II.
Alice Martin, head of the historic collections of the Mount Stuart Trust described Beevor's assertions as "far-fetched" saying accounts and cash books from 1935 until the death of John Crichton-Stuart, the 4th Marquess of Bute, in 1947 show no record of any such payment to the nationalists or any groups connected to them.
His passport does show he was a regular visitor to Spain.
But Ms Martin said: "I suspect it is more likely that this supposition [that he gave funds to the Spanish nationalists] is due to the fact that many people in Britain and indeed around the world had huge concerns over the spread of communism during this period and had the evidence of the bloody revolution in Russia to back up their fears.
"I have no doubt that the Marquess, like many others, initially followed the dictate of the Catholic Church in espousing fears about the rise of communism in Spain, but to say that these fears meant that he and millions of others supported or even condoned the later abhorrent excesses of the Franco regime is in my opinion too far-fetched."
In 1966, Bute House was given to the National Trust for Scotland "in lieu of duty" on the estate of the 5th Marquess who had died in 1956.
Between 1970 and 1999 Bute House, or 6 Charlotte Square, served as the official residence of the Secretary of State for Scotland and since 1999 it has been the official residence of the First Minister.
Ms Martin added:"If I may give a defence to keeping the name [Bute House] and avoiding such a revisionist action as renaming the house it would only be to say that the 4th Marquess for any perceived sins was a man who cared passionately about the heritage and history of Scotland.
"A fluent Gaelic speaker he and his wife adapted Mount Stuart on the isle of Bute into a naval hospital during WWI with the Marchioness herself undertaking nursing training at Stobhill so as to act as matron. In addition to the numerous conservation and restoration projects the Marquess undertook across the UK Bute House and many properties on Edinburgh’s High Street and in Cannongate were lovingly conserved by him during his lifetime."
Scottish Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War comprised 23% of the estimated 2,400 men and women who travelled from Great Britain to serve in the International Brigades, military units made up of volunteers from different countries to fight against the Spanish Falangist forces led by General Franco.
More than 500 of the Brits who stood against Franco died, 65 of them coming from Glasgow.
Ms Martin said the "only action remotely ‘financial’ I can find clear evidence of that could be seen as offering early support to the nationalist movement is the Marquess’s guaranteeing against loss the anti-communist publication of ‘Daylight on Spain: The Answer to the Duchess of Atholl’, by the Belgian academic Charles Saroléa."
But Ms Martin added: "This seems scant evidence - guaranteeing a book against financial loss - that he supported the later excesses of the regime.
"Again his political views were held by many people from all walks of life across Europe as well as in Scotland at this time 80 years ago."
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