Brudenell-Bruce family, Marquesses of Ailesbury

Edward Bruce of Blairhall (Clackmannanshire) (1548-1611) received the Whorlton and Jervaulx Abbey (Yorkshire) estates from the Crown and was created Baron Bruce of Kinloss (Fife) in 1608. His son Thomas (1599-1663) married a daughter of the 2nd Earl of Exeter and was created Earl of Elgin in 1633. His grandson, the 2nd Earl, was created Earl of Ailesbury in 1664.

The 2nd Earl of Ailesbury inherited the Seymour estates of Tottenham and Savernake Forest (Wiltshire) which included Shalbourne (Berkshire), through his marriage in 1676 to Elizabeth Seymour, to whom they had passed on the death in 1671 of her brother, the 3rd Duke of Somerset. With these estates came the hereditary wardenship of Savernake Forest, originally granted to the Seymours’ ancestor, Richard Esturmy, by King William I. (Other Seymour estates passed to her uncle, the 4th Duke of Somerset and later to the co-heirs of the 7th Duke on his death in 1750).

On the death of the 3rd Earl of Ailesbury in 1747 the Earldom of Elgin passed by special remainder to his cousin, Charles Bruce, 9th Earl of Kincardine, but the Kinloss title passed to his elder daughter Mary, Duchess of Chandos, and the English estates to his nephew, Thomas Brudenell-Bruce (1729-1813), youngest son of the 3rd Earl of Cardigan. Thomas Brudenell-Bruce was created Earl of Ailesbury in 1776, and his son Charles, 1st Marquess of Ailesbury in 1821. The 2nd Marquess succeeded a cousin as 8th Earl of Cardigan in 1868, but did not inherit the Deene (Northamptonshire) estate.

The Brudenell-Bruces added to their Wiltshire property by purchase, most notably buying in 1779 the Marlborough estate (a former Seymour property) from the heirs of the Marquess of Granby, but by 1892, when a projected sale to Lord Iveagh for £750,000 failed, it was heavily mortgaged. Much of the Wiltshire estate was sold in 1929, and in 1938 Savernake Forest was conveyed to the Forestry Commission. The Yorkshire estates were alienated in the years from 1886, Jervaulx Abbey being sold to Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, Baron Masham of Swinton.

The Houghton Park (Bedfordshire) estate was granted to the 1st Earl of Elgin by King James I. The neighbouring Maulden estate was added by purchase in 1635. The leasehold of Ampthill Great Park was bought from the Earl of Ashburnham in 1666 but sold back again in 1690. The remaining Bedfordshire possessions were sold to the Duke of Bedford in 1738.

In 1883 the estates comprised 37,993 acres in Wiltshire, 15,502 acres in Yorkshire and 1,556 acres in Berkshire, worth a total of £59,716 a year.