Charles Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Marquess of Ailesbury

Charles Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Marquess of Ailesbury, KT (14 February 1773 – 4 January 1856), styled The Honourable Charles Brudenell-Bruce from birth until 1776, Lord Bruce from 1776 to 1814 and The Earl of Ailesbury from 1814 to 1821, was a British peer and politician.

Brudenell-Bruce was the third and only surviving son of Thomas Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Earl of Ailesbury and his first wife, Susanna, daughter and coheiress of Henry Hoare, banker, of Stourhead and the widow of Viscount Dungarvan. He was educated privately abroad in Italy from 1783 before being sent up to the University of Leyden.

A traditional description of Lord Bruce was provided by Lady Malmesbury when they met on several occasions on the Grand Tour of 1791.

"quite Lord Ailesbury just out of the shell - which, by the by, is no bad comparison, for they are like unfledged turkeys... a sad goose, but a good humoured creature and so desperately in love with the Duchess de Fleury it is quite melancholy, Lord Malmesbury says he is in love like a rabbit with a bunch of parsley".

In the 1760s his father had laid out the gardens at Tottenham Park with the help of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Tottenham Park was of great extent and moderate beauty. Formal avenues were planted leading up to the house, in amongst an extensive Saverhake Forest, which surrounded the cluster of aristocratic estates in east Wiltshire. The valley was good grade farmland, where Lord Bruce's client-burgesses of Marlborough had rights to graze. His father erected tall statuary in a garden star design in front a flat parkland landscape. When he inherited in 1814, Charles was determined to re-build and enlarge the house to a design by Thomas Cundy. The Marquess's ancestral "Rooms in the woods" distinguished his High Tory politics.

In 1792, he joined the Berkshire Militia as an Ensign. In 1796 he was appointed Captain of the Marlborough Yeomanry. He was promoted as a Colonel in the Wiltshire Yeomanry in 1797-1811. He became a Colonel of Wiltshire Militia in 1811-27, a largely honorary appointment, although his record was one of sabre-rattling against the French behaving for the most part like an Ultra.

From an early age his father wanted him to have management control of the family's electoral interest at Marlborough, in which place he continued until inheriting his father's estates. From 1796 he was Member of Parliament for Marlborough until he inherited his father's titles on 19 April 1814, Baron Bruce of Tottenham House, and the earldom of Ailesbury.

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