Thomas Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury

The Earl of Ailesbury
Thomas Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury and 3rd Earl of Elgin, by François Harrewijn, 1738
Spouse(s)	Lady Elizabeth Seymour Charlotte d'Argenteau
Father	Robert Bruce, 2nd Earl of Elgin
Mother	Lady Diana Grey
Born	1656
Died	16 December 1741

Thomas Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury and 3rd Earl of Elgin (1656 – 16 December 1741) was the son of Robert Bruce, 2nd Earl of Elgin and Lady Diana Grey. His maternal grandparents were Henry Grey, 1st Earl of Stamford and Lady Anne Cecil, daughter of William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Exeter. His Memoirs, which were not published until long after his death, are a valuable source for English history in the last quarter of the seventeenth century.

Lord Bruce, as he was styled from 1663 to 1685, was M.P. for Marlborough between 1679 and 1681 and M.P. for Wiltshire in 1685. He became a Gentleman of the Bedchamber in 1676. From 1685, when he inherited the earldom, to 1688, he was a Lord of the Bedchamber, Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire (the latter in the absence of the Earl of Sandwich) and was a Page of Honour, at the coronation of King James II on 23 April 1685. He was devoted to Charles II, who remarked on his deathbed "I see you love me dying as well as living"; Bruce wrote later of Charles' death that "Thus ended my happy days at a Court, and to this hour I bewail my loss." He also admired James II, though he was not blind to his faults as a ruler.

He married, firstly, Lady Elizabeth Seymour, daughter of Henry Seymour, Lord Beauchamp and Mary Capell and granddaughter of William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset, on 31 August 1676. She died in 1697 in premature childbirth, apparently brought on by a false report that her husband had been executed for treason. They had three children: