Bruce, Charles Brudenell-Bruce, Lord
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- Bruce, Charles Brudenell-Bruce, Lord
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(1773 - 1856), o. surv. s. of 1st E. of Ailesbury; sty. L. Bruce 1783 - 1814 when suc. fa as 2nd E.; Leiden U.; army officer, ensign 1792, col. 1797; m. 1 1793, in Florence, Hon. Henrietta Hill (d. 1831), dau. of 1st B. Berwick, 2 1833 Maria Tollemache; MP 1796 - 1814; KT 1819; cr. M. of Ailesbury 1821.
1790 - 5 [Switzerland] Turin (by Oct. 1790), Genoa, Milan (by 13 Oct.), Bologna, Florence, Genoa (Nov.), Pisa (2 Dec. 1790 - 14 Feb. 1791), Florence, Leghorn, Siena, Rome (23 Apr. - 14 May), Florence (30 May - 6 Jun.), Bologna, Milan (18 Jun.) [Germany Jun. - Sep.] Verona (28 Sep.), Mantua, Venice, Leghorn, Rome (2 Nov.), Naples (2 Dec. 1791 - 20 Mar. 1792) Sicily (Mar. - Apr.), Rome (9 May), Bologna (21 May), Venice (24 May), Udine (6 Jun.) [Vienna Jul.] Florence (13 - 22 Oct.), Rome (31 Oct.), Naples (20 Nov. 1792 - 15 Jan. 1793), Rome (20 Feb. - 22 Mar.), Florence (27 Apr. - 6 Aug.), Parma (Sep.), Rome (6 - 9 Nov.), Naples (16 Nov. 1793 - 11 Mar. 1794), Rome (22 Mar. - Apr.), Florence (by 10 May - 4 Oct.), Leghorn (Oct.), Rome (by 13 Nov.), Naples (Dec. 1794), Bologna (May 1795), Venice (1 - 9 May) [England by Dec. 1795]
At the age of sixteen Lord Bruce set off for Italy with the Rev. Thomas Brand (c.1751 - 1814), whose letters describe their tour (Brand letters MSS; dates given in brackets; Lord Bruce's letters are HMC Ailesbury). 'Health is our only pretext for travelling', he explained, and already after a six-week tour in Switzerland he found 'Lord Bruce's health is amazingly improv'd' (C 25 Sep. 1790). They were to spend five years in Italy and Lord Bruce would return a married man and a father.
By October 1790 they were in Turin, where they stayed longer than necessary 'for Ld Bruce to make his bows to the King & Princes & Princesses'; Bruce was much impressed with the palaces 'which realize the descriptions in Fairy tales & Enchantments: it almost made him consider the proprietors as something above the Vulgar' (E 13 Oct. 1790). They went on to Genoa, where Lord Bruce exploited the privilege accorded to the son of a British peer by entering the city after the gates are shut, in order to attend an opera and a French play at Rivarola; Lady Knight, who accompanied them, introduced the 'Grimaldis & Spinolas and Balbis & Durazzos and all the rest of the great families of Genoa' (ibid.). By 13 October they had reached Milan, where they were 'very graciously receiv'd by the Archduke & Duchess' (ibid.). Lord Bruce, who loved opera as dearly 'as Squire Humfrey did Applepye' (C 2 Dec. 1790), then insisted on a detour to Bologna to hear the tenor David, before going on to Florence. There they heard Crescentini sing and met Lady Cowper, the Knights and the Berry family (ibid.). They passed the winter months in Pisa where, although 'the best of our foreigners are gone to Rome', there were 'still 4 or 5 houses where we can get a dish of tea & harmless conversation & we can go now & then into Italian company'; they took half Mary Berry's box for the Carnival season at the theatre and saw a burletta by Fabrizi (C 27 Dec. 1790).
A remarkable episode occured in the spring at Siena, where Brand took Lord Bruce to meet 'an old Lady to whom Ld Ailesbury [Lord Bruce's father, see Thomas, Baron Bruce] was Cavalier Servente Thirty Nine years ago. She gave us many anecdotes of Ld. A's Sienna life which perhaps had better been concealed'; the lady urged Lord Bruce to emulate his father, 'the very reflexion', wrote Brand, 'I wished to avoid'.1 In April they paid a three-week visit to Rome to see the Easter celebrations, and Thomas Jenkins attended Lord Bruce as he witnessed the ceremony of the Pope washing the pilgrims' feet (E 23 Apr. 1791). On the journey back to Florence Brand reflected upon his 'indolent & incurious companion', who had, however, reacted to the picturesque beauties of Tuscany (E 30 May 1791). They passed a quiet agreeable time in Florence, reading in the morning, sleeping at noon, walking in the afternoon and attending the theatre in the evening, before going north in June via Bologna and Milan to Innsbruck (E Jun. 1791).
They returned to Italy in September, travelling down through Verona and Venice (where they again encountered the Berrys, then returning to England) to Leghorn. By December 1791 they had passed through Rome to Naples. Lady Malmesbury then described Lord Bruce as 'a sad goose, but a good-humoured creature, and desperately in love with the Duchess of Fleury[;] it is quite melancholy. Lord Malmesbury says he is in love like a rabbit with a bunch of parsley'.2 In March and April they toured Sicily, Lord Bruce on horseback and Brand in a sedan; Bruce had wanted to go on to Malta but, having set sail, 'my poor young man in about half an hour was seiz'd with so dreadful a sea-sickness that after struggling an hour he fairly cried out for mercy' and they returned to Sicily (E 8 Apr. 1792). Both were impressed by Sicily and commissioned views of the island from Lusieri ('Don Tito'). They also bought in 1792 two copies by John Rouby after Schidone and pendants by Seydelmann after Raphael (A 15 Jan. 1793). In May 1792 they returned north; on 9 May they were in Rome and on the 21st in Bologna. They were doubtless the 'Milord Brune con copagno Mons. Bramnte' who arrived in Venice on 24 May and were in Udine on 6 June.3 They were in Vienna by July.
They had returned to Florence by October 1792, when Brand observed that the Bishop of Winchester (Brownlow North) and his wife (an unhappy couple) were paying Lord Bruce particular attention (A 16 Oct. 1792). By December they were again in Naples, where Lord Bruce bought 'a most beautiful drawing by [Lusieri] of the Temple of Proserpine at the Lago d'Averno' (A 11 Dec. 1792) but, more significantly, he met and fell in love with Henrietta Hill. She was staying in Naples at the same hotel with her younger sisters and her mother, Lady Berwick. There was a joint excursion to Baiae and Cumae early in January, in the course of which Lord Bruce gallantly rescued Henrietta from a bucking horse, arriving 'just in time to receive her in his arms'; Brand advised Lord Ailesbury that sentiments 'were evidently in a state of progression' and sought his approval (A 15 Jan. 1793). By 27 April, in Florence, the twenty-year-old Lord Bruce had been accepted, and on 20 May Brand married them at La Quercia, outside Florence, in the presence of Lord John and Lady Elizabeth Hervey, Henry Monck and his wife, Lady Elizabeth, and Lady Berwick and her daughters (A 21 May 1793).
The new Lady Bruce immediately sat to Angelica Kauffman for her portrait (priv. coll.); it shows her holding a lyre crowned with roses; 'I never saw any portrait of hers with so much truth and character', wrote Brand (A 8 Jun. 1793). On 2 July Lord Bruce told his father he was having another portrait of Lady Bruce made by Gauffier, 'one of those that were obliged to leave Rome on account of the disturbances', and on 6 August he was himself sitting to Gauffier for 'as complete a likeness as Lady Bruce's. Beyond it', wrote Brand, 'art cannot go' (6 Aug. 1793 A; both portraits sold Sotheby's, 6 Jul. 1966; his portrait resold Christie's, 6 Apr. 1973). They were in Parma visiting Bodoni in September 1793,4 and in Rome in November they were briefly joined by Lady Bruce's brother, Lord Berwick. It appears that Lord Bruce also sat in Rome to Hugh Robinson, in whose studio Sarah Bentham saw his portrait in December 17935 (possibly the whole-length of Lord Bruce now in a priv. coll.). By 16 November they were back in Naples for the winter.
Lusieri had spent the summer in Sicily working for Lord Bruce and Sir Richard Colt Hoare; 'I still admire [his] drawings more than any', Bruce told his father, while particularly praising a view of the Three Temples at Paestum (A 23 Nov. 1793). Lady Bruce, whose own beauty was 'highly spoken of', was 'gratified' to see Lady Hamilton perform her 'Attitudes' (A 26 Nov. 1793, and Lord Bruce, 7 Dec. 1793). Thomas Brand, meanwhile, continued his belle amiti? for Lady Webster - 'rather sentimentally tiresome', and Lord Digby 'fell in love with' Lady Bruce, 'who only coquets with him'.6 In March 1794 Lord Bruce told his father they had dined with the King of Naples (1 Mar. 1794) and in April they returned to Florence, where on 10 May Lady Bruce gave birth to twin daughters. On 6 July Lord Bruce and Brand were said to be ('have been'?) in Rome.7
As the threat of French invasion loomed, Lord and Lady Bruce in Leghorn remained undecided whether to travel north or south (E 4 Oct. 1794). On 13 November they were in Rome, Brand meanwhile having set off home alone through Germany. Lady Knight found them 'a very agreeable couple' with 'a beautiful pair of twins', soon to be joined by Lady Berwick and her two remaining daughters from Turin.8 By December Lord Bruce's portrait by Angelica Kauffman was far advanced9 (showing him in Spanish dress, a map of Sicily on a table beside him; it was paid for on 27 May 1795; priv. coll.).(10) The Bruces had been reported in Naples in December 1794;11 they were in Venice in May 1795,12 and by the end of the year they were back in England.(13)
On 6 July 1796 Lady Berwick, in Naples, told Lady Bruce that she had 'got a little view of a well known spot for you' by the 'moonlight man'.14 In 1797 the Bruces commissioned several copies from John Rouby in Rome (including heads from the antique and Titian's Danae) which Patrick Moir forwarded for them.15
1. Black 1992, 201. 2. Elliot Letters, 1:403. 3. AVR IS 764. 4. Bodoni cart., cass.42 (Ldy. Knight, 20 Sep. 1793). 5. Bentham jnl.MSS. 6. Holland Jnl., 1:122. 7. The Oracle, 21 Jul. 1794. 8. Knight Letters, 203. 9. Attingham MSS (Ldy. Knight, 5 Dec. 1794). 10. Kauffman 1924, 166. 11. Morning Chronicle, 10 Jan. 1795 (Naples, 5 Dec. 1794). 12. ASV IS 774. 13. Knight Letters, 211. 14. Attingham MSS. 15. Attingham MSS (Rouby, 17 Mar. 1797).