(1729 - 1814), 4th s. of 3rd E. of Cardigan; educ. Winchester; suc. uncle 1747 as B. Bruce of Tottenham; m. 1 1761 Susanna Hoare (d. 1783), wid. of Vct. Dungarvan [I], 2 1788 Ldy. Anne Rawdon (d. 1813), dau. of 1st E. of Moira [I]; took name of Bruce 1767; gov. to P. of Wales 1776; cr. E. of Ailesbury 1776; KT 1786.
1751 - 3 Rome (by Mar. 1751), Lucca (26 Sep.), Venice (12 Jan. 1752), Rome (Jan. - May), Naples (Jun.), Florence (Aug. - ), Lucca (Oct.), Florence (20 - 30 Oct.), Milan (Nov. 1752 - spring 1753), Bologna, Padua (18 Jun.), Bologna, Florence, Siena (by 8 Aug.) [Vienna by end of 1753]
Lord Bruce spent two years in Italy with his tutor, the Rev. Thomas Lipyeatt. By Easter 1751 Bruce was staying at Rome in the Casa Guarnieri, and he was listed at the same address the following Easter.1 He became a member of Lord Charlemont's lively and artistic circle. Both he and Lipyeatt subscribed to Charlemont's plan for an academy for British artists in Rome, and Bruce was to have played the role of Liberty on Charlemont's 'Triumphal Car' for the 1752 Carnival (see Charlemont). Like most members of that coterie, he was several times caricatured: in a group by by P.L. Ghezzi (with the 3rd Viscount Midleton, Joseph Henry and Henry Martin; Philadelphia MA) and by Joshua Reynolds in his Parody of the School of Athens (1751; NGI) and (as an 'eloquent beanpole') in his Four Learned Milordi (NGI).
On 26 September 1751 Lord Bruce was making a bet with Charlemont at Lucca.2 Thomas Scrope reported him in Venice in January 1752.3 In May he joined an excursion in the Roman Campagna with Scrope, Benjamin Lethieullier, Lascelles Iremonger and Sir Thomas Kennedy, and by June they had all gone on to Naples.4 Pancrazi dedicated a plate to Bruce in his Antichit? Siciliane published in Naples in 1751 - 2. In August 1752 Horace Mann described how at Florence 'the quiet Lord Bruce' enjoyed the swagger of the 'roaring rich West Indian', William Young; in October Mann said he had just come from Lucca and was spending ten days in Florence before going on to Milan, 'where crowds of English will winter'.5
On 18 June 1753 Lord Bruce was in Padua6 and on 8 August he was writing to Charlemont from Siena. 'Your favour of the seventh of June ... pursuing me from Bologna to Padua to Bologna and afterwards to Florence, reached me last post at Siena'; he went on to say that his clothes had already been sent on to Vienna - 'don't you pity a man, who is not to pass the next winter in Italy and is to pass it in Germany?' The same letter also explained that Lipyeatt was obliged to return to England, but 'a younger brother of his [probably Jonathan Lipyeatt] will be in Italy soon to accompany me in my tour through Germany'.7 He was probably thinking particularly of Siena, where it appears he had acted as cicisbeo to a lady whom his son was to meet thirty-nine years later, see Charles, Lord Bruce. When Lord Bruce returned home in October 1753 he was said to have 'been all over Holland and Germany, and visited Sweden, Denmark and Russia'.8
1. AVR SA, S.Andrea delle Fratte, 1751 - 2. 2. HMC Charlemont, 1:183. 3. Jesse, Selwyn, 1:151. 4. Wicklow MSS (J. Russel, 6 Jun. 1752). 5. Wal.Corr., 20:331, 336. 6. Brown 2026. 7. HMC Charlemont, 1:183 - 8. 8. HMC Hastings, 3:105.