one of the commissioners for such moneys as had been raised and assigned to Charles II during his war with the Dutch. On 18 March 1678 he was sworn a privy councillor. He was also one of the gentlemen of the king's bed-chamber, and a commissioner for executing the office of earl marischal of England, as deputy to Henry, duke of Norfolk. At the coronation of King James II he bore the sword, and on 30 July 1685 he was appointed lord chamberlain of the household. He died 20 Oct. of the same year at Ampthill, and was buried there. By his wife, Diana, daughter of Henry Grey, first earl of Stamford, he had eight sons and nine daughters. Wood says: 'He was a learned person, and otherwise well qualified, was well versed in English history and antiquities, a lover of all such that were professors of those studies, and a curious collector of manuscripts, especially of those which related to England and English antiquities.'
[Collins's Peerage, ed. 1812, v. 122-3; Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, i. 515-16; Cal. State Papers, Dom. Series; Wood's Fasti (Bliss), i. 491.]
BRUCE, THOMAS, third Earl of Elgin and second Earl of Ailesbury (1655?–1741), was the sixth and eldest surviving son of Robert, second earl [q. v.], and Diana, daughter of Henry Grey, first earl of Stamford. When the Prince of Orange landed in England, he was one of the noblemen who adhered to the cause of James, but on the king's withdrawal from Whitehall he signed the application to the Prince of Orange. He was one of those appointed to meet with the king when he was stopped by fishermen near the isle of Sheppey, to invite him to return to Whitehall. He accompanied the king in his barge to Rochester, previous to his final flight. Afterwards he returned to London, but he never took the oaths to William and Mary. When the French threatened a descent on England, in 1690, during William's absence in Ireland, an order was given, on 5 July, by Queen Mary for apprehension of the earl and of other Jacobite noblemen, but the danger having passed it was not deemed necessary to put the order into execution. In 1691 King William issued an order to enable him and his countess to make a revision for paying their debts and to make loanes of their estates. In May 1695 he was present at a meeting held at the Old King's Head tavern, Aldersgate Street, London, to concert measures for the restoration of King James, and was sent over to France to persuade Louis to grant a body of troops to aid in the enterprise. On account of his connection with the plot he was committed to the Tower in February 1695-6. His wife, Elizabeth Seymour, sister and heiress of William, duke of Somerset, died in childbed from anxiety connected with his imprisonment. He was admitted to bail on 12 Feb. following, and obtained the king's permission to reside in Brussels, where he married Charlotte, countess of Sannu, of the house of Argenteau, in the duchy of Brabant. He died at Brussels in November 1741, in his eighty-sixth year. By his first wife he had four sons and two daughters, and by the second he had an only daughter, Charlotte Maria, who was married in 1722 to the Prince of Home, one of the princes of the empire. One of her daughters, Elizabeth Philippina, married Prince Gustavus Adolphus of Stolberg Guedern, and was the mother of Louisa Maximiliana, the wife of Prince Charles Edward Stuart,, the pretender. The Earl of Elgin was succeeded by Charles, his second and only surviving son.
[Collins's Peerage, ed. 1812, v. 124-6; Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, i. 516.]
BRUCE, THOMAS, seventh Earl of Elgin and eleventh Earl of Kincardine (1766–1841), was born on 20 July 1766, and succeeded to his earldoms in 1771 on the death, without issue, of his elder brother, William Robert. He was educated at Harrow and Westminster, and he also studied at St. Andrews University and in Paris. In 1785 he entered the army, in which he rose to the rank of major-general. His diplomatic career began in 1790, when he was sent on a special mission to the Emperor Leopold. In 1792 he was appointed envoy at Brussels, and in 1795 envoy extraordinary at Berlin. In 1799 he was appointed to the embassy to the Ottoman Porte, and he was desirous that his mission to Constantinople should lead to a closer study and examination of the remains of Grecian art within the Turkish dominions. Acting on the advice of Sir William Hamilton, he procured at his own expense the services of the Neapolitan painter, Lusieri, and of several skilful draughtsmen and modellers. These artists were despatched to Athens in the summer of 1800, and were principally employed in making drawings of the ancient monuments, though very limited facilities were given them by the authorities. About the middle of the summer of 1801, however, all obstacles were overcome, and Elgin received a firman from the Porte which allowed his lordship's agents not only to ' fix scaffolding round the antient Temple of the Idols [the Parthenon], and to mould the ornamental sculpture and visible figures thereon
