BRUDENELL, Robert (1607-1703)

Heir to one of the most prominent Catholic families in the country, Brudenell spent much of his life abroad. In 1626 he was captured by the Spanish while travelling to France. M.E. Finch, Wealth of Five Northamptonshire Families (Northants. Rec. Soc. xix), 164. His ransom caused the family considerable financial difficulties but such accidents do not appear to have deterred him. CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 425, 448. Although he passed the majority of his time from 1641 until the Restoration in France, leaving active participation in the Civil War to his younger brother, Edmund, he did return home on a few occasions on account of family troubles. Wake, Brudenells, 162. Brudenell was in England in 1645 to add his voice to attempts to achieve his father’s release from the Tower, and in 1650 he was involved in a chancery dispute against his father and Henry Parker^†, 14th Baron Morley and Monteagle, arising from the unpaid debts of his cousin, Sir William Tresham. HMC 6th Rep. 88-89; TNA, C 6/112/4. Five years later he was in England again arranging affairs between his father and Mildmay Fane, 2nd earl of Westmorland. Northants. RO, Brudenell ms F. iv. misc. 3.

The Restoration brought with it an improvement in the family’s fortunes. Brudenell’s father was elevated to the earldom of Cardigan in 1661 while the return of the family estates meant that Brudenell stood to inherit one of the most substantial positions in Northamptonshire society: the family lands in Northamptonshire alone were valued at some £1,006 a year in 1662. Add. 34222, f. 38. Brudenell was closely connected to a number of Northamptonshire notables, among them Christopher Hatton, later Viscount Hatton. Add. 29554, f. 231; Add. 29556, ff. 229, 233. Despite this, he appears not to have exercised much local political influence and was not appointed to any great local offices, though he may have been one of the officers in the Northamptonshire volunteer troop under the joint lord lieutenant, Westmorland. Add. 34222, f. 12.

On 1 July 1661 a private act was presented to the House for naturalizing Brudenell’s son, Francis Brudenell, and his daughter, Anna Maria (later countess of Shrewsbury), who had both been born in France during the Interregnum. The act received the royal assent towards the end of the same month. HMC 7th Rep. 147. In February 1663 Brudenell and Thomas Parker, 15th Baron Morley and Monteagle, petitioned the king for a concurrent grant of rights in several manors, which Morley had lost in the Civil War but had later redeemed with money borrowed from Brudenell. Now unable to repay Brudenell, Morley sought to sell the manors, which brought the two peers into conflict with George Monck, duke of Albemarle. Albemarle, who wished to purchase the manors, delayed the proceedings, being convinced that the king had a claim to them. In April of the following year they were granted to Brudenell. CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 49, 575.

Brudenell succeeded to the peerage in September 1663 and received his writ of summons in March 1664. HMC 7th Rep. 175. He took his seat in the House at the opening of the new session on 16 March. Although Cardigan was present on 94 per cent of all sitting days in the session, he was named to just three committees. His subsequent attendance at the House proved to be sporadic, as he continued to divide his time between his English homes and France. He attended only four sittings of the following session (1664-5) and was absent for the entirety of the short fifth session (October 1665). Nevertheless, he guarded his privileges as a peer jealously, and in February 1665 ‘several persons’ were brought to the bar of the House for arresting one of his servants. Bodl. Rawl. A130. In the same year Cardigan concerned himself closely with the trial of his cousin, Morley. Both peers were involved with a lengthy and increasingly ill-tempered attempt to sell the manor of Hallingbury to Sir Edward Turnor^‡. W.Suss. RO, Shillinglee ms 133. Poor health prevented Cardigan from attending Parliament to assist his cousin, but he maintained close contact with Turnor asking that he do all in his power on Morley’s behalf. Ibid. 127, 129.

Cardigan attempted to assert his influence in the 1666 by-election for Peterborough occasioned by the succession of the previous member, Charles Fane, as 3rd earl of Westmorland. In spite of the Brudenells’ close association with the Fane family, and Westmorland’s subsequent marriage to one of Cardigan’s daughters, Cardigan appears to have offered his support to William Fitzwilliam, 3rd Baron Fitzwilliam^‡ [I], in preference to Westmorland’s half-brother, Sir Vere Fane, later 4th earl of Westmorland. Cardigan wrote to Fitzwilliam to forewarn him of a horse race held the day of the ballot that would ‘take away several interested persons’ and promised to be at Peterborough himself to attend him. HP Commons 1660-90, i. 342. In the event a third candidate, Edward Palmer^‡, was returned, though the following year Fitzwilliam successfully petitioned to have that decision overturned. Ibid. ii. 329. In the summer of 1666 Cardigan was unwittingly instrumental in enabling his daughter, the wife of Francis Talbot, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, to begin her notorious affair with George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham. She abandoned her husband the following year. C. Somerville, King of Hearts, 17-18.

Having attended the single sitting day of 23 Apr. 1666, Cardigan took his seat in the new session on 1 Oct. after which he was present on 53 per cent of all sitting days. He was absent from the House from 21 Nov. until 11 Dec., during which time he entrusted his proxy to Charles Howard, then styled Viscount Andover (later 2nd earl of Berkshire) who sat under a writ in acceleration as Baron Howard of Charlton. On 22 Dec. Cardigan was added to the committee considering the bill for lead mines in the palatinate of Durham and on 4 Jan. 1667 to that for the bill for naturalizing Dame Mary Frazer. Relations with his daughter’s lover must have become increasingly frayed early in the year as Buckingham championed the cause to ban imports of Irish cattle. Cardigan was one of a number of peers who relied on income from fattening Irish beef for market in England. He joined with Edward Conway, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, and the other Anglo-Irish peers in mounting the opposition to the bill, and on 14 Jan. 1667 he entered his protest at the imposition of the ‘nuisance’ clause. On 23 Jan. he subscribed a further protest at the resolution not to annex a clause granting a right of appeal to the king and House of Lords to the bill for houses burnt in the Great Fire.

Cardigan’s absence from the earlier part of the session may have been in part owing to negotiations then in train between him and John Manners, 8th earl of Rutland, over a projected marriage alliance between Cardigan’s heir Francis Brudenell, styled Lord Brudenell and Lady Dorothy Manners. Brudenell’s religion proved a sticking point. Writing to the countess of Rutland, Edward Mountagu argued that, ‘If the young lord was a strict and a grounded papist there was some danger my lady Dorothy might be perverted, but considering all things there is no danger and so I am told by honest protestant divines.’ HMC Rutland, ii. 7. The family’s Catholicism proved a problem in other areas too and the same month, Brien Cokayne, 2nd Viscount Cullen [I], asked Sir Joseph Williamson^‡ whether he should search Cardigan’s house as part of the general investigation of known recusants. CSP Dom. 1666-7, p. 337. In May of the following year, with the marriage still unsettled, Cardigan attempted reluctantly to answer some of Rutland’s concerns:

Far be it from me – my lord – to enter into dispute with your lordship in matters of religion, considering we are both fixed to die in that we now live in; but give me leave to undeceive your lordship, that conceives that I hold all damned in that profession you are of… HMC Rutland, ii. 9.

Cardigan’s efforts clearly failed to satisfy Rutland and in July 1667 the matter was dropped. Ibid. 10.

Cardigan attended the House on two days in July and then resumed his seat in the new session on 7 Nov. 1667, after which he was present on 53 per cent of all sitting days. He was named to eight committees, including that considering a bill relating to his daughter-in-law, Lady Frances Savile. By that time more dramatic family issues had come to the fore as tensions between Shrewsbury and Buckingham reached crisis point. A duel between the two left Shrewsbury seriously injured; he died two months later. Charles Talbot, the new earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, was entrusted to the guardianship of Cardigan, Mervyn Tuchet, later Baron Audley, and his Talbot relations. Over the next five years Buckingham’s cohabitation with Lady Shrewsbury seems to have caused no further obvious ruptures within the family. C6/196/24; Wake, Brudenells, 178.

During this time Cardigan continued to attend the House. He resumed his seat in the new session on 25 Oct. 1669, after which he was present on just under 92 per cent of all sitting days. He was named to two committees during the session, and on 25 Nov. he subscribed the protest against the resolution relating to the cause Morley v. Elwes. He then registered a further dissent concerning the same business four days later. Cardigan returned to the House at the opening of the following session on 14 Feb. 1670, of which he was again present on just under 92 per cent of all sitting days and during which he was named to 29 committees. On one of the few occasions when he was absent he entrusted his proxy to his Northamptonshire neighbour Westmorland. On 2 Mar. 1670 he was named to the committee considering Lady Lee’s bill: a measure with a prominent Northamptonshire connection. LJ, xii, 297. Perhaps most significant was his presence on the committee chaired by Ailesbury considering a bill introduced by the guardians of his grandson, Shrewsbury, in January 1671. Ibid. 408; PA, HL/PO/CO/1/2, f. 408. On 9 Mar. he registered two dissents at the resolutions neither to engross nor commit the bill concerning privilege of Parliament.

Cardigan attended the prorogation of 16 Apr. 1672 but was then was missing from the opening of the eleventh session the following year. He informed the House on 13 Feb. 1673 that he had sent in his proxy. There is no record of this but Cardigan resumed his seat (thus vacating the proxy) shortly after on 27 February. Present on 59 per cent of all sitting days, on 5 Mar. he was named to the committee appointed to draw up a bill of advice to the king. Cardigan was absent again throughout the twelfth session, but in the winter of 1673 he returned to London in advance of the following session. Add. 29554, f. 241. He took his seat at the opening on 7 Jan. 1674, after which he was present on 89 per cent of all sitting days. The same day his son, Lord Brudenell, Mervyn Tuchet and four other relatives of the deceased earl of Shrewsbury presented a petition to the House against Buckingham and the dowager countess in which they complained of the earl’s killing and of Buckingham and Lady Shrewsbury’s ‘open and scandalous way of living together, and the public interment of their bastard.’ Add. 29547, f. 32; Essex Pprs. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xlvii), 160. The timing of the petition appears to have been driven largely by the Talbots in an effort to counter Buckingham’s assault on Henry Bennet, earl of Arlington. Williamson Letters ii (Camden Soc. n.s. ix), 105-6. Cardigan’s role is unclear. He was absent from the House on 15 Jan. the day on which it was ordered that the petitioners should be heard, but the business was then delayed by a series of postponements. In any case, he had his own problems to consider as in the midst of these events he faced proceedings for recusancy. On 27 Jan. the House having been informed of his predicament (and of a number of other peers in a similar situation), it was ordered that he should enjoy privilege of Parliament. Cardigan used the opportunity of the 31 Jan. debate on the Talbot petition to speak up for his daughter, explaining that he had received a ‘letter of submission’ from her and begged that ‘she might not be made desperate.’ Winifred, Lady Burghclere, George Villiers 2nd Duke of Buckingham, 295. The matter was then postponed once more to 6 February. In the event, Buckingham escaped serious repercussions, though both he and Lady Shrewsbury were ordered to enter into recognizances of £10,000 to guarantee their future good conduct, and a committee was appointed to finalize the conditions chaired by Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh. CSP Ven. 1673-5, p. 220; Essex Pprs. 173-4; PA, HL/PO/CO/1/3, f. 56. The nature of the securities to be offered was discussed and then the committee adjourned to the following week when Cardigan’s presence was requested. Although the prorogation on 24 Feb. prevented the committee from reporting its findings to the House, Buckingham and Lady Shrewsbury were forbidden from any future association. HMC 9th Rep. 36; HL/PO/CO/1/3, ff. 59, 72.

In the aftermath of the scandal, Cardigan acquired a pass for himself and his daughter to leave the country. The dowager countess was left in France at Pontoise and the young earl of Shrewsbury was also sent abroad, arriving in Paris in June 1674. CSP Dom. 1673-5, p. 369; HMC Buccleuch, ii. 17. Cardigan spent the greater part of the following year across the Channel. Add. 29553, f. 134; Wake, Brudenells, 179. His influence over his grandson waned over the years. Shrewsbury renounced his Catholicism but his conversion was a long drawn-out affair, involving lengthy theological discussions both with his protestant mentor John Tillotson, later archbishop of Canterbury, and his Catholic grandfather. Life and Character of Charles Duke of Shrewsbury (1718), 4.

Having failed to attend the first session of 1675, Cardigan took his seat in the House at the opening of the ensuing session on 13 October. He proceeded to attend all bar one of its 21 sitting days, and on 20 Nov. he voted in favour of addressing the crown to request a dissolution. He was present at the opening of the next session on 15 Feb. 1677, of which he attended 84 per cent of all sitting days; in May he was assessed by Antony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, as a ‘worthy Papist’. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert, earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. Cardigan was again in attendance for the opening of the following session on 23 May 1678, though his record of attendance then declined to just 37 per cent of the whole. He was present on both prorogation days of 1 Aug. and 1 Oct. before taking his place once more at the opening of the new session on 21 Oct. 1678. Unsurprisingly, Cardigan opposed the Test. He voted against making the declaration against transubstantiation liable to the same penalty as the oaths in a division held in a committee of the whole on 15 Nov., and on 20 Nov. he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the measure. He withdrew from the House permanently after its adoption.

Cardigan was briefly brought under investigation during the Popish Plot, but in November 1678 he obtained permission to quit the country and once more retreated across the Channel. HMC Le Fleming, 148; CSP Dom. 1678, p. 615. His son, Lord Brudenell, who was also under suspicion, was less fortunate and it was not until January of the following year that he was eventually released on bail. Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxii), 171. In a list drawn up in about March or April 1679 Cardigan was listed by Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) as a doubtful (as well as absent) supporter of his efforts to secure bail. By August Cardigan was rumoured to be actively working against Danby through the influence of the dowager countess of Shrewsbury, but his cession from the House meant that he was unable to bring any direct influence to bear over Danby’s impeachment. HMC Lindsey supp. 59-60.

Almost 80 years old in 1685, Cardigan’s age made it unlikely that he would gain much from James II’s accession, though he was dispensed from taking the oaths. CSP Dom. 1686-7, pp. 67-68. Age notwithstanding, he seems to have enjoyed some interest at court. One of his daughters, Catherine, was married to the new secretary of state, Charles Middleton^‡, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], and in 1686 Cardigan was reckoned by Roger Morrice to be one of the lay leaders of the anti-Jesuitical faction. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 256. In other respects Cardigan’s situation was increasingly bleak and escalating debts forced him to make over his estates to his son Brudenell in return for an annuity of £1,000. Northants. RO, Brudenell ms K, vi.22. A series of assessments of the likely attitudes of peers to the repeal of the Test Act compiled between 1687 and 1688 all listed Cardigan, predictably enough, as a Catholic. In December 1688 he was exempted from having troops quartered on his retreat at Twickenham, but the progress of the Revolution ensured that his influence remained minimal. CSP Dom. 1687-9, p. 374. In 1689, writing in response to a demand for all peers to provide an assessment of their personal estates, Cardigan requested that the House might ‘excuse the scribbling of an old man’ before proceeding to declare that he was in possession of but £100 while owing ten times that amount. Chatsworth, Halifax collection, B,100. The deaths of his heir, Francis, daughter, Anna Maria, and second wife further blighted his final decade while the changed political situation added to his troubles. A warrant was issued for his arrest in 1692, and two years later his name appeared on a list of possible suspects to be investigated as part of the ‘Lancashire Plot’. Luttrell, ii. 444; HMC Lords, n.s. i. 445. In 1699 Cardigan had another narrow escape when part of his house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields collapsed during a violent storm. The falling debris narrowly missed the old earl who had to be cut out from the wreckage. Hatton Corresp, (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxiii), 239; Fitzwilliam-Guybon Corresp. ed. D. Hainsworth and C. Walker, (Northants. Rec. Soc. xxxvi), 44-45.

In spite of such reverses and his earlier declaration, Cardigan’s fortune remained sizeable. His granddaughter, Frances, was given a portion of £12,000 on her marriage to the Jacobite, Charles Livingston^‡, 2nd earl of Newburgh [S], in 1692. Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxiii), 185; Luttrell, ii. 513. Cardigan also made provision for a portion of £10,000 for another granddaughter, Mary Brudenell. Northants. RO, Brudenell ms G, iii. misc. 5. Following Newburgh’s early death, his widow married Richard Bellew^‡, 3rd Baron Bellew [I], an Irish Catholic, who later converted to Protestantism. Wrangling over the terms of the new marriage settlement involved Cardigan in a divisive chancery case during his final months. Ibid. A, xiv. 26; C6/392/33. Shortly before Christmas 1702 he was reported to be so unwell that his life was ‘despaired of’. Post Boy, 22-24 Dec. 1702. He rallied to live for a further seven months but succumbed finally to advanced age in July 1703 aged 96 (at least two reports described him erroneously as being in his 98th year). HMC Buccleuch, ii. 771; Daily Courant, 20 July 1703; Add. 70075, newsletter, 20 July 1703. He was buried at Deene, having requested in his will that his funeral be conducted ‘without pomp or unnecessary charge.’ Northants. RO. Brudenell ms G, iii. misc. 5. He was succeeded by his grandson, George Brudenell, 3rd earl of Cardigan.