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unusual facts about Thomas Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury



Clerkenwell Priory

James I of England granted the buildings to Lord Aubigny (removing the Revels Office to St. Peter's Hill), and it later passed to Sir William Cecil then to the Earl of Elgin.

In 1623 Joseph Hall, later Bishop of Exeter and Norwich, reopened the repaired choir and, in Charles I's reign, the Earl of Elgin turned the church into the Aylesbury Chapel, as his private chapel.

Elgin's Regiment of Fencible Infantry

Major Thomas, Earl of Elgin, from the 12th Foot was Colonel of this fencible regiment with the permanent army rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

Iso Fidia

The choice of Athens for the press launch was connected to the car's new name, Fidia, which was the name (commonly spelled "Phidias" by anglophone classicists) of the artist who some 24 centuries earlier had supervised creation of the friezes which originally decorated the Parthenon (and which in 1816 turned up in the British Museum, following their controversial removal in 1802 by Lord Elgin).

John Charles Felix Rossi

In 1816 he was one of the experts questioned by a select committee of the House of Commons enquiring into whether the government should purchase the sculptures from the Parthenon then in the possession of Lord Elgin.

Marquess of Ailesbury

Ever since Thomas Bruce, 2nd Earl of Ailesbury succeeded his father in 1685, every Earl and Marquess of Ailesbury has also been a Hereditary Warden of Savernake Forest.

Thomas Bruce, 1st Baron of Clackmannan

He married Marjorie Charteris of Stenhouse and it is from this line which most Bruces descend.

Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin

He was then sent as envoy-extraordinary in Brussels until the conquest of the Austrian Netherlands by France.

William St Clair

Lord Elgin and the Marbles (London: Oxford University Press, 1967; 3rd Revised Edition, 1998).


see also