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Family History

Sir Robert Brudenell (1461-1531) was a successful barrister who became Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. He looked after the affairs of King Henry VII’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort and was summoned to Henry VIII’s first Parliament in 1510, knighted in 1517, made a Privy Councillor and in 1521 was made Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.

After marrying Margaret Entwistle in 1485, who owned land in Leicestershire which is still owned by the Brudenell family today, he took over the lease of Deene in 1514.

Deene had belonged to the Abbey of Westminster since before the Conquest. A rent of £18.00 per year was payable, which had been in force since the reign of King John, and which continued to be paid until 1970!

Sir Edmund Brudenell (1521 – 1585) came to live at Deene when his grandfather, Sir Robert, died in 1531. He too had enlarged his estates by marrying an heiress, Agnes Bussy, from Lincolnshire. He was twice High Sheriff of Northamptonshire and once of Rutland.

Sir Edmund was responsible for enlarging the Great Hall and providing the enormous fireplace decorated with his own and his wife’s coats of arms. He also supplied the Italianate porch and re-modelled part of the East side. His diary remains in the library, in which he records the visit of Queen Elizabeth I on 12th August 1566.  In 1569 he was given the crest of a seahorse, many of which can be seen throughout the House.

Thomas (1578 – 1663) succeeded his three uncles and married Mary Tresham the daughter of Sir Thomas Tresham. Although Thomas was a rich man with an income from his estates of £5,500 in 1635, he was extravagant and lived well beyond his means, spending enormous sums on building as well as buying a baronetcy for £1,000 in 1611 and a barony for £6,000 in 1628.  He paid endless fines for being a Roman Catholic and had to liberate his kidnapped son for £3,000 whilst on his Grand Tour.

He fled from Deene when it was sacked by the Parliamentarians, and he spent two years in Wales until he was handed over to Roundheads at Gloucester.  He spent four years in the Tower of London, two of which were in solitary confinement.  His son offered King Charles I £1,000 in return for an Earldom, a promise which was honoured by Charles II at the Restoration when Thomas was made Earl of Cardigan.

George (1685 – 1732) succeeded his grandfather, the Second Earl, in 1703 when he was living in Rome but came home in 1706. George’s Jacobite father, Francis Lord Brudenell, had been imprisoned for four years for high treason and died in 1698. He converted to the Church of England, took his seat in the House of Lords and married Lady Elizabeth Bruce, daughter of the Earl of Ailesbury.

They left the house much as it was but modernised and redecorated the interior. He built the lantern over the Oak Staircase, repaired the Great Hall and converted the summer house into a billiard room (now the Chapel).

He died in 1732, aged 46, of a nosebleed.

George (1712 – 1790) was the eldest son of the 3rd Earl and was only nineteen when he inherited in 1732, although he was already married to Lady Mary Montagu of Boughton House, daughter of the Duke of Montagu. She inherited her father’s estates and they lived at Deene as well as in London.

After some years he achieved his ambition and was created Duke of Montagu in 1766. Their only son, the Marquess of Monthermer, died unmarried in 1770 and their daughter Elizabeth married the Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry in 1767.

He became Constable and Governor of Windsor Castle, a post which he retained all his life, and was made a Knight of the Garter in 1752.

James (1797 – 1868) had seven beautiful sisters and as the only son was inevitably over-indulged.  His rapid advancement in the army, partly due to wealth and influence, made him many enemies and he was the controversial but certainly brave and handsome hero of Balaklava.

His first marriage, to a woman divorced on his account, was unhappy, but when he was 60 he fell in love with the ravishing Adeline Horsey de Horsey who was 27 years younger than him.   When his wife died in 1858 they sailed to Gibraltar and were married, well away from London society who were scandalised by their behaviour.

When he died in 1868 Lord Cardigan lay in state for two days at Deene and nearly 2,000 people filed past the red velvet-covered coffin.