page_title: House of Seymour
section_title: Bruce
hierarchical_section_title: House of Seymour / Descent of the estate / Bruce
context_page_description: Seymour, or St. Maur, is the name of an English family in which several titles of nobility have from time to time been created, and of which the Duke of Somerset is the head.
context_section_description: Elizabeth Seymour's son and heir was Charles Bruce, 3rd Earl of Ailesbury (died 1747), of Houghton House in the parish of Maulden, in Bedfordshire, who in 1721 rebuilt Totnam Lodge to the design of his brother-in-law the pioneering Palladian architect Lord Burlington. Henry Flitcroft was the executant architect. The 3rd Earl added wings to Burlington's block in the 1730s, and also built in 1743 a Banqueting House in the park to the design of Burlington (demolished in 1824). In 1746, one year before the death of the 3rd Earl, who had no son, it was apparent that on his death the Earldom of Ailesbury would become extinct and his other Earldom of Elgin would pass to a distant cousin and heir male. The former Seymour estates however he was free to dispose of as he pleased. He persuaded the king to create him  Baron Bruce of Tottenham, with special remainder to his younger nephew Hon. Thomas Brudenell (1739–1814), 4th son of George Brudenell, 3rd Earl of Cardigan (1685–1732) by his wife Elizabeth Bruce, to whom he also bequeathed his estates with the proviso that he should adopt the additional surname of Bruce, thus having created a new noble family bearing doubly the Bruce name, to continue the custodianship of the Seymour lands.
caption: Arms of Bruce