David Brudenell-Bruce, Earl of Cardigan

David Michael James Brudenell-Bruce, Earl of Cardigan (born 12 November 1952) is the heir apparent to the Marquessate of Ailesbury, and its subsidiary titles. These include Earl of Cardigan, which he currently uses as his courtesy title.

Early life

David Brudenell-Bruce is the son of Michael Brudenell-Bruce, 8th Marquess of Ailesbury and Edwina Sylvia de Winton Wills of W.D. & H.O. Wills. He has two sisters, a half-brother, and four half-sisters. His parents divorced when he was six years old. He attended Hawtreys prep-school, Eton College, Rannoch School, and the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester.

Career

He has been Secretary of Marlborough Conservatives since 1985, and has been a member of the Executive of the Devizes Constituency Conservative Association since 1988.

Since 1987, he has been the 31st Hereditary Warden of Savernake Forest, the only privately owned forest, formally described as such, in England. The forest estate and house was once the private demesne of the Seymours after parting with Wulfhall. In 2005, his family assets trust granted a commercial lease to a US-based hotel corporation to turn his ancestral home, Tottenham House, into a 5-star luxury golf resort. The American company failed to pay its rent in the recession, and ceased trading. Since then the Earl has been in dispute with the trustees of Savernake Estate over their management and disposal of its assets. In July 2011, it was reported that the estate was in severe financial difficulties. In August 2011, the Earl was involved in a dispute with the Savernake estate's trustees over his plans to sell some of the family silver, and again in March 2012 over their plans to sell some of the family paintings. In 2014 he took court proceedings against the trustees, claiming that they had charged excessive remuneration. The High Court agreed, concluding that the trustees had failed in part of their duties, and that "Mr [John] Moore (innocently) received remuneration to which he was not entitled"; Mr Moore was ordered to reimburse this amount and the trustees were made to pay £64,225 to the trust as compensation for loss of rent. In separate 2014 proceedings, the Court of Appeal upheld the trustees' decision to sell Tottenham House to an unnamed buyer for £11.25m. By 2013 the earl's financial affairs had suffered to the extent that he was reported as claiming Jobseeker's Allowance whilst trainng to be a HGV lorry driver.

The Earl was proven cleared of 17 minor charges of harassment over a two-year period, levied by estate staff working for the trust. The one charge on which Lord Cardigan was convicted, by Magistrates over words his housekeeper said he spoke to her in a branch of a supermarket, was quashed by a Recorder sitting in Swindon Crown Court on the basis of a lack of evidence in May 2016.

Battle of the Beanfield

The Earl of Cardigan witnessed the Battle of the Beanfield, a notorious incident in 1985 in which Wiltshire Police were accused of brutalising a convoy of travellers on land near Stonehenge, making over 300 arrests, said to be the biggest arrest of civilians in the United Kingdom in 100 years. Largely as a result of his testimony, police charges against members of the convoy were rejected in the Crown Court. That testimony against the Police caused The Daily Telegraph to criticise him as a class traitor, for which they later apologised and paid damages. Lord Cardigan later said:

I hadn’t realised that anybody that appeared to be supporting elements that stood against the establishment would be savaged by establishment newspapers. Now one thinks about it, nothing could be more natural. I hadn’t realised that I would be considered a class traitor. If I see a policeman repeatedly truncheoning a very pregnant woman over the head from behind (as I did) I do feel I’m entitled to say "that's a terrible thing you're doing, Officer". I went along, saw a dreadful episode in British Police history, and simply reported what I saw.

Personal life

By his first marriage to Rosamond Winkley (died 2012), having his first two children, Thomas James Brudenell-Bruce, Viscount Savernake (born 1982) and Lady Catherine Anna Brudenell-Bruce (born 1984) .

After the divorce, he re-married in 2011 Catherine Joanne Powell, of Flagstaff, Arizona, now Countess of Cardigan. In October 2013 his wife gave birth to a daughter, Lady Sophie Jane Brudenell-Bruce.