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The Independent
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Peevish hereditary peers are not qualified to make rules for the rest of us
In the House of Lords they are still busy debating a Bill that will decide whether 92 assorted dukes, earls, viscounts and hereditary barons should continue to have a role in making laws for the rest of us. Talking of which, my eye was caught this week by a messy family saga involving the 8th Marquess of Ailesbury, who, along with 666 blue-blooded colleagues, was peremptorily booted out of the Upper Chamber in the great Blair purge of aristos in 1999. Only 92 hereditaries were left standing. The current row among the Ailesbury clan is over money. Theirs is a complicated family tree, since the late marquess, 98, (aka, Michael Burden-Bruce) had been married and divorced three times before settling down with an exotic former fashion model who once dated Frank Sinatra, Teresa Marshall de Paoli. Ms Marshall de Paoli , 89, says members of the family have accused her of pushing her late husband, the marquess, out of the window – a claim she denies. But before we consider the subsequent unpleasantness over his estate, it is as well to retrace how the marquess inherited his title – and with it the honour of sitting in the House of Lords for 25 years. Michael Brudenell-Bruce, or MB-B, as we will shorthand him, is descended from Lord Cardigan, who led the Light Brigade into a smog of doom ('someone had blundered') in Crimea in 1854. The historian Cecil Woodham-Smith's definitive account of the battle described the Earl of Cardigan as handsome and gallant, but arrogant, snobbish and short-tempered – an almost caricature nobleman. The Cardigan title dates back to 1611, when the first Earl picked up the title for £1,000. The first Marquess of Ailesbury was a modestly active MP in the early 19th century. He was also, in the way of the aristocracy, the holder of several other offices: the 1st Viscount Savernake of Savernake Forest (dating back to the Battle of Hastings) and the 1st Earl Bruce of Whorlton in Yorkshire. MB-B, therefore, had the pick of three titles and, initially at least, preferred to be known as Viscount Savernake. Are you keeping up? So far as the Ailesbury title goes, we can skip to the 7th Marquess, who also married three times, and who moved out of England for tax purposes in the late 1960s. By now a stockbroker, MB-B inherited the top title in 1974, but didn't make his maiden speech as a marquess until five years later. In a 1979 House of Lords debate on 'The English Language: Deterioration in Usage,' MB-B told of his anguish at a British Leyland car advertisement that contained a split infinitive. He spoke of writing to the BL boss, Lord Stokes, to complain. He went on to deplore the words 'ongoing' and 'upcoming', before sitting down after nine minutes. Hansard records few contributions in his subsequent quarter of a century in the Upper Chamber. And so to his death in May last year. The police were called to his home after TMdP claimed to have found her partner lying in a pool of blood while she was looking for their cat, Honeybun. PC Katherine Taylor told the inquest that her 'main concern at that point was the cat.' MB-B had two belts around his arms, apparently to prevent him from trying to break his fall. Whether the belts were attached by himself or another hand was a matter of conjecture, since Honeybun, the only potential witness, was saying nothing. Another police officer, Sergeant Carla McCrae, said she found it 'unusual' when TMdP told her MB-B 'must have fallen out of the window trying to save the cat.' According to TMdP, MB-B had previously talked about assisted dying, but complained that 'lefty nurses' stopped doctors from helping people to die. In a striking hereditary echo through the ages, the coroner said that MB-B was probably aware of the circumstances of the death of his mother, the Countess of Cardigan, who fell from a seventh-floor window at the Savoy Hotel in 1937. She reportedly left a note describing her family as a 'feckless and unstable lot.' The coroner in the present case returned a verdict of suicide and then the family feud burst out into public view. It transpired that the 9th marquess, one David Brudenell-Brice, was estranged from his father. DB-B has been involved in a number of legal actions over family assets over the years. At one point he was reported to be claiming Jobseeker's Allowance while training to be a lorry driver. Sadly, DB-B's own son, Thomas B-B (aka, Viscount Savernake) appears to have taken TMdP's side of the rows that have been extensively chronicled by the Daily Mail. And he himself has been unsuccessfully fighting his sister, Bo Bruce (aka, Lady Catherine Anna Brudenell-Bruce), who was a runner-up on the 2012 TV series, The Voice, over a £2.4m house left to them by her mother, Lady Rosamond, former Countess of Cardigan. Bo's relationship with her father was a troubled one: she was arrested and cautioned for slashing the tyres of his silver Audi ('It was very therapeutic'). Space does not allow me to do full justice to the legal blood-letting over the years. Bo described her family to The Times as 'eccentric and painfully dysfunctional'. This is Shakespeare with a touch of Coronation Street. It is EastEnders as scripted by PG Wodehouse. Neighbours with a flick of Julian Fellowes. The saga of the Ailesburys may be an unedifying one, but such family feuds and miseries are commonplace throughout society. The aristocracy are, arguably, no worse than the rest of us, but nor are they better than those of us without titles, hand-me-down wealth, ancient forestry or crumbling mansions. The mystery is why the hereditary principle took such a hold on us for so long. Blair only managed to get most of the aristocracy out of the House of Lords in 1999 by accepting a compromise, whereby 92 of them remained – with periodic by-elections when one falls off the perch. Not even Wodehouse could do justice to these plebiscites. In the mostrecent by-election, following the death of Lord Brougham and Vaux, there were 259 votes and 14 candidates. The winner, with 133 votes, was the 8th Baron Camoys. It makes the recent conclave in the Sistine Chapel look positively futuristic. Lord Camoys, an Eton-educated conservative, is there because of someone called Ralph de Camoys (d. 1336), who was a favourite of Edward II. So, who better to call the shots for British citizens today? And yet, we are still arguing about the latest proposal to dump the aristocracy from any role in making laws for the rest of us. Endless justifications are still being trundled out by peevish peers: hereditariness brings continuity and experience; geographical and social diversity (yes, really!); pragmatic stability; a public-minded sense of duty. And so on. The Bill is currently at the report stage and, notwithstanding these persuasive debating points, will almost certainly pass. And that will be the end of the road for the 8th Baron Camoys and his colleagues, along with the hereditary principle in British public life. Apart, obviously, from the monarchy.
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Daily Mail
Marquess of Ailesbury cut son and granddaughter from his will before falling to his death from window as documents reveal who aristocrat left his estate to
The Marquess of Ailesbury cut his son and granddaughter out of his will before falling to his death from his bedroom window. Michael Brudenell-Bruce, a distant relative of Prince Harry 's model ex Florence Brudenell-Bruce, was ruled to have taken his own life last year aged 98. And probate documents have revealed that the aristocrat removed his heir and several members of his family from his estate just a year before his death. He had been estranged from David, 72, for decades and received nothing in the will. Even a reunion three months before the tragic fall at the request of his ten-year-old granddaughter Lady Sophie could not reconcile the pair, The Times reports. David is reported to have believed his father removed assets from the trust which owns their family estate. But the bitter rift was so divisive that an explicit clause was entered into the will that anyone who challenged the document's validity, launched a formal objection or brought any inheritance or heirship claim should be 'excluded from receiving any benefit'. Anyone who should make a claim would be cut from the will and it should 'take effect as if no provision had been made to benefit that person'. The net value of the Marquess' estate had a net value of just £195,421 - with the gross value rising to £320,251. Much of the family fortune was held in trusts. He left all of his personal possessions to his partner of 37-years Teresa Marshall de Paoli, 89, along with 20 per cent of his assets. The former model and author was the one who found the aristocrat on the patio at the home they shared together in Shepherds Bush, west London, on May 12 last year. The Marquess' two daughters by his first wife, Lady Carina, 69 and Lady Sylvia, 70 received 20 per cent and 10 per cent, while his daughter from his second marriage, Lady Kathryn, received 15 per cent. His niece Tamara received 15 per cent, while Lady Sylvia received further assets through a trust which was set up when her parents got married. David, his half-sister Lady Louise, 60, David's daughter Lady Catherine, 40 and David's second daughter through his second wife Lady Sophie, 10, received nothing. Speaking out about the will in January, David said: 'Given the state of our relations I never expected to get anything from his will — he had, after all, [already] left me his 49 per cent share of the Savernake estate.' 'Knowing I stood to benefit nothing from [the will], I never paid too much attention to when the final will was written, but certainly I feel people with dementia should not be making financial decisions.' David's son Thomas, Viscount Savernake, received a quarter of the estate - the largest sum of anyone. The grandson has himself been estranged from his father after he agreed to sell Tottenham House in Wiltshire, the family's 100-room ancestral seat, for £11.5million. He told the inquest that he visited his grandfather weekly before he died because he was concerned about how other family members treated him, West London Coroner's Court heard. He said: 'I had been visiting every week for the previous five or six years... I began to be concerned that various family members were taking advantage of him.' The will was witnessed by the Marquess' solicitor and Dr Simon Adelman, a leading psychiatrist. The Marquess asked for his body to be buried at St Katharine's Church, Savernake Forest, which sits less than a mile away from Tottenham House. At the Marquess' inquest the coroner refused to allow questions about 'concern for his assets or alleged interference with those assets', the Times reported. He was discovered with at least three belts around his body, the assistant coroner for west London, Dr Anton van Dellen, ruled. Teresa Marshall de Paoli found him lying on the patio in the back garden of their home in Shepherd's Bush. She told the court he did not have belts on his arms or chest when she first discovered him. Ms Marshall de Paoli said when she found him she did not know if he was dead and first called her stepdaughter Kathryn Brudenell-Bruce 'in shock'. The court was shown bodyworn footage from Inspector Dipak Godhania, one of the police officers called to the scene, in which forensic officers can be seen undoing two belts from Mr Brudenell-Bruce's arms. The court has heard police also found another belt wrapped around his chest. Ms Marshall de Paoli said the belts were 'the biggest mystery' to her. 'Can I just tell you when I found Lord Ailesbury there were no belts around his arms,' she told the hearing. 'There was only one belt on Lord Ailesbury and that was his brown Hermes belt, around his waist. 'This to me was the biggest mystery because he did not have any belts round him when I found him.' Asked if Mr Brudenell-Bruce could have put the belts on himself, Dr Claudia Wald, a psychiatrist who assessed him in July 2022, said she thought it was unlikely given his physical frailty. 'In fact I think it would be very difficult for anyone to do,' Dr Wald said. Before the ruling the inquest previously heard evidence from Mr Brudenell-Bruce's grandson Thomas said his grandfather 'must have' been able to buckle his own belt. 'He would go to the toilet unassisted and come back fully dressed,' Viscount Savernake said. He added his grandfather was 'kind, kind of funny, and devoted to his partner Teresa'. But, Dr Claudia Wald said he spoke about being nervous in Ms Marshall de Paoli's company. She said he 'had to walk on eggshells for fear she might ask him to leave his home and never come back. Dr Wald added: 'He was also able to comment that when he was in the company of other family members he was a lot more happy.' Mr Brudenell-Bruce's daughter Lady Kathyrn Brudenell-Bruce and Viscount Savernake both told the coroner they did not believe his partner harmed him. He had suffered with depression and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's dementia in March 2021, the court was told. He had suicidal ideas in December 2008 after the stock market crash and his move from Savernacke Forest, Wiltshire, to London. Ms Marshall de Paoli initially told the court she thought it was around 7pm when she found her husband unconscious on the patio floor. Asked why she did not call police until 7.52pm she said: 'Then it must've been later than 7pm when I found him.' The inquest has heard there was a delay between ambulance crews arriving and Ms Marshall de Paoli answering the door. Asked by Dr van Dellen whether she agreed there was a delay, Ms Marshall de Paoli said: 'Well, if they say so, I guess, yes.' She told the hearing she thought she had been getting changed from what she had been wearing all day because she thought she might have to go to the hospital with her partner. The inquest heard in evidence from the couple's housekeeper Joanne Chubb that Mr Brudenell-Bruce's bedroom window had been left wide open that afternoon and it had been a hot and humid day. Ms Marshall de Paoli told the court she had not known the window was open, and only suspected he had fallen from the window when she went up to the bedroom after finding him unconscious. The inquest previously heard in police evidence that Ms Marshall de Paoli had said doctors had been giving injections to patients to help them die for years, but were being stopped by 'lefty nurses'. She told the hearing: 'I don't remember saying that to police. I do remember saying that to someone else though.' She told the court she had some sympathy for people who assist others in dying. 'I could understand why, I suppose if someone was dying of cancer and was in terrible pain, I would have some sympathy with that,' Ms Marshall de Paoli said. 'But it's certainly not something I could have ever done.' When paramedics arrived at the scene they called the police as they believed the incident was 'suspicious because of the circumstances'. PC Katherine Taylor, one of the officers who attended the scene, said Marshall de Paoli 'seemed in shock' and 'was distressed' - but didn't recall her crying. Taylor claimed Brudenell-Bruce was found with two belts wrapped around his arms, which another officer suggested could have been to stop him trying to break his fall. Dr van Dellen said he rejected a conclusion of assisted suicide because Ms Marshall de Paoli 'would have had to lie repeatedly to police, maintain that lie in correspondence with this court and then lie repeatedly under oath here today'. 'I reject that. I found her a credible, if somewhat frail, witness.' After ruling that Mr Brudenell-Bruce died by suicide, the coroner paid tribute to him, saying: 'It is very clear to me that he was a remarkable man. 'He lived to 98 years of age, he was clearly somebody who lived through some of the greatest events of the last century. 'The fact that so many people are present in court today indicates to me he was very much loved and I've no doubt very much missed.'
