Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.
Mary (Nisbet) Hamilton Bruce Countess of Elgin
18 April 1778 – 9 July 1855
Mary (Nisbet) Hamilton Bruce
Mary (Nisbet) Hamilton Bruce Countess of Elgin was born in Dirleton. Her parents were of the landed gentry; William Hamilton Nisbet was a Scottish landowner, one of the few who owned large estates in Scotland. Her mother, also called Mary (née Manners) was a granddaughter of John Manners, 2nd Duke of Rutland. Nisbet grew up on the Archerfield Estate, not far from Edinburgh. From an early age she kept a detailed diary. During her teens Nisbet’s father became a Member of Parliament, and the family traveled to London, where she entered society via her grandmother, Lady Robert Manners. According to biographer Susan Nagel, “she was noted to be very mature for her age and often joined her parents at gatherings traditionally held for grown-ups.”
Mary Nisbet met Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, who had only recently become Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, in 1798. The pair were distantly related via the Montagus and were considered a good match by both families. They married on 11 March 1799. After spending the wedding night at Archerfield the couple travelled to Bruce’s home in Broomhall, Fife.
Following a short stint in London the couple left England on 3 September 1799 so that Bruce could take up his ambassadorial position; sailing from Portsmouth on the HMS Phaeton. By this point Nisbet was pregnant but decided to travel with her new husband. During the two-month voyage they visited Lisbon and Gibraltar (as guests of Charles O’Hara), Sicily, Palermo, Messina and Tenodoes before arriving in Constantinople.
It was a difficult time in Constantinople; English people were not well liked or trusted. The couple moved into the old French embassy (which had recently been vacated) which Mary Bruce then had decorated and where she hosted lavish parties. In November, with the permission of the Grand Vizier, she became the first woman to attend a political Ottoman ceremony. Despite being five months pregnant she was required to dress as a man.
The Bruces had five children; two sons and three daughters:
- George Charles Constantine (1800–1840), died unmarried and before his father, known by the courtesy title of Lord Bruce.
- Mary, married on 28 January 1828, Robert Dundas
- Matilda-Harrie, married on 14 October 1839, John Maxwell, son and heir of Sir John Maxwell, 7th Baronet
- William, died young of illness on April 8, 1805. It is debated whether or not William was the child of Lord Elgin.
- Lucy, married on 14 March 1828, John Grant of Perthshire
Bruce divorced Nisbet in either 1807 or 1808, and she went on to marry Robert Ferguson of Raith (1777–1846).
The Things That Catch My Eye 