Michael Bruce (MP)

[2] Born in Bombay where his father was a merchant, he was the son of Patrick Craufurd Bruce and his wife Jane Smith, and was educated at Eton College.

[2][4] Moving to Vienna and then Paris, Bruce took part in the successful plot to smuggle the Comte de Lavalette out of France: he was a supporter of Napoleon condemned by the Bourbons.

His reputation, however, was not badly sullied, and Lord Palmerston, a college friend, acted as his best man two years later.

[2] Bruce then went in for Whig party politics, as a friend of John Cam Hobhouse, but hampered by the collapse of his father's bank in 1816.

In the end the Marquess of Cleveland, who had in recent years moved from the Whigs to supporting the Tory ministry, found him the seat of Ilchester in 1830.