238 MwQB Of tbe lbunttna«'jftel^ 



borough till 1829, when a difference with the patron of 

 the borough, the Marquis of Ailesbury, to whom he 

 owed his nomination, on the subject of Catholic Emanci- 

 pation, led to his retirement. But this did not end 

 Lord Brudenell's connexion with the House of 

 Commons, for he, or his father for him, promptly pur- 

 chased the Cornish pocket borough of Fowey, and thus 

 again secured a seat in Parliament. In 1832, when the 

 Reform Bill excitement was at full flood, he fought a 

 fierce and costly battle as one of the candidates for 

 Mid-Northamptonshire, and was returned with Lord 

 Milton as his colleague. 



But, previously to this, in the year 1824, Lord 

 Brudenell had entered the army at the mature age of 

 seven and twenty. If he had been tardy, however, in 

 taking up the profession of arms, he speedily made up for 

 lost time, by leaping from grade to grade with astonish- 

 ing, and, indeed, scandalous rapidity, owing to his lavish 

 expenditure in purchasing promotion. Within six years 

 of his joining the 8th Hussars as a cornet, he was 

 lieutenant-colonel ! Such were the advantages which the 

 good old system of promotion by purchase offered to a 

 man of unlimited wealth. 



His brother officers, some of them war-worn veterans of 

 the Peninsula, all of them his seniors in the service by many 

 years, naturally resented his walking over their heads in 

 this unceremonious fashion. The feeling against him was 

 bitter in the extreme, and his offensive manner towards 

 his subalterns added to their hostility and discontent. 

 As lieutenant-colonel of the 15th Hussars he instituted a 

 system of espionage and petty tyranny which was simply 

 insufferable, and at last matters were brought to a head 

 by his gross breach of the rules of the service in putting 



