The Brudenell, later Brudenell-Bruce family, are a British aristocratic family headed by the Marquess of Ailesbury. The Brudenell family was originally headed by the Earl of Cardigan. On the death of the 7th Earl of Cardigan in 1868, the earldom was inherited by the late Earl's kinsman George Brudenell-Bruce, 2nd Marquess of Ailesbury, a grandson of Thomas Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Earl of Ailesbury, who had been born Thomas Brudenell as the youngest son of the 3rd Earl of Cardigan and who had assumed the additional surname of Bruce on inheriting the estates of his maternal uncle Charles Bruce, 4th Earl of Elgin and 3rd and last Earl of Ailesbury.