Cardigan, JAMES THOMAS BRUDENELL

Cardigan, JAMES THOMAS BRUDENELL, seventh EARL OF, born in 1797, sat in the House of Commons from 1818 to 1837, when he succeeded his father. He entered the army in 1824, and rapidly bought himself into the command of the 15th Hussars, which he resigned in 1833, on the acquittal of an officer whom he had illegally put under arrest. From 1836 to 1847 he commanded the 11th Hussars, on which he spent £10,000 a year, and which he made the smartest cavalry regiment in the service. He never was in any degree popular with his officers, and his treatment of them brought about a duel with Captain Harvey Tuckett, for which in 1841 Cardigan was tried before the House of Lords, but escaped through a legal quibble. He commanded a cavalry brigade under Lord Lucan in the Crimea, and led the famous charge of the Six Hundred at Balaclava. He was inspector-general of cavalry 1855-60, and died 28th March 1868.