COUNTESS OF ANCASTER

Parents: William Lawrence Breese (1854–1888) and Mary Louise Parsons (1857–1948). Spouse: Gilbert Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby (1867–1951), later 2nd Earl of Ancaster, married December 6, 1905. Children: Lady Catherine Mary Clementina Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby (1906–1996), James Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 3rd Earl of Ancaster (1907–1983), Lady Priscilla Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby (1909–2002), Hon. John Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby (1914–1970). Kinship: Sixth cousin three times removed of the post–World War II Smith generation.

Early Life

Eloise Lawrence Breese was born into a prominent American family with deep colonial roots. Her father, William Lawrence Breese, died when she was a child, and in 1893 her widowed mother married Henry Vincent Higgins (1856–1928), a solicitor and manager of Covent Garden. After this marriage, the family relocated to London, where Eloise studied singing under Signor Allenesi.

Marriage to Lord Willoughby de Eresby

Like many wealthy American heiresses of her era, Eloise Breese married into the British aristocracy. On December 6, 1905, she wed Lord Gilbert Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, Baron Willoughby de Eresby—twenty-three years her senior—at St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster. Both bride and groom were wealthy, and the match was celebrated as a triumph of Anglo-American society.

The wedding was a spectacular social event attended by leading figures of the British court and the American colony in London. Among those present were the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, Princess Patricia of Connaught, Ambassador Whitelaw Reid and Miss Reid, Prince Francis of Teck, and the Ladies Dartmouth and Cheylesmore. A detachment of the Lincolnshire Yeomanry lined the aisles.

The New York Times reported: “The church was crowded with a fashionable throng that included nearly all the prominent members of the American colony and royalty. Seldom has been seen a more beautiful dress than that worn by the bride. It was made of ivory satin, with full Court train of Brussels lace chiffon. The bridesmaids looked remarkably pretty in lavender gowns trimmed with sable, and picture hats.”

The Ancasters for some reason inspired Americans to claim their properties: “there is no Peer of the British realm whose properties, especially the Drummond estates, have been more frequently claimed by people hailing from America.” Another claimant was the daughter of the late Earl of Perth.  She resided for many years in Brooklyn. Lord Drummond died in St. Luke’s Hospital after having earned his living for a time in New York as ticket chopper on the elevated railroad and as a reporter of one of the leading metropolitan daily newspapers.

At the ceremony, Eloise’s stepfather, Henry Vincent Higgins, gave her away. Her attendants included her sister, Miss Anne Breese (later Lady Alastair Innes-Ker), and the Ladies Alice Willoughby, Dorothy Onslow, Gladys Fellowes, Blanche and Diana Somerset, Moyra Goff, and Peggie Cavendish.

The Title and Estates

When Eloise’s father-in-law died on Christmas Eve in 1910, her husband succeeded to the title, and she became the Countess of Ancaster. The inheritance included three grand estates: Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire, Normanton Park near Stamford, and Drummond Castle in Perthshire, Scotland.

The family lineage of the Earls of Ancaster combined the fortunes and titles of several distinguished houses—the Heathcotes, Drummonds, and Willoughbys de Eresby. Drummond Castle, with its sixteenth-century towers, vast parklands, and formal gardens, had been the seat of the Drummond family since 1491 and was renowned for its royal associations. Mary, Queen of Scots, James VI and I, and the Jacobite Pretender had all visited or stayed there.

The New York Times delighted in recounting the colorful history of the family, tracing its descent from Gilbert Heathcote, Lord Mayor of London in the reign of Queen Anne, and from the medieval Drummonds, who claimed descent from the ancient kings of Hungary.

Social Life and Character

Before her marriage, Eloise had been one of the few female flag members of the New York Yacht Club and also belonged to the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club. Her enthusiasm for yachting, automobiling, and field sports continued after her marriage. The Times described her as “handsome, of classic type, witty, and cultivated.” She was an accomplished salmon fisher and often praised for her elegance and charm.

Lord Willoughby de Eresby—later the 2nd Earl of Ancaster—had served as a Conservative member of Parliament for the Horncastle Division of Lincolnshire. After his father’s death, he divided his time between the family’s estates and their London home in Chesterfield Gardens.

Family and Later Years

Eloise and her husband had four children: two sons and two daughters. Her eldest son, James, succeeded as the 3rd and last Earl of Ancaster. Her younger son, John, died unmarried in 1970.

The Countess suffered a personal tragedy during World War I when her brother, William Lawrence Breese, who had become a naturalized British subject and joined the British Army, was killed in action in France in 1915.

Eloise and her husband had one surviving son, James Heathcote Drummond Willoughby (1907–1983), who succeeded as the 3rd and last Earl of Ancaster. His own son and heir, Timothy Gilbert Willoughby, was lost at sea in 1963, and the earldom became extinct upon James’s death.

Eloise, Countess of Ancaster, lived amid the grandeur of the British landed aristocracy, bridging the worlds of American wealth and English nobility. She died in 1953, two years after her husband, leaving behind a lineage that united two nations and a legacy emblematic of the great transatlantic marriages of the Gilded Age.