Bromley gave up the military profession three years after succeeding a kinsman to the estates of ‘a very old family in Worcestershire’ with ‘several thousands a year’. He wished for a baronetcy, but Lord Somers, who applied to the premier Lord Grenville on his behalf in 1806, was informed that the King objected to illegitimate baronets. Bromley secured evidence from the Heralds’ College that at least four had been made since 1781, one in the current year, and Somers forwarded it to Grenville, adding that Bromley was ‘a warm friend to Mr Lyttelton’ in county politics. Grenville could promise nothing. Subsequently Somers encouraged Bromley to stand for Worcester with the ministerial blessing, which proved ‘very useful’, as he was a corporation nominee.
In 1807 Bromley contested Leominster unsuccessfully. He still wanted a baronetcy and the lord lieutenant mentioned this to Spencer Perceval, 29 Nov. 1809, when he regretted that Bromley, then high sheriff, had been unable to present a loyal address from the county to the King in person, which would have been a pretext for some acknowledgment for his ‘zeal for HM’s government’ and an endorsement of the ‘popularity’ he had gained in the county from the ‘liberation of the debtors’.