Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Russell, William (1639-1683)

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266371Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 49 — Russell, William (1639-1683)1897Adolphus William Ward

RUSSELL, WILLIAM, Lord Russell (1639–1683), 'the patriot,' was the third son of William, fifth earl (and afterwards first duke) of Bedford [q. v.], and of his wife, Anne, daughter of Robert Carr, earl of Somerset [q. v.] He was born on 29 Sept. 1639, and was educated with his elder brother, Francis, who, by the death in infancy of the eldest son, John, had become heir to the paternal earldom. From the father's domestic chaplain, John Thornton, both brothers seem to have imbibed an inclination to favour the nonconformists (cf. Burnet, Own Time, ii. 85). In 1654 they were residing at Cambridge (it is not known at what college). Thence they proceeded to the continent. Early in their travels, on which they were accompanied by a French protestant named De la Faisse, the brothers visited Lyons, where William's admiration was excited by Queen Christina of Sweden; they passed the winter of 1656-1657 at Augsburg. In 1658 William was at Paris, where a violent illness 'reduced him almost to the gates of death.'

After the Restoration, which the Earl of Bedford had promoted, 'Mr. Russell' (as he was styled) was elected M.P. for the family borough of Tavistock, which he represented till the dissolution of 1678. During many sessions—apparently till 1672—he remained a silent member; for some time he was much occupied with matters of a different sort. In July 1663, and again in August 1664, he writes to his father, requesting the payment of his modest debts in the event of his death in an imminent duel. In one such affair he was wounded.

In May 1669 Russell married Rachel Wriothesley (1636-1723), widow of Francis, lord Vaughan, and second daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, fourth earl of Southampton [q. v.], by his first wife, Rachel de Ruvigny (d. 16 Feb. 1640), 'la belle et vertueuse Huguenotte' (Strafford Papers ap. Wiffen, ii. 214). Her mother was eldest daughter of Daniel de Massue, seigneur of Ruvigny and of Raineval, and brother of Henri de Massue, first marquis de Ruvigny, some time ambassador at the court of Charles II; she was thus first cousin of Henri, the famous Earl of Galway [see Massue de Ruvigny, Henri de; cf. Bibliothèque Nationale, Cat. de Titres (Pièces Originales),vol. 1886]. Lady Russell was born in 1636, and was therefore Russell's senior by three years. She married, in 1653, her first husband, Francis, lord Vaughan, eldest son of Richard, second earl of Carbery, and chiefly lived at Lord Carbery's seat, Golden Grove in Carmarthenshire. In 1665 she gave birth to a child that died almost immediately; in 1667 Lord Vaughan died, and in the same year she lost her father, from whom she inherited the estate of Stratton in Hampshire (afterwards her and her second husband's favourite residence). In the early days of her widowhood she resided with her elder sister and coheiress, Lady Elizabeth Noel (whose husband afterwards became first Earl of Gainsborough), at Tichfield in Hampshire; on the death, in 1680, of her beloved sister and 'delicious friend,' she inherited this estate also, together with Southampton House (afterwards called Bedford House) in Bloomsbury Square. Totteridge in Hertfordshire was another of her later residences.

The political tendencies, as well as the religious sympathies, of the Wriothesley and Russell families were in general accord. Russell was desirous of obtaining her hand in the first year of her widowhood. Their union (May 1669) was from first to last one of unbroken affection. Their elder daughter, Rachel, was born in January 1674; their second, Catherine, on 23 Aug. 1676; their only son, Wriothesley, on 1 Nov. 1680.

Russell was one of those members of the country party who, in Macaulay's words, were 'driven into opposition by dread of popery, by dread of France, and by disgust at the extravagance, dissoluteness, and faithlessness of the court.' The country party seemed at last in the ascendant, when in 1673 it became evident that the days of the Cabal were numbered, and Shaftesbury (who was by marriage nearly connected with Lady Vaughan), after helping to carry the Test Act, was dismissed from the chancellorship and identified himself with the opposition. When parliament reassembled in 1674, intent upon a protestant policy at home and abroad, as well as upon the dismissal of all recalcitrant ministers, Russell (22 Jan.) delivered his first speech in a debate on these topics, inveighing against the stop of the exchequer and the attempt made to capture the Dutch Smyrna fleet before the actual declaration of war. In the course of the same session he made a savage attack upon Buckingham during the discussion of the proposal to remove him and Lauderdale from the king's presence and counsels. Of greater importance was the share taken by him in 1675 in the attempt to overthrow Danby, whom the country party suspected of supporting the king's corrupt subserviency to France. Soon after the meeting of parliament (April) Russell moved an address for his dismissal, and on his demand articles of impeachment were brought in. But the attempt, based on general charges of financial mismanagement and unconstitutional utterances, was defeated by Danby's cleverness in the management of votes. Parliament separated in November, and did not meet again till February 1677, when Russell's motion for an address to the throne to settle the nice question whether a prorogation extending over more than a year amounted to a dissolution was thrown out.

Early in 1678 he succeeded to the courtesy title of Lord Russell, on the death of his brother Francis, who, owing to a hypochondriacal malady, had long remained abroad and had never taken any part in active life. The event increased his importance at a time when his party watched with jealous anxiety the conduct of the king and of his chief minister, without being able to see clearly into the policy of either. While the Dutch alliance, following upon the marriage of the Princess Mary, favoured the prospect of a war with France, the king's designs were so closely suspected as to make it hazardous to vote him large sums on account of the war. Thus, on Sir Gilbert Gerrard's motion for an address asking the king to declare war against France, Lord Russell carried a proposal for a committee of the whole house 'to consider of the sad and deplorable condition we are in, and the apprehensions we are under of popery and a standing army.' It was the same apprehension that the king, under the advice of the Duke of York, and with the connivance of Danby, had no intention of vigorously prosecuting the war, but was merely seeking to obtain supplies for his own ends, which induced the leaders of the country party to listen to overtures from Louis XIV. In the negotiations which ensued the whigs and the French king both aimed at overthrowing Danby and bringing about a dissolution of the existing parliament, Louis hoping to nip the Anglo-French war in the bud, the opposition leaders looking to the election of a house in which their views should prevail. At the beginning of 1678 the Marquis de Ruvigny (brother of Lady Russell's mother) was sent over to England to manage the negotiation, as better acquainted with English affairs than Barillon, who had been accredited ambassador only a few months previously. On 14 March Barillon reported that Lords Russell and Holies had expressed to Ruvigny their satisfaction with his assurances that Louis had no wish to make King Charles absolute, and was ready to co-operate towards a dissolution of parliament. Russell, he further reported, had undertaken to work secretly with Shaftesbury for preventing an augmentation of the supply (l,000,000l.) already voted for the war, and for imposing conditions which would make Charles turn back to France rather than assent to them. In reply to Ruvigny's reference to the money he had brought with him for distribution among members of parliament, Russell observed that he would be sorry to have any commerce with persons capable of being gained by money, but he seemed pleased with this proof of the friendliness of the king of France, by whose aid the purpose of the opposition—the dissolution of parliament—could alone be effected. Finally, Russell acquainted Ruvigny with his intention of taking part in the attack upon Danby, and of even moving against the Duke of York and all the catholics. In a subsequent interview, after the subsidy had been granted without being openly opposed by Russell, he and Holles were reported to have adhered to their previous expressions, though in no very confident spirit. In April Barillon wrote that Russell and Holles, as well as Buckingham and Shaftesbury, had urged that Louis must oblige Charles to declare himself definitively for peace or war (cf. Dalrymple, Memoirs, 1773, ii. 158-72).

Whether or no Barillon (whose despatches were correctly copied by Dalrymple) was perfectly accurate in his language may be open to question; but as to the fact and purport of the negotiations reported by him no doubt remains. The policy of 'filling the cup' against the court involved the whig politicians in clandestine dealings with the French king, who was, as they themselves untiringly proclaimed, the worst enemy of their country's independence; and, even while stooping to this humiliating policy, they were being made the dupes of the superior adroitness of Charles II.

The 'Popish Plot' agitation, which set in before the meeting of parliament in October 1678, directed the efforts of the opposition to an attack upon the Duke of York. An address for his removal from the king's presence and counsels was accordingly proposed by Lord Russell. But though the principle of the Exclusion Bill was already in the air, the opposition was even more intent upon the removal of Danby; and their insistence in demanding his impeachment led to parliament being prorogued (30 Dec. 1678) and dissolved (24 Jan. 1679).

In the ensuing general election Lord Russell was returned for two counties—an event then extremely rare—viz. Bedfordshire and Hampshire. He decided for the former, for which he had been invited to stand not only because of local connection, but 'as bearing so great a figure in the public affairs.' In the new house his party was predominant; and though its first nominee for the speakership was rejected by the crown, Russell and his friend, Lord Cavendish, carried the appointment to the chair of Serjeant Gregory in March. Soon afterwards he was sworn on the new privy council of thirty, formed by Temple's advice under the presidency of Shaftesbury, without, however, being admitted into the cabinet (April). At first Russell restricted himself, both in the council and in the house, to advocating legislative securities against the possible proceedings of a popish successor. On the outbreak of insurrection in Scotland (May), he launched in council an attack upon Lauderdale, which the king contrived to ignore (June). The dissolution of parliament (July) raised to its height the popular excitement provided by the 'Popish Plot.' Early in 1680 Russell and his immediate friends, with the king's hearty approval, withdrew from the privy council. He and Cavendish backed the bill of indictment of the Duke of York as a popish recusant presented by Shaftesbury to the Westminster grand jury (June); and when the new parliament at last assembled (October), Russell identified himself with the policy of direct exclusion by moving that the house should proceed to prevent a popish successor, and (2 Nov.) by seconding the resolution of Colonel Titus for a bill disabling the Duke of York from inheriting the crown. The Exclusion Bill, backed at every stage by Russell's personal influence, passed its third reading on 15 Nov., and on the 19th was carried up by him to the lords. Their rejection of it is (apocryphally) said to have made him exclaim that had his own father been one of the majority he would have voted him an enemy to the king and kingdom (Oldmixon, cited ib. p. 204). With a similar, but as it proved less empty, flourish ('should I not have liberty to live a protestant, I am resolved to die one'), he supported the refusal of a supply for Tangier until the danger of a popish successor should have been obviated (Wiffen, ii. 253). French intrigues were now again on foot; but Barillon's despatches of 17 May and 13 June 1681 (not published by Dalrymple) show him to have well understood the difference between the turbulence of Shaftesbury and the steady determination of the 'Southamptons,' as Russell and his associates (including Ralph Montagu [q. v.]) were called from their meetings at Southampton House (ib. ii. 263, and notes).

In the transactions connected with the execution of Stafford (December 1680), Russell bore a part explicable only by the conviction avowed by him in the paper delivered by him to the sheriffs at his own execution, that he had from first to last believed both in the reality of the conspiracy against the king, the nation, and the protestant religion. He promised to exert himself in Stafford's behalf if the latter would 'discover all he knew concerning the papists' designs, and more especially as to the Duke of York' (Burnet, Own Time, ii. 271). Echard (History of England, ii. 103-5, fol.) is responsible for the statement that Russell was one of those who 'questioned the king's power in allowing Lord Stafford to be only beheaded,' instead of hanged and quartered according to the sentence (see C. J. Fox, History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II, 1888, pp. 44-5 ; cf. App. ii. by J. M[artin], ap. Lord John Russell, and Calamy's pamphlet of 1718 in defence of Russell against Echard).

The rumour may be taken for what it is worth—that in the supposed overtures from the crown to the opposition, which occasioned the self-denying vote of the parliament of 1680, Russell had been offered the governorship of Portsmouth (see Clarke, Life of James II, 1816, i. 649). In the Oxford parliament (21-7 March 1681) he seconded the introduction of the Exclusion Bill, thus becoming largely responsible for that rejection of the king's terms which so largely helped to bring about a royalist reaction. During the heyday of that reaction Russell for a time held his hand, but he maintained an understanding with William of Orange. When the prince came to London in July 1681, Russell emerged from his country retirement to pay him a visit, and there can be no doubt that Southampton House continued the chosen meeting-place of the adversaries of the Stuart monarchy. Yet Shaftesbury, who in his concealment was now projecting a final appeal to the revolutionary elements of protestant discontent, fretted at the hesitations of Monmouth and the caution of Essex and Russell (Burnet, Own Time, ii. 249). It cannot be supposed that they were unaware of Shaftesbury's design of raising an insurrection in the city through agents more or less known to them. Thus when, during a visit to London in October 1682, Lord Russell accompanied Monmouth, Essex, and Sir Thomas Armstrong to the house of one Sheppard, a wine merchant in the city, where they found Rumsey and Ferguson, it is improbable that the sole or principal purpose was to taste Sheppard's sherry. But no reason exists for supposing Russell to have been cognisant of the desperate scheme for the assassination of the king and the Duke of York which some of the whig agents and their associates were simultaneously concocting.

Soon after this Shaftesbury fled to Holland; but meetings of his former agents continued to be held, in which the 'Rye-house plot' was matured. A vintner named Keeling, having discovered what he knew of the plot to Lord Dartmouth and Secretary Jenkins, introduced his brother into the company of one of the plotters; the two spies swore that Lord Russell had promised to engage in the design, and to use all his interest in accomplishing the double assassination. The privy council delayed proceedings against him till the king should have returned from Windsor to London, but a proclamation was issued for the apprehension of the obscurer persons involved, and two of these (West and Rumsey) quickly came in and confessed the 'Rye-house plot' (23-4 June). On the day of the king's return (26 June) Lord Russell was brought before the privy council and sent to the Tower (Luttrell, Brief Relation,i. 262-3). During the interval he had declined to leave his house; but, on being arrested, he told his servant that he knew his enemies would have his life (Lord John Russell, p. 268). With the instinct of affection, Lady Russell, as she afterwards wrote (Letters, p. 130), at once felt assured 'of quickly after losing the sight of him for ever in this world.' In the Tower he showed perfect composure, reading the Bible, refusing an offer which reached him from Monmouth to share his fortunes, and, on examination by commissioners of the privy council, admitting nothing beyond the fact of his visit to Sheppard's house. The few days intervening before his trial were devoted by Lady Russell to all possible preparations for his defence.

The trial of Russell for high treason took place on 13 July 1683 at the Old Bailey, where two obscurer prisoners had already been found guilty of a share in the new 'plot.' Early on the same morning the Earl of Essex, Russell's political and personal intimate, had been found dead in the Tower, under suspicions of suicide which are said to have fatally influenced the jury in his case (Luttrell, p. 266; Lady Chatworth ap. Lord John Russell, p. 271; Letters of Lady Russell, p. 100). Lord-chief-justice Pemberton presided over the nine judges at the trial; the counsel for the crown were the attorney- and solicitor-general (Sawyer and Finch) with Sergeant Jeffreys, who was not wanting to his growing reputation, and Roger North, who in his 'Autobiography' (ed. Jessopp, 1887) refers to this trial as a special example of the fairness then, if ever, common in English courts of law. Ward, Holt, and Pollexfen were for the defence. The jury consisted of ordinary citizens of London (Luttrell, i. 268; portraits of all the chief participants in the trial were included in Hayter's well-known picture (1825) at Woburn; cf. Scharf, pp. 240-1). The presiding judge at first showed himself not unwilling to allow the prisoner a postponement till the afternoon; and, on Russell's asking for the assistance of a writer and mentioning the presence of his wife, Pemberton courteously invited her to act in this capacity. Having pleaded 'not guilty,' Russell was accused of having joined in a 'consult' to raise an insurrection against the king, and of having in Sheppard's house concurred to that end in a scheme to seize the royal guards. The defence turned chiefly on the arguments: (1) that to imagine the levying of war upon the king was not equivalent to a design to kill him, and thus not treason under the statute of Edward III, under which the prisoner was charged; and (2) that no two witnesses had sworn to the same overt act proving him to have sought to compass the king's death by seizing his guards. The chief witness as to the 'consult' was William Howard, third lord Howard of Escrick [q. v.]; the two witnesses as to the meeting at Sheppard's were Rumsey and Sheppard himself, whose statements could not be made to converge upon the same damnatory point. Russell denied having so much as heard the particular design discussed on the occasion; his own witnesses, among whom were Cavendish and the Duke of Somerset, Tillotson, and Burnet, spoke partly to refute the incriminating evidence, but chiefly to character. The summing up, although temperate in tone, ignored the chief argument for the defence, the absence of two witnesses, which had been similarly disregarded in Stafford's case; a verdict of guilty was returned (see Cobbett, State Trials,181l,ix. 577-636; cf. Burnet, Own Time, ii. 375-80. In the State Trials, pp. 695-813, will also be found an analysis of a series of contemporary pamphlets on the law of the case, including Sir Robert Atkins's Defence of the late Lord Russell's Innocency. The whig view of the case as 'a most flagrant violation of law and justice' is summarised by Fox in the introductory chapter to his History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II).

On 14 July Russell, after a final protest against the illegality of his condemnation, was sentenced to death by the recorder, Sir George Treby. The king commuted the sentence into simple beheading, according to the story mentioned by Echard (ii. 1034), with 'a sarcastical glance at Lord Stafford's case.' During the brief interval allowed between sentence and execution every exertion was made to save Russell's life. His wife was the soul of these endeavours. The Earl of Bedford, besides addressing a petition to the king, is said to have offered 50,000l. for a pardon (Luttrell, i. 269), and Charles II is said to have refused 'to purchase his and his subjects blood at so easy a rate' (ib.); according to another account, he offered 100,000l. through the Duchess of Portsmouth. Lady Ranelagh, through Lord Rochester, sought to obtain a month's reprieve in the first instance; Dartmouth strove to convince the king of the unwisdom of refusing to extend mercy to the heir of so influential a house (see his note to Burnet, Own Time, ii. 380); Monmouth's abortive attempt at remonstrance must belong to a later date. Russell himself addressed to the king a petition for his life. This should be distinguished from the letter to the king written by him for delivery after his death, and craving the royal consideration for his wife and children, of which, by Burnet's advice, a copy was sent to Charles before the execution (Lord John Russell, pp. 328-31). He also addressed a letter to the Duke of York, which was delivered to the duchess by Lady Russell (cf. Burnet, Own Time, ii. 380). Lastly, it seems established that even Louis XIV desired Barillon to convey to Charles some expressions, however few and faint, in favour of mercy to Russell (see Guizot, p. 33 ra.)

Of Russell's own bearing in Newgate during the last week of his life a detailed account was given in the journal written by Burnet, who was constantly in his company (printed as an appendix by Lord John Russell; the substance is reproduced in Own Time, ii. 380 sqq.; Burnet's Sermons to Lord Russell were published in 1713). He refused the proposal of his faithful friend Cavendish to bring about an escape by means of an exchange of clothes; on the other hand, he resisted the endeavours of Tillotson and Burnet to induce him to conciliate the king by disavowing his belief in the lawfulness of resistance (for Tillotson's letter, afterwards much discussed, see State Trials, p. 813; cf. Echard, ii. 1035, and Lord John Russell, Appendix). His demeanour was cheerful and resigned, and his time, in so far as it was not claimed by religion and private affection, was given up to the composition of the paper delivered by him to the sheriffs on the scaffold. His execution took place on 21 July in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Tillotson and Burnet accompanied him on the scaffold. The king allowed an escutcheon to be placed over the door of the attainted man's house, and made known his intention not to profit by the forfeiture of the personal estate. The remains were buried in the Bedford chapel of Chenies church in Buckinghamshire, where a large medallion of Russell occupies the centre of the elaborate monument to his father and mother (who survived her son only by a few months) and their children.

The publication of the paper given to the sheriffs deeply incensed the court. While the printer was prosecuted, an attempt was made to contest Russell's authorship of the 'libel,' but Lady Russell asseverated it in a letter to the king (Letters, pp. 7-9). In February 1684 Sir Samuel Barnardiston was fined 10,000l. for having written lamenting the death of Russell and execrating the treachery of Howard (ib. p. 55, note from The Display of Tyranny). On the accession of William and Mary, Russell's memory was vindicated by the reversal of his attainder (March 1689), and by the appointment of a House of Commons committee to find out the advisers and promoters of his 'murder.' In 1694 his father, who had been named as a petitioner with Lady Russell in the act of reversal, was created a duke, the preamble to the patent describing him as father to Russell, 'the ornament of his age.'

Russell was 'conspicuous for sense and integrity rather than for brilliancy of talent' (Lord John Russell). He cannot be said to have found his way through the intrigues which beset his path with notable insight or discretion, but he brought his personal honour out of them unstained. His tragic fate has not unnaturally excited a degree of admiration for his career which seems out of proportion to the intrinsic value of his achievements.

The portraits of Russell at Woburn Abbey include, besides a youthful one (1659), in armour, by Claude Lefèvre, one by Sir Peter Lely (engraved by Jenkins in Lodge's 'Portraits'), and two by John Riley. A third, by the last-named painter, is in the National Portrait Gallery, and others are at Hardwick and at Weston Hall. The engraving by Vanderbank and that prefixed to Lord John Russell's biography are after Kneller (Scharf). The medallion at Chenies ( possibly by Gabriel Cibber) and the historical picture by Sir G. Hayter have been already mentioned.

After her husband's death Lady Russell passed ten months at Woburn, and then revisited Stratton (Letters, p. 27; cf. Miss Berry, p. 80), and her desolate London habitation, Southampton House (Letters, p. 50). At times she resided at Totteridge. In a spirit of patient and courageous resignation, which tempers even her first pathetic outbursts of grief in her letters to her faithful correspondent, Dr. Fitzwilliam, she composed herself to the duties before her. Among these she gave the first, and for some years an exclusive, place to the training of her children (Miss Berry, p. 58). In June 1688 she married her elder daughter, Rachel, to the eldest son of her husband's closest friend, Earl (and soon afterwards Duke) of Devonshire; in August 1693 (overcoming certain ecclesiastical scruples with cool sense) she brought about the marriage to Lord Ross (afterwards Duke of Rutland) of her second daughter, Catherine, whose death in 1711 she survived to mourn. Her only son, Wriothesley, when Marquis of Tavistock, she married in 1695, at the age of fifteen, to a wealthy Surrey heiress, Elizabeth, daughter of John Howland of Streatham. He, too, died in 1711, having succeeded his grandfather as second Duke of Bedford in 1700. The retirement in which Lady Russell spent the early years of her widowhood did not prevent her from following the course of events with keen interest. In 1687 Dyckveldt waited on her with sympathetic messages from the Hague; and her advice largely helped to determine the Princess Anne's formal adhesion to the new regime (ib. pp. 67-8). Queen Mary's relations with her had long been kindly (ib. pp. 132, 148), and a letter from her to King William, thanking him for favours to her family, was found in his pocket after his death (ib. pp. 328-9). In the management of her large property Lady Russell showed herself an excellent woman of business, taking particular interest in bestowing the clerical benefices at her disposal in accordance with her own and her husband's principles. She was a good housewife, a discriminating reader, and, like so many active-minded women of her times, a voluminous letter-writer. Her published letters probably only represent a small proportion of her activity in this direction. Her letters to Fitzwilliam, Tillotson, and her other more intimate correspondents have the charm of naturalness and the distinction of a noble nature. 'Integrity,' she writes, 'is my idol;' and in small things, as in great, she avoids whatever is false or deceptive. The last of her letters, which appears to have been penned in 1718, is characteristic both of her unaffected depth of religious feeling and of her humorously vivacious interest in the young generation, which she loved to have around her. In 1693-4 her correspondence with Tillotson was interrupted for several months by a disorder of the eyes. She died, at Southampton House, on 29 Sept. 1723, in her eighty-seventh year, and was buried at Chenies, by her husband's side.

The portrait of Lady Russell in advanced age, by Kneller, at Woburn is that of which the upper part, engraved by C. Knight, forms the well-known frontispiece to the numerous editions of her 'Letters.' A small engraving of the head has been separately published. Another portrait of her in enamel is in the drawing-room at Woburn. A miniature of her, by C. Bolt, is preserved at Althorp; other portraits of her are in the National Portrait Gallery (by Kneller), at Madresfield Court, and at Weston Hall.

[Lord John Russell's Life of William, Lord Russell, &c. 2 vols. in one, 1820. here cited in the 4th edit. 1853; Wiffen's Historical Memoirs of the House of Russell (1833), vol. ii.; Letters of Lady Rachel Russell, from the manuscript, transcribed by Thomas Sellwood, in Woburn Abbey, first published in 1773 with an introduction vindicating the Character of Lord Russell against Sir John Dalrymple, &c., here cited in the 6th edit. 1801; Some Account of the Life of Rachel Wriothesley, Lady Russell, by the editor of Madame Du Deffand's Letters [Miss Berry], followed by Letters from Lady Russell to her Husband, together with some Miscellaneous Letters to and from Lady Russell, published from the originals in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, here cited in the 3rd edit. 1820 (of the letters from Russell to his wife only a few fragments have been preserved); Guizot's The Married Life of Rachel, Lady Russell (Rernedes DeuxMondes, March 1855), translated by J. Martin, 1855. For a list of manuscripts by or concerning Lord and Lady Russell at Woburn Abbey see Appendix to 2nd Report of Hist. MSS. Comm. 1871, pp. 1-4. Through the kindness of the Duke of Bedford use has also been made of Sir G. Scharf's Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures at Woburn Abbey, privately printed, 1890, and of The Russell Monuments in the Bedford Chapel at Chenies, by the same writer, privately printed, 1892. See also Burnet's Own Time; Cobbet's State Trials, vol. ix. (1811); Collins's Peerage of England, 5th ed. 1779, i. 269-72.]

A. W. W.