ENTRANCE HALL.
ENTRANCE HALL.
No. 1. RACHEL, LADY RUSSELL.
In widow’s weeds. Leaning her cheek on her hand.
BORN (circa) 1636, DIED 1723.
By Vanderbank.
SHE was the second daughter of Thomas, last Earl of Southampton, of the Wriothesley family, by his first wife, Rachel de Ruvigny, of an old Huguenot race, by whom he had two daughters, Elizabeth married to Edward, Lord Noel, eldest son of the Earl Campden, and Rachel, the subject of the present notice. She lost her mother when still a little child, and we do not hear much of her youth. Her father married a second and a third time, and it must have been about 1653 that she became the bride of Lord Vaughan, son of the Earl of Carbery. We are inclined to deduce from a passage in one of her letters that this marriage was one of convenance, as she says to a friend, ‘The selection of the partners usually rests with the relations, and not with those most interested in the matter.’ Of Lord Vaughan we have few records; but some letters addressed to his wife leave the impression that indolence was one of his chief characteristics, that he was dilatory in business and averse to writing of all kinds. It is fair, however, to add that these remarks are only based on surmise.
Lord and Lady Vaughan resided chiefly at an estate in Wales, belonging to Lord Carbery, and at the present time (1888) the property of the Earl of Cawdor. The Golden Grove is famed for its picturesque beauty, and endeared to all admirers of Jeremy Taylor, by the tradition that he composed The Whole Duty of Man in the grounds adjoining the house. Lord and Lady Vaughan made occasional visits to London, where in 1665 she gave birth to a daughter, who only lived a few days. The breaking out of the plague drove them back to their Welsh home, and Lord Vaughan died not long after their return. On becoming a widow, Rachel went to reside for some time with her sister, Lady Elizabeth Noel, at their old home of Titchfield, in Hampshire, which had come by inheritance to Lady Elizabeth, as the eldest daughter of Lord Southampton,—Stratton, in the same county, falling to Lady Vaughan’s share. It was not long before (among many admirers) that William Russell, the second son of Francis, fifth Earl (afterwards first Duke) of Bedford, made himself conspicuous by the devoted court he paid to the beautiful young widow. The circumstance is thus alluded to, in a letter from her sister by half-blood, Lady Percy: ‘For Mr. Russell’s concern I can say nothing more than that he professes a great desire (the which I do not at all doubt) that he and every one else has to gain one who is so desirable in all respects.’
Desirable indeed, for Lady Vaughan was young, beautiful, intellectual, wealthy, of a most gentle and loving disposition, and possessing a fund of unassuming piety. There was no disparity in the marriage, for William Russell was her equal, we might almost say her counterpart, with the exception of fortune, he being a second son at the time of his marriage. It was on this account that his wife for some time, in fact until the death of her brother-in-law, Lord Russell, still retained, according to general custom, her widowed title of Lady Vaughan. During the fourteen happy years of Rachel’s happy life, which were chiefly spent at Stratton, and Southampton House in London (both of which were hers by inheritance), she had to endure very few separations from her husband—such as when he was called away on public or private business; occasional visits to his father at Woburn; absences contingent on his elections in three different Parliaments, and attendance during the short session at Oxford. Then the correspondence between the married pair was constant and detailed, and testifies to their sympathy on every subject, whether important or trifling, political or domestic. Happy as she was in the present, with every human probability of the continuance of that happiness in the future, there was a strange foreboding, as it would appear, in Rachel’s mind, of coming evil, and it was remarkable how in those early halcyon days her mental eyes seemed fixed on the little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, in the horizon. It was indeed as if she heard ‘the footfall of fate on her ear’; for her letters to her husband, not very long after their marriage, are written in a most desponding spirit. After dwelling with gratitude and delight on the complete unity of their hearts and minds, she goes on to write to her dearest William, dated from Stratton: ‘Let us cheerfully expect to live together to a good old age, and, if God wills otherwise, then firmly believe that He will support us under whatsoever trial He may see fit to inflict.’ Noble and pathetic words, of which the sadder alternative was to be her allotted portion. The summer was usually passed at Stratton, the winter in London. Three children were born to them—two daughters, in 1674 and 1676, and a son in 1680,—blessings which were counterbalanced by the loss of her beloved sister, Lady Elizabeth Noel. The society of the children enhanced the delight of their beloved home at Stratton. On one occasion Rachel wrote to her husband at the last-mentioned place from Southampton House in answer to a letter from him. She is so glad he finds Stratton sweet, and hopes he will live for fifty years to enjoy it, and that God may permit her to have his good company. But if it were not so, she is sure he would be kind to ‘the brats.’ Flesh and blood cannot have a truer sense of happiness than she has, his poor honest wife. Such simple extracts are truly pathetic, when we call to mind that in less than two years Rachel Russell was a widow. The circumstances of Lord Russell’s arrest, his impeachment for high treason, his trial, sentence, last days, and execution, with the part his devoted wife took in all these proceedings, are all given in our notice of Lord Russell’s life. In order to avoid repetition we simply give the dates here. William, Lord Russell, was tried on the 13th of July 1683, and executed the 21st August.
After the last sad scene of leave-taking, elsewhere described, Rachel returned to her desolate home of Southampton House. On the anguish of such moments it is useless to dwell. She heard the hours from the neighbouring belfry, which sounded like a chime of knells, as she sat in perfect solitude—the little ones having cried themselves to sleep. Her favourite sister, Elizabeth, was dead; her surviving sister, Lady Northumberland, was out of England, and there was no one near enough her heart whose society she could tolerate at that supreme moment. Her grief was embittered and her indignation roused, not long after her lord’s death, by the report that was circulated calling in question the authenticity of the papers which he had given to the sheriffs on the scaffold. She found it incumbent on her to write to the King, speaking in the highest terms in her letter of Bishop Burnet, who had lately fallen into disfavour at Court. Burnet had been privy to the document written by Lord Russell in prison, and Rachel characterises the prelate as a loyal subject to the King, and the most tender and faithful minister to her dear lord. One of the last injunctions laid upon her (by one whose wishes were never disobeyed), was that she should take care of her health, and live for her children; and in the fulfilment of that duty she found her best consolation. In a letter to the Bishop of London, she says that she considered there was something so sublime in the subject of her deepest sorrow, she firmly believes it had in a degree kept her from being overwhelmed. And now began the long dreary period of widowhood which lasted so many years. ‘Time, that ancient nurse,’ which ‘rocks us to patience,’ found her indeed submissive, but had little power to deaden the poignancy of her grief. In a letter to ‘uncle John’ (her lord’s uncle), she begs him to make some compliment of her acknowledgment to his Majesty for not having enforced the forfeiture of Lord Russell’s fortune. She concludes by saying: ‘When I hear you are well it is part of the only satisfaction I can have in this wretched world, where the love and company of the friends and relations of that dear blessed person are most precious.’
Among Lady Russell’s most frequent and most intimate correspondents was Dr. Fitzwilliam, the friend of her childhood, who had been her father’s domestic chaplain. She also continued her intercourse with Bishop Burnet, and tells him how diligently she superintends the education of her children, Mistress Rachel, little Mistress Katey, and that precious boy with whose wild freaks in happier days she was wont to entertain papa. She confesses to the Bishop that she occasionally finds the employment of teaching irksome to her overtaxed spirit; yet on the whole it refreshes her, and she is resolved to prosecute the task alone and unassisted. This plan the Bishop highly approves, and he alludes to the circumstance in these words: ‘I am glad your children will need no other governess, for as it is the greatest part of your duty, so the occupation will be a noble entertainment, and the best diversion and cure for your wasted and wearied spirit.’ It is to Bishop Burnet that she describes her sensations on visiting her husband’s tomb at Chenies: ‘I did not go to seek the living among the dead, for I well knew that I should see him no more, wherever I went, and I had made a covenant with myself not to break out into unreasonable and fruitless passion, but quicken my contemplation of his happiness.’
There are two classes of mourners most prevalent in the world, those who give way to enervating emotion, nursing and encouraging the outward expression of grief, and those who fly to some frivolous and unworthy expedient to ‘lull the lone heart and banish care.’ To neither of these classes did Lady Russell belong; she faced her affliction bravely but submissively, believing with the poet[[1]] that
‘They who lack time to mourn, lack time to mend.
Eternity mourns that.’
[1]. Philip van Artevelde.
She spent a great deal of her time at Woburn, with her parents-in-law, where she and her children were ever welcome; often meditating, and frequently delaying her return to the once happy home of sweet Stratton. But she was detained at Woburn first by the death of her mother-in-law, and then by the dangerous illness of her son, which crushing anxiety she thus turns to good account. Speaking of the possibility of losing ‘the little creature,’ she writes to Dr. Fitzwilliam, ‘God has made me see the folly of imagining I had nothing left, the deprivation of which could be matter of much anguish, or its possession of any considerable refreshment.’ But the blow was averted and the boy recovered. She left Woburn, and instead of going direct to Stratton she started for Totteridge in Hertfordshire, with him and her eldest girl, while little Katey was left at Woburn to keep company with her aged grandfather.
No one was more alive to the noble and loveable qualities of Lady Russell than her dear lord’s father, and he writes her a most tender and pathetic letter, evincing the deepest interest in her and her children, especially in the recovery of the young heir, whose illness had caused so much anxiety to the whole family. He addresses her as his dearest daughter, and expresses himself in the quaint and courteous, though somewhat stilted style of the day, hoping soon to have some comfortable tidings of her and her dear little ones, assuring her that his grandson is the subject of his constant prayers, and that while he has breath he remains her affectionate father and friend to command. Written from Woburn Abbey, the 7th day of June 1684; with a postscript: ‘My dear love and blessing to my dear boy, and to Mistress Rachel. I am much cheered by Mistress Catherine’s company; she is often with me, and looks very well.’ It is interesting to remember that the respective ages of these two playfellows were nine, and eighty.
Lady Russell moved afterwards with her family to Southampton House, so full of memories, sweet and bitter, of early happiness, subsequent anxiety, and utter desolation. She was in London at the time of the King’s death, and although she had no reason to regret Charles, yet to one whose interest was never deadened in the course of public affairs, there was little to be hoped for in the accession of James the Second. The trials of Algernon Sidney, Hampden, and others, who were associated with the memory of her lord, made her wounds bleed afresh, more especially the execution of the Duke of Monmouth, Lord Russell’s most intimate friend. ‘Never,’ she writes, ‘had a poor creature more awakers to quicken and revive her sorrow’; yet in alluding to Monmouth’s fate she owns herself void of reason, that she should weep when she ought to rejoice ‘that so good a man is safely landed on the blessed shores of a safe eternity.’ She was detained in London longer than she wished by the arrival of her uncle the Marquis de Ruvigny, who had come over from France to assist in the endeavour to gain from the King and Government the subversion of the attainder which affected the Russell children. Very interesting letters and documents on this subject are extant at Woburn Abbey. Lady Russell was very much attached to her uncle, and welcomed him, his wife, and a favourite niece, to her house, where the last-mentioned relative fell sick of malignant fever and died, to the inexpressible grief of De Ruvigny. Rachel’s anxiety on account of her own children may be imagined; she removed them to the country, and then returned to London to comfort her sorrowing uncle. De Ruvigny later on resided permanently in England, and became the centre of a small colony of French refugees which settled at Greenwich, and he ended his days in this country. The Earl of Devonshire, the faithful friend (when Lord Cavendish) of William Russell, who had offered to change clothes with him and remain in his stead in prison, had never slackened in his friendship for his friend’s widow; and he now came forward with a proposal of marriage between his eldest son and Rachel’s eldest daughter and namesake.
In those days no time was lost in such matters. My Lord Cavendish was sixteen, Mistress Rachel fourteen. There were difficulties about settlements (car l’histoire se répète) among the lawyers, but the marriage did come off at last in spite of those everlasting impediments to the course of true love. Deeply interested as she was in domestic details and in arrangements for the future of her child, Lady Russell was no indifferent spectator to the rapid strides which James the Second was making towards the downfall of political and religious liberty which he was too short-sighted to foresee would include his own. When M. Dykeveldt, the minister plenipotentiary from Holland, arrived in London, he waited on Lady Russell by the commands of the Prince and Princess of Orange, being the bearer of autograph letters and the most flattering messages from their Highnesses, speaking in terms of the highest admiration and esteem of her patriot lord and the noble family to which he belonged, and assuring her of friendship and sympathy and the hope that they might in the future be useful to her and her son. Thus commenced a correspondence which brought forth important fruits in the coming changes. Her first visit to Stratton was very trying to her heart, and though grateful that the children were too young to share those feelings to any great extent, she could not but rejoice to perceive in Mistress Rachel some memory of the loss they had sustained, but then to be sure, as the reader will take into consideration, Rachel Russell the younger was already fourteen years of age and a promised wife! Three days the poor widow always gave to seclusion and reflection, the anniversaries of the arrest, trial, and execution of her lord. In the winter the family removed to London, and preparations were now going on briskly for the marriage, when the poor fiancée fell sick of the measles, and it was not till midsummer 1689 that the celebration of the marriage actually took place, being hurried at the last, we are told, because my Lord (Devonshire, the bridegroom’s father) was in haste to go to the Bath.
The young couple spent their (crescent) honeymoon between Southampton House and Woburn Abbey, and then the bridegroom set forth on a course of foreign travel to finish his education which lasted two years, while my Lady Cavendish remained an inmate of her mother’s home. The leading members of the houses of Cavendish and Russell were among those influential personages who had invited the Prince and Princess of Orange to come over to England to the rescue of the kingdom; and when they actually landed Rachel put herself in constant communication with her old friend Bishop Burnet, at that time in the suite of the future monarchs. She accompanied her aged father-in-law to London, in time to witness the flight of James the Second, and there is extant an amusing letter from young Lady Cavendish in which she describes to a bosom friend, the decision of the two Houses of Parliament that William and Mary of Orange should be King and Queen. She goes on to say she was present at the proclamation, which gave her great pleasure, ‘for were they not in the room of King James, my father’s murderer?’ At night she went to Court to kiss the Queen’s hand, the King’s also, with her mother-in-law, the Countess of Devonshire. She describes William ‘as a man of no presence; he is homely at first sight, but when one looks long on him he has something both wise and good.’ The Queen she considers very handsome, and most graceful.
One of the first acts of the new King and Queen was the reversal of the attainder of William, Lord Russell; his execution had already been declared to be a murder by the vote of the House of Commons. Honours of different kinds were showered on the aged Earl of Bedford, the Earl of Devonshire, and many of Lady Russell’s connections and friends, while she herself was constantly referred to for advice and counsel by people whom she held in great esteem, such as Dr. Fitzwilliam and Archbishop Tillotson, who discussed with her questions of doctrine and faith, and the propriety or expediency of accepting preferment under the new régime. People of all opinions applied to Rachel to secure her good offices with the new Sovereigns, and Lady Sunderland, whose husband had been most instrumental in Lord Russell’s downfall, did not scruple to ask her intercession. Passing years brought fresh trials in their train for one who seemed indeed born for sorrow. In 1690 she lost her remaining sister, the wife of Ralph, Lord afterwards Duke of Montagu, and within a few weeks of her death she mourns that of her nephew Lord Gainsborough, ‘that engaging creature,’ she writes, ‘the only son of the sister whom I loved with so much passion,’ and now as a crowning grief she is threatened with blindness. It had been said that this infirmity proceeded from her constant weeping; and though one of her biographers argues that it was impossible on account of the particular nature of the disease, being cataract, those who unfortunately have experience in such cases know well how noxious to the sight is the briny nature of sorrow’s flood. It is piteous to read her sad anticipations of the coming evil, and how she will have to forego that great relaxation and comfort to her, of what she terms ‘society at a distance. But while light is left her she will work.’
Lord Cavendish having now returned from the Continent was joined by his young wife, and there was a sad gap when dearest Rachel left her home. The fond mother writes to Lady Derby, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Mary, recommending her daughter, who was much at Court, to that lady’s kind protection; and now yet another of the young birds was called on to leave the nest. Mistress Kate was asked in marriage by Lord Roos, eldest son of the Earl of Rutland, esteemed the best match in all England. Yet there were reasons of a political and domestic nature which caused Lady Russell to hesitate before giving her final consent to the marriage. There is an amusing description of the grand reception which the newly married pair met with at the paternal estate of Belvoir, falling very little short of the pomp and splendour due to royalty on such occasions. We regret that our want of space precludes the introduction of some interesting details. Rachel did not go to the marriage, for noise and too much company made her eyes ache, and she was desirous to keep ‘the little bit of sight she had left,’ which deserted her as soon as a candle was lighted. There was still balm in Gilead. The operation for couching was successfully performed, and the patient, after making use of an amanuensis for some time, was able once more to resume her correspondence and enjoy ‘society at a distance.’ Following this inestimable blessing came the mark of royal favour which must have been a source of intense gratification to Rachel, Lady Russell. Her son-in-law and her father-in-law were both advanced to the rank of Dukes of Devonshire and Bedford. And in the case of the latter, the honour was enhanced to the old man, Lady Russell, and the whole family, by the tribute paid in the words of the patent to the memory of his patriot son. Sure never was sentiment so mingled before or since with legal and formal documents, but the words (or preamble as it is called) were those of the eloquent and refined Lord Chancellor Somers. The King in bestowing the highest dignity in his gift declares, ‘We think it not sufficient that his (Lord Russell’s) conduct and virtues should be transmitted to all future generations upon the credit of public annals, but will have them inserted in these our royal letters-patent as a monument consecrated to the most accomplished and consummate virtue,’ etc. etc. All honour to the house whose patent of nobility well deserves the name!
A general election was now impending, and Lady Russell received the most flattering proposals from the leading members of the Government, that her son should represent Middlesex in the House of Commons. She makes a very gracious answer, and after taking counsel with the aged Duke, she writes they have both come to the conclusion that a Parliament life would interfere with the progress of Lord Tavistock’s education, he being only fifteen. Strange times when schoolboys married and sat in Parliament! The young heir went to Oxford (instead of to the House), where he was more than once visited by his mother.
When about seventeen Lord Tavistock started with a private tutor on a continental tour, which lasted over two years, and which the young man enjoyed perhaps a little too much. He made his mother a confidante of all his pleasures, extravagancies, and escapades, for Tavistock was one of those who loved the beautiful, whether in sights, sounds, or people. He had also grand notions of the style in which the heir to an English dukedom should live—must have a carriage with a fine pair of steppers and two running footmen; his cravats must be of rich point lace, and his suits finely embroidered. Moreover he found himself constrained to send all the way from Rome to Leghorn to procure a periwig, as the world’s capital could not furnish him with one to his taste. Then there were flowers and gifts of jewels to please the fair Romans, and added to all these ways and means of getting rid of his pocket-money, our traveller had a decided inclination for gambling. His letters are the natural outpourings of an enthusiastic youth in the heyday of spirits and enjoyment, rather too easily led astray, and although they caused his mother some distress, they contained nothing likely to diminish her esteem for her only son. He confessed his delinquencies so frankly, solicited help so humbly, and begged his beloved mother’s pardon, and her intercession for that of his grandfather, in a most irresistible manner.
Within a year after Lord Tavistock’s return to England, he succeeded to his grandfather’s titles and estates on the death of that good old man, and in compliance with personal request made by his mother, the King bestowed on him the Garter, and shortly afterwards he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of the three counties of Bedford, Middlesex, and Cambridge, while at the Coronation of Queen Anne he acted as Lord High Constable of England, and was made a Privy Councillor. He had married in 1669 the daughter of John Howland, Esquire, who was created Lord Howland of Streatham, in order to obviate any appearance of a mésalliance. But all this prosperity was of short duration; eleven years after his accession to the title, at the early age of thirty-one, Wriothesley, the second Duke of Bedford, fell a victim to the terrible disease, which in those days (before inoculation or vaccination was known) wrought such ravages in England. When the character of the illness was announced, the Duchess and his children were sent to a distance, but the fond mother watched by his bedside to the last, and writes, after all is over, to her cousin Lord Galway: ‘I am in such disorder of spirits, so full of confusion, and amazement, that I am incapable of saying or doing what I should. I did not know the greatness of my love for his person, till I could see it no more.’ The poor mourner had scarcely time to lift her head, bowed by the combined weight of age and sorrow, before another crushing blow fell on her. Her sweet Katey (now Duchess of Rutland) died in giving birth to her tenth child, at the same moment that the Duchess of Devonshire was expecting her confinement. From her Lady Russell had the arduous task of concealing the fact of the other’s death. The two sisters had loved each other tenderly, and there was great difficulty in evading the inquiries which the Duchess constantly made after her dear Katey. ‘I saw her yesterday,’ was the sad subterfuge, ‘out of her bed.’ Alas! it was in her coffin.
The Duke of Rutland was not slow in providing himself with a second wife, and this unseemly haste was not calculated to soothe Lady Russell’s mind, but when she found that his intentions with regard to her daughter’s children were just and generous, she thought it advisable ‘to let the matter pass easily.’ She had now arrived at an advanced age, somewhat infirm in body, but unimpaired in mind, with a trembling hand, but an unclouded intellect, and she busied herself in composing prayers and meditations for her own use, and in making, as it were, a full confession of her failings and shortcomings (which she called sins); reviewing as she did so the whole of her past life. This document was left unfinished at the time of her death. When at the age of eighty-six, her health gave way.
A letter from Lady Rachel Morgan (wife of Sir William Morgan of Tredegar) to her brother, Lord James Cavendish, says: ‘The bad account we have received of Grandmamma Russell has put us into great disorder and hurry. Mamma has left us and gone to London. I believe she has stopped the letters, so we are still in suspense; the last post brought us so bad an account that we have reason to fear the worst. I hope mamma will get to town in time to see her alive, because it would be a great satisfaction to both.’ This letter is dated 26th September. On the 29th of the same month 1723, Rachel, Lady Russell, ended her exemplary and blameless life, so replete with stirring incidents, both of a public and private nature, so full of transient joy and abiding sorrow. She lived to see her children raised to honour and prosperity, but, alas! she had the misfortune to survive those who, in the common course of nature, should have wept her loss. She was buried by the side of her dear lord at Chenies, in Buckinghamshire, where an elaborate monument is erected to their memory.
No. 2. LADY ROBERT RUSSELL.
Oval. Tawny and blue dress.
By Sir Godfrey Kneller.
SHE was the daughter of Edward Russell, and widow of Thomas Cheek of Pirgo, county Sussex. She married her cousin, Lord Robert Russell.
No. 3. SIR ORLANDO BRIDGEMAN, LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE.
In robes of office: scarlet and ermine, with cap and gold chain.
Gloves in left hand.
Born 1609. Died 1674.
By Riley.
No. 4. LORD ROBERT RUSSELL.
Oval. Dark brown dress. Wig. Lace cravat.
Died 1722.
By Sir Godfrey Kneller.
HE was the fifth son of the first Duke of Bedford, by Anne Carr, daughter of the Earl of Somerset. He married his cousin in 1690, the widow of Thomas Cheek, by whom he had no children. In 1660 and 1661 he travelled on the Continent, accompanied by his brother Edward, and a tutor. He served in seven Parliaments for Tavistock.
No. 5. HUGO DE GROOT, OR GROTIUS.
When a boy. Black dress. White collar.
BORN 1583. DIED 1645-6.
By Miereveldt.
BORN at Delft, the son of John de Groot (Dutch for ‘Great’), of an ancient family, Burgomaster of the town, and Curator of the recently founded University of Leyden, which was destined to become so famous. Hugo was one day totally to eclipse the fame of his father, though he too was a man of great learning and cultivation. Hugo was remarkable for his proficiency in Latin and Greek when a mere child, and, unlike most precocious geniuses, he fulfilled his early promise. He was placed with an Arminian minister at the Hague, and when only eight years old, composed some Latin verses, which are still extant. At the age of eleven he was entered as a student at Leyden, and became the pet (so to speak) of a circle of learned professors, of whom he was destined to become the foremost. In those early days Hugo distinguished himself in every branch of learning, addressed a Greek ode to the Prince of Orange, which gained him great κυδος, as did shortly afterwards a Latin poem in honour of Henry the Fourth of France.
In 1598 Hugo accompanied Count Justin of Nassau (natural son of William the Silent) and John Olden Barneveldt on a diplomatic mission to Paris. Henry the Fourth, remembering the tribute paid him by the young foreigner, showed him especial favour, presented him with his picture and a chain of massive gold, and pointed him out to the courtiers as ‘a miracle of learning, and the wonder of Holland.’ The young Prince of Condé also took great delight in his society, and called him his secretary. To this youthful patron Grotius dedicated his first printed work, Martianus Capella.
Hugo remained in Paris for about a year, when a summons from his parents called him home. On his return he took up his abode at the house of Prince Maurice of Nassau’s chaplain, a learned and pious man, where he studied law without neglecting his literary labours. He pleaded his first cause at Delft when only seventeen, gaining thereby the greatest applause. He published works on astronomy, physics, navigation, both in dead and living languages, and his description of the siege of Ostend (which place had held out three years against the Spaniards) was considered a masterpiece. His writings on contemporary history, in which he did full justice to the noble and patriotic deeds of his countrymen, also called especial attention to the merits of the young author, and the Government were easily induced to listen to the recommendation of Olden Barneveldt, and in due time Hugo Grotius was selected as historiographer, and this in preference to many candidates, all of whom were his seniors, while the salary was increased in consideration of the nominee’s acknowledged talents. The French King wished to secure him as President of the Library at Paris, and the star of Grotius was now in the ascendant. He was named to the post of Pensionary of the city of Rotterdam, vacant by the death of Elias, brother to Olden Barneveldt, with whom Grotius now contracted an intimate friendship. This office, together with other privileges, entitled the holder to a seat in the Assembly of the States of Holland, and afterwards to the same honour in that of the States-General. On this promotion, Grotius’s father was desirous that his son should marry, and an alliance was accordingly agreed on with Maria von Reigensberg, a lady of noble family in Zeeland, the daughter of a Burgomaster of Veer, in that province. The bride, it would seem, was by no means comely in appearance; she was stoutly built and of a swarthy complexion, but the future proved Maria von Grotius to be a woman of strong affection, acute intelligence, and indomitable courage. Shortly after his arrival in Rotterdam, Grotius was sent to England on a mission connected with some dispute which had arisen between the Dutch and English, connected with the whale fisheries, and here he was cordially welcomed by James the First, with whom he had many conferences, on matters theological, as well as diplomatic, while his society was eagerly courted by all the men of eminence in this country. But a storm was gathering over the calm horizon of Hugo Grotius’s hitherto bright career. On his return to Rotterdam he found that the religious differences which had been gradually waxing hotter and hotter throughout the United Provinces had now assumed a most formidable aspect. The whole country was divided into two separate factions of the Arminians and the Gomarites; the former party strongly opposing, and the latter strenuous upholding, the doctrines of Calvin. After some wavering, or perhaps we had better say investigation, of the subject, Grotius decided on embracing the tenets of Arminius. Remonstrances and counter-remonstrances were brought forward by the two parties, Synods were convened, public disturbances ensued, and the disputes which had commenced in a question of dogma developed into political animosity. A decree was issued by the States, with a view to putting down the serious riots which had lately occurred, and extraordinary powers were granted to magisterial bodies, a measure which, combined with others equally obnoxious to him, gave great offence to Maurice of Nassau, the Stadtholder, and he was violently incensed against the men at whose instigation the step had been taken. Between the prince and the friend of his youth, John Olden Barneveldt, great differences of opinion had for some time existed, and it was in the year 1619 that this venerable patriot and his friend Grotius were both thrown into prison—whence the former, after a summary and unjust trial, only came out on his way to the scaffold. In that solemn moment Barneveldt showed great solicitude as to the fate of his friend, and learning in answer to his question that Grotius did not lie under sentence of death, he exclaimed, ‘I greatly rejoice, for he is young, and will, I firmly trust, live long to be of service to his country.’ The trial of Grotius followed, and accusations as groundless as those which had been brought forward against the grand Pensionary were laid to his charge, including treason to his country, complicity with Spain, etc. etc., and he was sentenced to imprisonment for life and the confiscation of his entire property. He was conveyed from one prison to another, until the castle of Loevenstein, near Gorcum in South Holland, was chosen for his final resting-place. This gloomy old fortress was considered impregnable, and the most stringent measures were taken against escape; indeed the internal arrangements of the building and its contiguity to the river seemed to preclude all possibility of evasion. Here Grotius and his learned friend Hogersbaert were immured, and by dint of manifold petitions and ‘continual wearying,’ their faithful wives were allowed to share their captivity. But all intercourse was forbidden between the two men who were attached to each other, not only by friendship, but sympathy in literary pursuits, while the poor ladies were altogether denied the consolation of each other’s society; and when Hogersbaert’s wife fell ill, Madame Grotius petitioned in vain for the privilege (so dear to every gentle-hearted woman) of ministering to her friend in sickness, or cheering her last moments with the promise of watching over the dying mother’s six helpless children. The only proof of sympathy which one captive was allowed to show the other was in the transmission of a pathetic epitaph by Hugo Grotius, which was gratefully received by the unhappy widower.
Madame Grotius had contrived to retain a portion of her own, when her husband’s property was confiscated, and with this small sum she endeavoured to make his condition less intolerable. She rejected with disdain the scanty dole allowed by Government for the maintenance of the prisoner, and constantly ferried over to Gorcum, on the opposite side of the river, to cater for little dainties for her lord, and the noble dame would stand for hours over the kitchen fire preparing the daily banquet for him and for their children. Maria was indeed one of those characters of combined strength and tenderness, which go near to form ‘the perfect woman.’ When her husband was first arrested, her anxiety for his life never betrayed her into weakness or cowardice; on the contrary, she wrote constantly, urging him to maintain his principles, and rather die than ask pardon, which could only be obtained through servile submission. Her admiration for Grotius, and her pride in his genius, could only be equalled by her affection. To think that a man, with whose name Europe already rang, whose writings were fated to influence the destinies of nations—that he should waste the best days of his life in prison—wither away, as it were, in a living tomb,—the thought was intolerable to her. The Commandant of the fortress, one Deventer, cherished a spite against his noble prisoner, arising from some family feud which had been handed down from the last generation, and he took especial delight in riveting the heavy chains as tightly as he could, and making captivity unbearable. Air and exercise were seldom vouchsafed, and Grotius, the philosopher, the metaphysician, the historian, the world-famed author, might be seen spinning a large top in the lobby adjoining his apartments for the best exercise he could get! Even the society of his beloved wife and that of his children did not suffice to prevent the hours from dragging heavily along, deprived as he was of the joys of a scholar’s heart, the books in which he could study the thoughts of others, the writing materials with which he could record his own; therefore Maria never rested until she had wrung from the authorities the permission to obtain from Grotius’s own library the volumes most coveted, together with pen, ink, and paper. Henceforth the captive’s life was no longer a blank. He devoured his classics, he made notes and translations, he wrote works on History, Theology, Jurisprudence, and thus shed a light on the outer world from behind the walls of his gloomy fortress. But these alleviations were not sufficient to content the faithful wife; she had more daring schemes in view. Had she ever heard, or does the Dutch language, so rich in proverbs, contain an equivalent for our ‘Love laughs at locksmiths’? Certain it is she was destined to realise the words of a lowly poet of our own days—
‘Oh! woman all would do, would dare;
To save her heart’s best cherished care
She’d roam the world tract wide,
Nor bolts nor bars can ’gainst her stand,
Or weapons stay her gentle hand,
When love and duty guide.’
She laid her train most carefully, most skilfully, nor did she allow any undue haste to mar its fulfilment. She had in her constant marketings at Gorcum cultivated the acquaintance and gained the friendship of many of the bettermost tradespeople of the town, and her maid Lieschen, who was market-woman in turn, was instructed to do the same. They both talked constantly to the good burghers’ wives, and interested them in behalf of the captive, the great writer and philosopher, and, what came nearer the women’s hearts, the tender husband and father. The plot was ripening in the devoted conspirator’s mind; but there came a moment of suspicion and alarm; it was reported that Madame Grotius had bought a coil of ropes in Gorcum, doubtless to facilitate her husband’s escape. An inquiry was instituted, when the suspected lady herself pointed out to the emissaries of justice, that ropes, even wings, could they be procured, would be unavailing in a dungeon where the captive on his entrance had to pass through thirteen different doors, each of which was bolted after him. She had in fact other means in store, and fortune favoured her in one particular, namely, that the cross-grained commandant was summoned to a distant town on military business, and Maria Grotius had already ingratiated herself with Madame Deventer by occasional presents of luxuries, to which the good lady was by no means insensible, such as venison, poultry, and the like. When the books were first allowed to enter the prison walls, the chest was submitted on its entrance and exit to a strict search, which had of late been deemed unnecessary.
Accordingly, one day in the absence of the Governor, Madame Grotius went to call on his wife, who always received her kindly. ‘I am come,’ she said, ‘to ask you to help me. My husband is killing himself, poring over those dreadful folios, and making himself ill. We are both very grateful for the permission granted that he should have the use of his own library, but lately he has been working his brain, and tiring his head over those tremendously heavy volumes, heavy in every sense of the word, I want to send them away, and get others lighter and smaller. Now, of course, your word is as good as that of your husband in his absence. Do me the kindness to order your men to carry down the chest as usual to the water’s edge, and not demur because it is extra heavy. I have a perfect spite against those bulky volumes.’ The vice-regent of the commandant, ‘dressed in a little brief authority,’ made use of it to oblige her friend, and gave the order willingly. Maria went back to her own quarters. ‘Mother, dear,’ said Cornelia, the eldest of her children, ‘did you not say to-morrow was the Fair at Gorcum, and that you were told on such occasions even exiles and outlaws might appear in the town? Why should not dear father go there in that case?’ Surely out of the child’s mouth came a word of wisdom; she little knew that her remark was hailed as an omen by her parents. Maria von Grotius next sent for her maid, and asked her the startling question, ‘If we can conceal your master in the book-chest, will you take charge of it to Gorcum, and incur the whole risk?’—which was indeed great. The loving wife would gladly have undertaken the task herself, but she judged it would be more likely to avert suspicion if she remained in the castle. The brave girl pledged herself to carry out the directions of her mistress to the letter, and the two women began their arduous and dangerous preparations. It was the beginning of the week, and the month March 1621, that Grotius rose early and, kneeling down by the side of the empty trunk, prayed fervently for the success of the hazardous enterprise. He was dressed in soft linen and underclothing, and got into the chest, which was only four feet long, and narrow in proportion, he being a tall and strongly built man. His wife helped him to coil himself up, and then placed a large Testament as a pillow for the beloved head, the position of which she arranged so that the mouth should come opposite the small holes she had drilled to admit a little air. She closed the chest and sat on the top for a considerable time, to ascertain if her husband could possibly endure the confinement. Then lifting the lid once more, she knelt down and took a solemn farewell of him she best loved on earth, kissed him tenderly, locked the box, and gave the key to the maid. We can only guess at the feelings of anguish and tenderness which convulsed the heart of that noble woman at that supreme instant. Then she arranged her husband’s day-clothes on the chair, with his dressing slippers, and drew the curtains closely round the bed, into which she got hastily. After that she rang the bell, and when the servant who usually waited on them answered the summons, she looked out and said she was so sorry she could not go to Gorcum that day for she was not well herself, and did not like to leave her husband who was very ill; throwing out at the same time a hint that he was feverish, and there might be fear of infection. The servant said it was all the better she should not go, for the river was swollen and the wind was high, and in fact it was almost dangerous. ‘That is unfortunate,’ she said, ‘for my husband resolved that these heavy folios should go to-day; however, my maid is no coward, and she will take charge of them, even if the ferry should be rough.’ She then bade him go and summon the soldiers whom Madame Deventer had told off to carry the chest. They came, and on lifting it one of them said, ‘I believe the Arminian is inside, it is so confoundedly heavy.’
The poor wife trembling behind the closely drawn curtains made some tame jest about the relative weight of a man and those horrid books, and then the precious load was carried out of the room. But Lieschen had many terrible moments yet to come. The soldiers maintained, nothing but a man could weigh so heavily, and one of them said he would get a gimlet and run it into the Arminian, and another told anecdotes of how malefactors had been smuggled out of prison in a like manner. Poor Lieschen had to jest, while her heart quaked: ‘Your gimlet must be a long one,’ she said, ‘to reach my master in his bedroom in the castle.’ Then followed the awful question, whether Madame Deventer would consider it necessary to inspect the contents of the chest, which she fortunately declined. So on the soldiers went, grumbling at their heavy load, and when they arrived at the wharf, the maid entreated that a double plank might be placed to carry the chest on board, for, said she, ‘those books are to be returned to a learned Professor, and I shall never be forgiven if any mischance should befall them.’ At length the transport was effected, and the large box deposited on the deck beside Lieschen. The river was much swollen, the wind was raging, the vessel heeled over to one side, and the girl had to beseech the skipper to have the box secured with ropes, and down she sat beside it in an agony of terror, both for herself and her precious charge. She then threw a white handkerchief over her head and let the ends flutter in the breeze, the signal that had been agreed on between her and her mistress to show so far all was well and the vessel in motion; for a servant in the castle had added to the women’s accumulated terror by predicting that the captain would not embark in such a storm.
The unhappy wife was straining her eyes, dimmed by tears, between the bars of the window, while the maid sat shivering with cold and fear, her head between her hands; and on the top of the chest an officer of the garrison had taken up his post, and drummed and pommelled with his feet against the sides, and she dared not bid him desist from doing so—for what reason could she assign for interference? At last she bethought herself to ask him to get off, as there were not only books but fragile china in the chest, and he might break it by that constant shaking. The longest voyage, like the longest day, will have an end, and surely that voyage from Loevenstein to Gorcum must have seemed like one round the world to the terrified girl; yet her fears did not deaden her woman’s wit, and she was always ready with an answer. She bribed the skipper and his son to transport the chest themselves to its destination on a hand-barrow, beside which she walked. ‘Do you hear what my boy says?’ observed the captain; ‘he declares there is some living thing in your trunk, Miss.’ ‘No doubt,’ was the answer, with a forced laugh; ‘don’t you know that Arminian books are alive, full of motion and spirit?’ In this manner the three companions, with the fourth concealed, threaded the dense crowds of the fair at Gorcum, and made their way to a warehouse which Lieschen indicated. It belonged to a well-to-do tradesman (relative of a learned professor, a friend of the prisoner’s), and the wife was one of those whom Maria von Grotius frequently visited on her marketing expeditions to Gorcum. The bearers of the chest were exorbitant in their demands, but Lieschen was very anxious to be relieved of their presence, and made little haggling about the price. No sooner had they departed than the poor girl hastened into the shop where the ribbon-dealer and his wife were busy selling their wares, and stepping noiselessly up to the latter, whispered the truth in her astonished ear. The startled Vrouw became deathly pale, and seemed like to faint, but she left the shop with Lieschen, and then what a moment of condensed and mingled hope and terror! Lieschen kneeled down and knocked. ‘Master, dear master,’ she exclaimed. No answer. ‘Oh my God, he is dead,’ cried the girl, while her companion stood quaking with terror and calling out it was a bad business. But hark! A feeble cry from the inside, ‘Open quick, I was not sure of your voice.’ The chest was opened, and Grotius arose, almost as from a tomb. The still terrified shopwoman took Lieschen and her master into an upper room through a trap-door, and then began to tell him how alarmed she was, and that she feared, if he were found, her husband would be imprisoned in his stead, and all their property forfeited. ‘No, no,’ said Grotius, ‘before I got into this trunk I prayed earnestly to God, who has preserved me hitherto, but rather than ruin you and your husband, I would get into the box again, and go back to Loevenstein.’ ‘Oh no,’ said the kind-hearted woman, ‘we will do all in our power to serve you’; and off she flew to her brother-in-law, a clothier of Gorcum, whom she found in conversation with the very officer who had been Lieschen’s fellow-passenger, and who had annoyed her by sitting on the trunk. Drawing her relative aside, the mercer’s wife explained the whole state of the case, and bade him follow her to the warehouse without a moment’s delay, when she would introduce him to the fugitive.
The clothier was nothing loath to be instrumental in the escape of a man whom he greatly admired, being himself no mean scholar, and well acquainted with the writings of Grotius, on entering whose presence, he thus addressed him, ‘Are you, sir, that man with whose name the whole of Europe is now ringing?’
‘I am Hugo Grotius,’ was the reply, ‘and into your hands I commit my safety and my life.’
No time was lost. The clothier, who was acquainted with every one in Gorcum, found the man he could trust, a mason working on a scaffolding in the town. He beckoned him down, and told him there was an errand of mercy to be performed, to which a large reward was appended, and asked if he would undertake the task. The mason answered in the affirmative, and was then directed to procure a set of working-men’s clothes, which unfortunately proved too scanty for Grotius, and thus occasioned a new difficulty; the trunk-hose and sleeves were too short, the latter revealing the finely shaped white hand, whose hardest labour had hitherto been the work of the pen. The two women had much ado to patch up and lengthen out, and with dirt and clay, putty and plaster, they smeared the hands of the great philosopher, and sent him forth with fear and trembling, to run the gauntlet of many dangers. Next door was a library, which was the resort of learned professors, and book-lovers of all kinds, to many of whom Grotius was known by sight. He slouched his felt hat over his eyes, took his measuring-wand in his hand, and followed the mason through the streets to the bank of the river, where the friendly clothier met them. The weather was still boisterous, and the boatmen refused to ply, till the mason urged on them the necessity he was under of fulfilling a contract for buying stone for a large building at Altona, and assured them he would be a considerable loser by delay. These arguments were backed by the clothier, who put his hand into his pocket, and drew forth the most convincing of all arguments in the eyes of the boatmen. And at length the embarkation was effected; the ferry crossed in safety, and then the two masons walked to a neighbouring town, where they hired a carriage, and entering into confidential talk with the driver, informed him that the taller of the two was a disguised bankrupt flying from his creditors into foreign territory, and this, they said, would account for his wish to avoid observation as they passed through the towns. On went the little carriage, the driver of which was not long before he set down Grotius as a fool who soon ‘parted with his money,’ for of its value he showed a profound ignorance. In this respect we see that the driver differed in opinion from the rest of the world. They travelled through the night, and on the morrow, arriving early within a few leagues of Antwerp, they were met by a patrol of soldiers, who challenged them, asked for their passport, and inquired to whose service they belonged. Grotius evaded the question, and added jestingly, ‘As to my passport, that is in my feet.’ They fraternised, and the fugitive had now not only a military escort, but a good horse provided for his own riding; and in this manner entered the city of Antwerp. He alighted at the house of a banished friend, who proved to be in great anxiety on account of his wife’s illness, so the daughter of the family informed him; but no sooner did her parents learn the name of their unexpected visitor, than not only the master of the house, but the invalid herself hastened down to bid him welcome. The meeting was indeed a happy one, and although secrecy was deemed prudent, yet the news spread among a few compatriots, under the same sentence of proscription, who all flocked to the house, where a joyous little banquet was prepared, at which the illustrious journeyman mason, still in his working clothes, presided. Conversation flowed, and glasses clinked merrily that night to the health of Grotius and his gallant Maria, not forgetting the brave and faithful handmaiden. In the meantime how went affairs at Loevenstein? Madame Grotius had given out that her husband’s illness was infectious; but no sooner was she apprised of his safety, than she laughed her gaoler and his guards to scorn. ‘Here is the cage,’ she said merrily, ‘but the bird has flown!’ The commandant rained curses on her head, and increased the rigour of her imprisonment. He went across the river to browbeat the good shopwoman and her husband, but all this fuming and fretting did not bring back the prisoner. Madame Grotius sent a petition to the States-General and to the Stadtholder, to which neither were insensible. It was on this occasion that Prince Maurice (who was not wont to measure his words) made the ungallant speech—‘I thought that black pig would outwit us.’ We can fancy he said it with a grim smile, for very shortly afterwards Madame Grotius found herself at liberty, with the permission to carry away all that belonged to her in Loevenstein. Grotius, on his part, addressed a letter to the States-General before leaving Antwerp, in which he maintained that he had done his duty as Pensionary of Rotterdam, in the measures he had advocated, thereby incurring their censure, and he proceeded at length to propound his political views, and to offer suggestions for the restoration and maintenance of internal peace, concluding by justifying the means he had used for escape, having employed ‘neither violence nor corruption.’ And he furthermore declared that the persecutions he had suffered, and the hardships to which he had been exposed, could never diminish his love for his country, for whose prosperity he devoutly prayed.
Grotius remained some time at Antwerp, and then determined on proceeding to France, where his wife and family were allowed to join him; and Lieschen, good, brave Lieschen, who would not rejoice to hear that her fate was one usually reserved for the last page of a story-book—‘she lived happy ever afterwards,’ becoming the wife of her faithful fellow-servant, who had learned the rudiments of law from his master during their captivity,—a study which the good man continued on leaving Loevenstein, and rose step by step until he became a thriving and respected advocate in the tribunals of Holland.
But to return to Grotius: On his arrival in Paris he was kindly received by the French King, who granted him a provisional pension (very uncertain, by the way, in payment). In a pleasant country-house which had been lent him, in the environs of Senlis, he resumed his literary labours with great assiduity, working first at his ‘Apology,’ which he wrote in his mother-tongue, and sent off to Holland as soon as completed. This was a full and detailed exposition of the motives which had actuated his conduct, and of his religious and political sentiments. It produced the greatest possible excitement in Holland. The Government designated it as a foul and slanderous libel, reflecting on the honour of the States, of the Stadtholder, and all manner of bodies magisterial and municipal. The publication was interdicted, and every person forbidden, on pain of death, to retain it in their possession. In the meantime the ‘Apology’ was published, and eagerly read in Paris, and Grotius now set to work on his famous treatise on the Rights of Peace and War.
The pretty country-house in which he lived was the resort of men of letters, and among his frequent visitors was the learned De Thou, who gave him the free use of his valuable library. In 1625, on the death of Prince Maurice, the exile wrote to the new Stadtholder, Frederic Henry, asking permission to return, but without success. He then sent his wife into Holland, and through her judicious management and the exertions of his friends, the reversal of the decree of confiscation was obtained, and his property and effects were restored to him. At length he ventured back to his own country in person, and first proceeded to Rotterdam, where he was cordially received in private, but the authorities would not sanction his appearance in public, and the same reception awaited him at Amsterdam and Delft. The States-General, of whom he disdained to ask pardon (‘for,’ said he, ‘in what have I offended?’) were exasperated at his boldness in venturing back without permission, and orders were given to seize his person, and give notice to the Government, while a reward of 2000 florins was offered for his capture; but Grotius was too much beloved; no one was found to betray him. Still his position was undoubtedly perilous, and joining his wife on her return from Zeeland, they took up their abode for the summer and winter in or near the town of Hamburg.
Grotius was now overwhelmed with proposals of employment, and overtures of all descriptions from foreign powers—Spain, Poland, the Duchy of Holstein, and the hero Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, for whom our philosopher had the profoundest veneration. With this monarch’s envoy at the French Court, Benedict Oxenstiern, a relative of the celebrated Chancellor, Grotius had formed an intimate friendship, and when they were both residing at Frankfort, they became almost inseparable. The King of Sweden died, and was succeeded by his daughter, the eccentric Christina, whose admiration for the fame of Grotius even exceeded that of her father. Through the medium of Oxenstiern she made him numerous offers, but Grotius declined all but one employment. He volunteered to return to Paris as the Swedish Ambassador, provided the Queen would allow him a sufficient salary to maintain his position as her representative, which nomination was most distasteful to Richelieu, who was then Prime Minister. But after a time his opposition was overruled, and Grotius made his public entry into the French capital, where the crooked and tortuous policy pursued by Richelieu, and continued by his successor, Cardinal Mazarin, was most distasteful to Christina’s envoy, added to which he was weary of politics, diplomacy, and Court life, and earnestly solicited his recall. Christina acquiesced in the demand, but desired him to repair to Stockholm, where she joined him. Her Majesty did all in her power by promises of provision and favour for himself, his wife, and family, to induce Grotius to become a resident in her country. But he withstood all her tempting offers. Many difficulties to his departure were thrown in his way, but at last he embarked on a vessel bound for Lubeck. He had not been long at sea before a tremendous storm arose, and after three days continual tossing, and constant danger of shipwreck, the passengers landed on the coast of Pomerania, about fourteen miles from Dantzig. Grotius was far from well when he left Stockholm; the climate had proved too cold for him. He had been very ill on the voyage, and after travelling sixty miles in an open wagon, exposed to violent wind and rain, he arrived at Rostock in a most enfeebled condition. No sooner had he arrived than he sent for the doctor and the clergyman, who thus describes his interview in a letter: ‘If you are anxious to know how that Phœnix of literature, Hugo Grotius, behaved in his last moments, I will tell you. He sent for me at night. I found him almost at the point of death, and told him how deeply I regretted that I had never seen him in health, to benefit by his conversation. “God has ordered it otherwise,” he said. I then bade him prepare for a happier life; to acknowledge and repent his sins, and, chancing to allude to the Pharisee and the publican, “I am that publican,” he exclaimed. When I told him to have recourse to Jesus Christ, without whom is no salvation, he answered: “In Him alone I place my trust.” Then I repeated aloud the German prayer that begins, “Herr Jesu.” He followed in a low voice with clasped hands. I inquired if he understood all, and he said, “Quite well.” I continued to read passages of the Word of God for dying persons.’ Thus expired this great and good man, far from the kindred he loved, his heart still true to the country which had rejected and expelled him, his deathbed watched by strangers. His body was embalmed and transported to his native city of Delft, where it was interred with great pomp by his fellow-citizens, who at first proposed to erect a statue in his honour, similar to that of Erasmus at Rotterdam, but the idea was abandoned. It was reserved for his descendants to raise a monument to his memory in the said church. We transcribe the modest epitaph written by Grotius on himself—
GROTIUS HIC HUGO EST, BATAVUM CAPTIVUS, ET EXUL
LEGATUS REGNY REGNI SUECIS MAGNAFUI.
No. 6. THE HONOURABLE ANDREW NEWPORT.
In armour. Light brown sleeves. Rich lace cravat. Long hair.
BORN 1622, DIED 1699.
By Sir Godfrey Kneller.
HE was the son of Lord Newport, the noted Royalist, by Rachel, daughter of Sir John Levison, Knight, of Harington, County Kent, and sister of Sir Richard Levison, Knight of the Bath, of Trentham, County Stafford.
Andrew was Commissioner of Customs to Charles the Second. He was M.P. for Shrewsbury from 1689 to 1698. Died unmarried, and was buried at Wroxeter. He bequeathed his manor of Dythan, County Montgomery, and other estates in the same county, and in that of Salop, to his nephew Richard, Lord Newport, son of Francis, Earl of Bradford. Lord Clarendon, in his History of the Civil Wars, makes frequent mention of Andrew Newport.
No. 9. THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD, AND HIS SECRETARY.
Black dress.
BORN 1594, EXECUTED 1641.
After Vandyck.
THE eldest son of Sir William Wentworth of Wentworth Wodehouse, County York, by Anne Atkinson of Stowel, County Gloucester. He succeeded his father in his large estates when only twenty-one, being already the husband of ‘a fair wife.’
Shortly after his succession he was elected M.P. for York and Custos Rotulorum in place of Lord Savile, superseded on account of misconduct, an office from which the Duke of Buckingham requested him to retire that Lord Savile might be reinstated, a proceeding which nettled the high spirit of Sir Thomas, who wrote a refusal so indignant as to make a lifelong enemy of the favourite.
Until the accession of Charles the First, Wentworth, although a silent member of the House of Commons, was a zealous advocate of the Liberal party and a strenuous opposer of the encroachments of the Court. Through the instrumentality of Buckingham he was disqualified from voting by having the post of High Sheriff thrust upon him, and he was soon after summarily dismissed from his office of Custos Rotulorum. In the ensuing year he was summoned before the Council and sentenced to imprisonment for refusing to contribute to a loan (levied without the consent of Parliament), on which occasion he made a noble speech expressing his loyalty to the person of Charles the First and his desire to serve him in any way consistent with his duty to his country. On his release from prison he became a strong leader of the Opposition and an eloquent advocate of the famous ‘Petition of Rights,’ to which the King was compelled to yield his unwilling consent. Then suddenly came the adoption of that line of conduct, so differently judged and so differently accounted for by different biographers. Wentworth declared his conviction that the nation might now be content with the concessions made by the Crown, bade adieu to the party of the ‘Pyms and the Prynnes,’ walked over to the other side of the House and offered his services, head, heart, and sword, to the royal cause. By some he was termed a traitor, a time-server, an apostate, while others upheld the conduct of a man who chose the moment of impending danger to rally round the unsteady throne and the unpopular sovereign. Charles naturally received him with open arms, and loaded him with favours; but his old ally, Pym, meeting him one day, uttered these ominous words, ‘You are going to leave us, but I will never leave you while you have ahead on your shoulders’; words too cruelly redeemed.
The murder of the Duke of Buckingham made way for Wentworth’s advancement. Raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Wentworth, he was appointed Lord-Deputy and Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, and sailed for that ‘distressful country’ with a code for his own government, drawn up by himself, in his pocket, from which he never swerved. Lord Wentworth’s administration of Irish affairs, his transient popularity, his reforms in matters civil, military, and religious, his quarrels with the Irish nobles, his punctilio in minute questions of form and ceremony, his hurried voyages to and from England, are subjects intimately connected with the history of the times, but too lengthy to be detailed here. It would have been well for the Lord-Deputy if he had taken the advice of his lifelong friend and correspondent, Archbishop Laud, and had curbed his impetuosity on many occasions.
In 1639 he crossed to England, was created Earl of Strafford, gained the title of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, was received into the King’s full confidence, and was for a time virtually Prime Minister. Not content with advocating the necessities of raising subsidies, he contributed £20,000 from his own privy purse (as an example to the nation) towards the impending war with Scotland. In spite of ill-health and increasing infirmities, Strafford crossed and recrossed St. George’s Channel to attend to his duties on either side; the last time in a terrible storm, and nearly died at Chester, on his road to London. Yet his indomitable spirit would not yield. He joined the King at York, and found the army in a sad plight, all hope and spirit fled, and the royal cause ‘in the dust.’ He became the real, though not the nominal, Commander-in-chief, and although unable to walk, and scarcely able to sit upright on his saddle, Strafford rallied the troops, upbraided the sluggishness of the leaders, and set a brilliant example of energy and courage. But the King stayed his hand and thwarted his activity, loud all the while in his praises, and giving him the Garter. Charles also insisted that they should travel together to London, a proceeding to which Strafford was strongly opposed,—two victims hastening to their doom.
A few days after the opening of Parliament Pym began his long-meditated attack on his former friend—the blood-hounds were on the track, the hunt was up. Our limited space forbids us to do more than glance at the circumstances of Strafford’s arrest and trial, but in truth it is a well-known tale. He was impeached by Pym of high treason, compelled to listen to the charge on his knees, was given into custody, and lodged in the Tower. There is extant a most graphic description of the scene which Westminster Hall presented on the occasion of the trial, crowded to the roof, the King and Queen being present, and the whole court and nobility of England, ladies of the highest rank, whose tears flowed copiously, and whose verdict was unanimous in favour of the illustrious prisoner. It was well said by the elder Disraeli, that ‘Strafford’s eloquence was so great as to perpetuate the sympathy which he received in the hour of his agony.’ He had indeed need of his eloquence. Every obstacle was thrown in his way, especially in the matter of summoning witnesses, while his personal enemies were invited from all parts of the country. His confidence was betrayed, his words perverted, the whole proceedings were unlawful and unprecedented, and the Solicitor-General heaped insults on the accused. A Bill of Attainder was provided, and the few individuals who gave negative votes had their names posted up in the City as Straffordians.
There was a passage of arms between the two Houses on the subject, but the vultures were hovering round, and would not be disappointed of their prey. Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was declared guilty of high treason. On this sad passage, the saddest of all in Charles’s sad life, we need not dwell long. He had pledged his royal word to his noble friend, ‘You shall not suffer in honour, in fortune, or in life.’ Yet after some hesitation and delay, weeping all the time, he signed the death-warrant, laying up for himself hours of deep remorse during the few years he survived. The generous prisoner wrote to his master, indeed, to absolve him from his promise; but when he learned he was to prepare for death, he raised his eyes to heaven exclaiming, ‘Put not your trust in princes, or in any child of man.’
During the short interval between the sentence and the execution, the captive busied himself in settling his worldly affairs, writing wise, tender, and pathetic letters to his relatives, and devoting his mind to the fulfilment of his religious duties.
An earnest request to be allowed to visit his attached friend and fellow-prisoner, Archbishop Laud, was cruelly refused, and he was only permitted to send him a message, entreating the prelate’s blessing as he passed to execution. Accordingly, on the 12th of May 1641, Strafford, on his way to the scaffold, raised his eyes to the window of the cell where the Archbishop was confined, and perceived the aged and trembling hand waving through the bars a solemn farewell to the man he had so long and so faithfully loved. Thousands of spectators lined the streets, the passions of the mob had been so excited against the prisoner that the guards kept close to the carriage lest he should be torn to pieces. Strafford smiled calmly, and remarked it would matter little to him whether he died by the hands of the executioner or by those of the people. ‘He had faced death too often to fear it in any shape.’
His friend, Archbishop Ussher, and his brother, Sir George Wentworth, were already on the platform. Strafford spoke for some time. He declared that his whole aim through life had been the joint and individual prosperity of the King and the people, although he had had the misfortune to be misconstrued. He denied all the charges brought against him, asked forgiveness of all men he had injured, and prayed ‘that we may all meet eternally in heaven, where sad thoughts shall be driven from our hearts, and tears wiped from our eyes.’ Then he bade farewell to those near him, embracing his brother, by whom he sent tender messages to his wife and children. ‘One stroke,’ he said, ‘will make my wife husbandless, my children fatherless, my servants masterless; but let God be to you and to them all in all.’ Taking off his doublet, he thanked God he could do so as cheerfully as ever he did when going to bed. Then he forgave the executioner and all the world. It was indeed an imposing scene,—Strafford on that momentous day apparently restored to all the energy of health and vigour, his symmetrical form, his regular features, with a complexion ‘pallid but manly.’ Once more he knelt in prayer between the Archbishop and the Minister, tried the block, and having warned the executioner that he would give the sign, stretched forth his white and beautifully formed hands, which Vandyck has immortalised, which Henrietta Maria, his sworn enemy, had pronounced the finest in the world; and one stroke from the cruel axe ended the mortal career of Thomas, Earl of Strafford.
He was thrice married,—first, to Lady Margaret Clifford, who died childless; secondly, to Lady Arabella Holles, daughter to the Earl of Clare, by whom he had one son and two daughters; and thirdly, to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Godfrey Rhodes (the marriage was a clandestine one), from whom he was separated for a period immediately after the ceremony, and it was some time before he would acknowledge her openly; in fact a mystery hung over the whole matter. Lord Strafford’s letters to this lady during his trial were couched in affectionate terms. She bore him several children, one of whom alone survived him. Of his connection with that beautiful schemer, Lady Carlisle, born Percy, there can be no doubt,—‘she who,’ says Sir Philip Warwick, ‘changed her gallant from Strafford to Pym, thus going over to his deadly enemy’; but there were many other names coupled with that of Lord Strafford, apparently without any reason, save the love of slander.
No. 10. COLONEL THE HONOURABLE JOHN RUSSELL.
Brown embroidered dress. Wig.
DIED 1681.
By Sir Godfrey Kneller.
HE was the youngest son of Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, by Catherine Bridges. He served with distinction in the royal army under Charles the First, and at the Restoration was appointed Colonel of the first regiment of the Foot Guards. At one time there were negotiations carrying on for his marriage with a daughter of the Earl of Bath, which was prevented by the young lady’s family, who were desirous she should marry her cousin, heir to the Earldom of Bath. The gallant colonel then became a suitor for the hand of the famous beauty La Belle Hamilton. There is a laughable description of him in the Memoires de Grammont, and we cannot but think that as the chronicler himself carried off the prize, he might have been rather more generous in his delineation of an unsuccessful rival:
‘M. Le Colonel Russell avoit bien soixante ans, son courage et sa fidélité l’avoient distingué dans les guerres civiles. Il n’y avoit pas longtemps qu’on avoit quitté le ridicule, des chapeaux pointus, pour tomber dans l’autre extrémité. Le vieux Russell, effraié d’une chute si terrible, voulut prendre un milieu qui le rendit remarquable. Il l’étoit encore par la constance envers les pourpoints taillardés qu’il a soutenus longtemps après leur suppression universelle. Mais ce qui surprenoit le plus c’étoit un certain mélange d’avarice et de libéralité sans cesse en guerre l’une avec l’autre, depuis qu’il y étoit avec l’amour.’
He was selected by his nephew, Lord Russell, to carry the noble letter which the prisoner had written from Newgate on the 19th July 1683 to the King.
No. 11. FRANCIS RUSSELL, FOURTH EARL OF BEDFORD.
Black dress.
DIED 1641.
By Remée.
HE was the only son of William Russell, called the Heroic Baron of Thornhaugh, whom he accompanied to Ireland when only nine years old. A curious picture at Woburn leads us to believe that the young Francis shared his father’s love of sport, being there represented in a white hunting jacket with green hose, a hawk on his hand, and two dogs in couples beside him. He was knighted in 1604 by James the First, at Whitehall, and the ensuing year he married Catherine, daughter and co-heir of Gyles Brydges, third Lord Chandos, with whom he lived very happily; and during the first years of his marriage he devoted himself to domestic life, and took great delight in study. Having received a legal education he prosecuted his researches into questions of law, parliamentary privileges and the like, which were destined to prove useful to him in his public career. He succeeded his father, as Baron Thornhaugh, in 1613; and his cousin, Edward Russell, in the Earldom of Bedford in 1627. He frequented the society of such men as Sir Robert Cotton, Selden, Eliott, and was ever ready, says one of his biographers, to uphold the liberty of the subject against such despots as James the First. On the accession of Charles the First, Lord Bedford continued the same independent line of conduct, and several times fell under the displeasure of the Court. In 1628 he distinguished himself by his steadfast advocacy of the famous Petition of Rights (to which Charles was in the end compelled to give an unwilling consent); and he received in consequence the royal commands to betake himself to the distant county of Devonshire, of which he was Lord-Lieutenant. Both political bias and private friendship attached him to the so-called popular party, which laid down as their principle for action ‘to prescribe limits to the monarchical power.’ The profession of such opinions naturally led to the fact that Lord Bedford, among many others, became an object of suspicion to the Court. A rumour was set on foot that he had been instrumental in the circulation of a seditious pamphlet, and on this plea he was arrested and imprisoned for a short time. In 1630 he took a prominent part in the drainage of the Fens in the centre of England, including the counties of North Hants, Lincoln, Hunts, Bedford, Cambridge, and Norfolk; called the Great Level, and subsequently in his honour the Bedford Level. In 1637 this generous and public-minded man had expended for his own share of this great work £100,000, but he was not destined to witness its completion. The part that Lord Bedford took in the political events of the day—in the struggles between King and Parliament, in the differences with the Scots—is not all this written in the chronicles of the civil wars of Charles the First’s disastrous reign? Suffice it to say that some of the popular Lords, and Lord Bedford in particular, became aware of the advisability of moderation, and the necessity of curbing the headlong opposition of the popular party. But we cannot do better than to quote the eloquent words of the great historian Lord Clarendon (then Mr. Hyde). He says: ‘This Lord was the person of the greatest interest in the whole party, being of the best estate and best understanding, and therefore most likely to govern the rest.’ He was also of great civility and good-nature, and though occasionally hot-tempered, and for the moment impatient of contradiction, yet his opinions were wise and moderate. He was a good adviser to the King, and served him in the end far better than many who cajoled and flattered him. Lord Bedford was a man of strict religion, and withstood the attempt to evict the bishops from the Upper House. He with many others of the same party were sworn of the Privy Council, and in this manner gained Charles’s ear, and exercised some degree of influence over him in regulating and modifying measures that appeared prejudicial to the common good. He was selected to be one of the Lords Commissioners sent to confer with the Scots in the hope to compose the long-existing differences. The King liked to transact business with him, and was inclined to listen to his suggestions as to persons fitted to be appointed to offices of state. Indeed Charles pressed upon Lord Bedford himself the post of Lord Treasurer, ‘which the Bishop of London was as willing to lay down as any one else could be to take up,’ but Lord Bedford refused the office. He was one of the few Peers (to his honour be it spoken) who exerted himself to the utmost to save the life of Lord Strafford. He pleaded his cause vainly with his colleague, the Earl of Essex; and finding him inexorable, prevailed on Mr. Hyde (in a long interview he had on the subject) to intercede with Lord Essex. He also endeavoured to keep the King up to his original intention of commuting or mitigating the sentence. He observed to Mr. Hyde that he thought ‘the Earl of Strafford’s business was a rock on which they would all split, and that he was sure the passion of Parliament would undo the kingdom.’
But a sudden attack of illness arrested Lord Bedford’s useful and noble career. He was seized with the small-pox, and on ascertaining the fact, his first step was to send away his daughter, Lady Brooke, lest she should fall a victim to the fell disease which wrought such havoc in the house of Russell, seeing that his son and great-grandson both died of the same. Lord Bedford was very much averse to the treatment which his physician, Dr. Cragg, prescribed for him, namely, to be kept a close prisoner to his bed. And when forbidden to get up, he sighed dolefully and said, ‘Well, then, I must die to observe your rules.’
Dr. Cademan, a medical man who had advocated a different treatment, published a pamphlet, which gave as his opinion that Lord Bedford ‘had died of too much bed, rather than of the small-pox.’ The same authority, speaking of the Earl’s devotion, says: ‘I never saw the like, though I have waited upon many who had no other business left but to die well. Commending his body to be buried with decency, but without pomp, his breath was spent before his hands and eyes ceased to be lifted up to Heaven, as if his soul would have carried his body along with it.’
So passed away on the 9th of May 1641 Francis Russell, called the wise Earl of Bedford, a loss to the unfortunate Strafford, whose sentence was carried out in a few days; a loss to the King, whose wholesome adviser he was; a loss to the popular party, whose violence he would fain have curbed. His death was universally mourned, and every mark of respect paid to his memory. Three hundred coaches with Peers and their servants attended; a long and solemn procession followed the body on its road to Chenies, the burying-place of the Russell family, with led horses, banners displayed, Garter King-at-Arms, ‘all the pomp of heraldry and pride of power’; and this great and good man was interred amid the prayers and tears of a large multitude. His widow survived him some years, and was then buried beside him.
No. 13. WILLIAM, LORD RUSSELL.
In armour. Long flowing hair.
BORN 1639, EXECUTED 1683.
By Russell.
HE was born second son of William, fifth Earl, afterwards first Duke, of Bedford. He went with his elder brother, Lord Russell, to Cambridge, and later travelled in his company, and that of a learned tutor on the Continent. At Augsburg the brothers separated, and William proceeded to Lyons, whence his letters home proved he amused himself very much, and amidst a gay and brilliant society formed a close acquaintance with the eccentric and celebrated ex-Queen, Christina of Sweden, who appeared to have gained great influence over the young Englishman, who evinced a great inclination for some time to enter the Swedish army as a volunteer. His letters during his sojourn in France, many of which were addressed to his tutor, to whom he was much attached, do him honour. When en route for England he fell sick at Paris, and finding himself, as he writes, ‘at the gates of death,’ he assures his old friend that he prays constantly to God to ‘give me grace that I may employ in His service the life His mercy has spared to me.’
On his arrival at home, William for a time devoted himself to the care of his brother, then in ill-health, and to giving his father assistance in domestic affairs. At the Restoration, Lord Bedford and his family were marked out for favour, and the Earl carried the sceptre at the Coronation, and soon after William was elected member for Tavistock. Handsome, accomplished, and nobly born, he became a shining light at the brilliant Court of Charles the Second, but his tastes were too earnest, and his bias too virtuous to find any lasting satisfaction in a society so frivolous and immoral. An early attachment to a good and beautiful woman proved a strong safeguard to the young courtier, which was crowned about the year 1669, by a marriage, the happiness of which family and historical records can vouch. It was indeed a well-assorted union, the commencement of ‘domestic bliss,’ as the poet says, ‘the only happiness which has survived the Fall.’ William Russell’s choice was Rachel, the daughter of the noble loyalist, Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and the daughter-in-law of the Earl of Carbery, being the widow of his eldest son, Lord Vaughan. We refer our readers to our sketch of Lady Russell’s life, who retained her widowed title of Lady Vaughan until the death of William’s elder brother. In the meantime he began his political career by a zealous and conscientious attention to his parliamentary duties, and was not long before he incurred the lasting animosity of the Duke of York, and indeed of the King himself, by his zealous opposition to many arbitrary measures proposed by the Court party, which, in Russell’s opinion, were calculated to endanger ‘the liberty of the subject, the safety of the kingdom, and the welfare of the Protestant religion.’ In 1679 he was made a Privy Councillor, a dignity he did not long enjoy, for we read shortly after ‘that the Lords Russell, Cavendish, and others, finding the King’s heart and head were against popular councils, and that their presence in Council could no longer prevent pernicious measures, and not being willing to serve him against the interests of their country, went to him together, and desired him to excuse their attendance any more at Council.’ The King gladly accepted their resignation, for he wanted men who would promote his arbitrary measures, and thus, says Smollett, ‘Lord Russell, one of the most popular and virtuous men of the nation, quitted the Council Board.’
He was a prominent promoter of the Bill of Exclusion to prevent the Duke of York, or any Papist whatsoever, from succeeding to the Throne. When the Bill passed the Commons, it was Lord Russell who carried it in person to the Upper House, on which occasion he made a most eloquent speech, and wound up by saying that in the event of changes so occurring, he should be prevented living a Protestant, it was his fixed resolution to die one. But all opposition to the Papal succession was unavailing, and in 1681 the King dissolved Parliament, by which means Lord Russell found himself at liberty for a short space to indulge in the retirement and pleasures of a happy home with the wife and children he adored. But his country’s welfare was ever paramount in his mind, and he kept up his interest in public affairs.
During the ensuing summer the Prince of Orange visited England, and had several interviews and confidential conversations with Lord Russell, who, moreover, made himself doubly obnoxious to the Court party by meeting the Duke of Monmouth in his progress through the North, at the head of a considerable body of men.
In conversation with his domestic chaplain Lord Russell once remarked that he was convinced he should one day fall a sacrifice, since arbitrary government could never be set up in England while he lived to oppose it, and that to the last drop of his blood. And it was evident he took little pains to prevent the fulfilment of his own prophecy. This was a period of plots and counter-plots. There had been much talk lately of a Popish plot, and now the Protestant, or Rye House Plot, was said to have been discovered, the object of which, it was affirmed, was to seize the persons of the King and Duke of York on their return from Newmarket. The enemies of Lord Russell, and several other noblemen, who participated in his political views, were glad to take hold of any pretext to secure the ruin of the men on whose downfall they were bent, and many of the highest of England’s nobility were now loudly accused of being implicated in the conspiracy, and orders were issued for their arrest. The Duke of Monmouth was not forthcoming, but Lord Russell, strong in his own innocence, refused to make his escape, though strongly urged to do so by many of his friends. He disdained the notion of flight, though from the beginning he gave himself up for lost. So he sat calmly in his study awaiting the arrival of the officers, to whom he made no resistance, and was conveyed first to the Tower and thence to Newgate.
Lord Essex was the next so-called conspirator apprehended, and he also refused every argument for flight, saying that he considered his own life not worth saving, if by drawing suspicion on Lord Russell, so valuable a life as his, also should be endangered. The Duke of Monmouth had it conveyed to Lord Russell that he would willingly give himself up and share his fate. But the noble prisoner answered it would be no advantage to him that his friends should suffer, and so, on the 13th of July 1683, William, Lord Russell, stood at the bar of the Old Bailey on a charge of high treason. That very morning the Lord Essex, who was only a prisoner of three days’ standing, was found dead in the Tower with his throat cut. This strange and melancholy event gave rise to conflicting rumours. Many people were of opinion that there had been foul play, and Evelyn was as surprised as he was grieved, ‘My Lord Essex being so well known to me as a man of sober and religious deportment.’ The news coming to Westminster Hall on the very day of Lord Russell’s trial, was said to have had no little influence on the verdict which the jury returned. The prisoner’s demeanour during his examination was marked by calm dignity and absence of any sign of agitation, though he occasionally expostulated against the injustice with which the proceedings were carried on. Being asked how he wished to be tried, he replied, ‘By God and my country.’ Alas! alas! the voices of Justice and of Mercy were alike unheard in the courts of law that day. The prisoner represented that he had been kept in ignorance, until the moment of his appearing at the bar, of the nature of the charges which were to be brought against him, and that he was allowed no time to select his own counsel, etc. etc. He asked permission to employ the hand of another to take notes of the evidence, upon which the Attorney-General (resolved to deprive him of the help of any counsel) churlishly replied, he might have one of his own servants to assist him. ‘Then,’ said Lord Russell, ‘the only assistance I will ask is that of the lady beside me.’ At these words, says a contemporary writer, ‘a thrill of anguish passed through the court’—a moment of intense pathos, the frequent and glowing records of which, by poet, painter, and historian, pale before the vivid colouring of the fact itself: the noble prisoner turning in his hour of utmost need to the gentle helpmate beside him, his servant, in the literal acceptation of the word—for who could love or serve him better? Rachel, Lady Russell, rose with a calm she had borrowed from her husband’s example. Crushing down and stifling the varied emotions of sorrow, indignation, and apprehension, forcing back the rising tears lest they should dim the vision of the scribe, clenching the small white hand to restore its requisite steadiness, Rachel stood motionless for an instant, with every eye upon her—the cold scrutiny of the cruel judges, the inquisitive stare of false friends and perjured witnesses,—while the Attorney-General, in a more subdued tone of voice, said, ‘As the lady pleases.’ She then with a firm step left her husband’s side, and took up her post at the table below. That picture still remains stamped on the memory of her countrymen through the lapse of more than two centuries, and many who only half remember the details of that remarkable trial, and its undoubted importance as regards subsequent events, still bear in mind the touching episode of the beautiful secretary, the faithful servant, the devoted wife and widow of William, Lord Russell. The jury were not long in returning the verdict of Guilty,—‘an act,’ says Rapin, ‘of the most crying injustice that ever was perpetrated in England.’
To the cruel and hideous sentence for the execution of ‘a traitor,’ which was read aloud in English (instead of Latin) by his own desire, the prisoner listened with that decency and composure, ‘which,’ Burnet tells us, ‘characterised his whole behaviour during the trial; even as if the issue were a matter of indifference to him.’ The result of the proceedings produced an intense excitement. The most strenuous efforts were made in all quarters to save Lord Russell’s life both at home and abroad. It was intimated to the King that M. de Ruvigny, a kinsman of Lady Russell’s in favour at the Court of France, was coming over with a special message from Louis the Fourteenth to intercede for the prisoner; but Charles was said to have answered with cruel levity that he should be ‘happy to receive M. de Ruvigny, but that Lord Russell’s head would be off before he arrived.’ Many men of position and influence waited on the King in person, and argued with him on the bad effect the execution would produce in many quarters. The Duchess of Portsmouth had a large sum of money offered to secure her interference, but all in vain. Then Lord Russell’s ‘noble consort’ cast herself at the King’s feet, and adjured him, by the memory of her father, the loyal and gallant Southampton, to let his services atone for ‘the errors into which honest but mistaken principles had seduced her husband.’ This was the last instance of female weakness, if it deserve the name, into which Rachel Russell was betrayed. But Charles was inexorable. He whose weak heart was too easily swayed by beauty, too frequently overcome by emotion of a baser kind, remained impervious to the tears and anguish of this lovely and virtuous woman. Even the scanty mercy of a short respite was denied her. She rose from her knees, collected her courage, and from that moment she fortified herself against the fatal blow, and endeavoured by her example to strengthen the resolution of her husband. ‘She gave me no disturbance,’ was one of the touching tributes he paid her. Lord Cavendish sent a proposition to the prisoner offering to facilitate his escape, even to change clothes with him, and remain in his stead; but Lord Russell returned a firm though grateful refusal, considering the plan impracticable, unlawful, and dangerous to his faithful friend, and so prepared quietly and calmly for the end, expressing his conviction that the day of his execution would not be so disturbing to him as the day of his trial. The time allotted to him was short. He occupied himself much in writing. He addressed a letter to the King, which he intrusted to his uncle, Colonel John Russell, to deliver to Charles immediately after the execution; a noble and temperate letter, in which the writer hopes his Majesty will excuse the presumption of an attainted man. He asks pardon for anything he might have said or done that looked like a want of respect to the King or duty to the Government. He acquits himself of all designs (and goes on to declare his ignorance of any such) against either King or Government.
‘Yet I do not deny that I have heard many things, and said some, contrary to my duty, for which I have asked God’s pardon, and do now humbly beg your Majesty’s. I take the liberty to add that though I have met with hard measure, yet I forgive all concerned in it, from the highest to the lowest; and I pray God to bless your person and government, and that the public peace and the true Protestant religion may be preserved under you; and I crave leave to end my days with this sincere protestation, that my heart was ever devoted to that which I thought was your true interest, in which, if I was mistaken, I hope that your displeasure will end with my life, and that no part of it shall fall on my wife and children, being the last petition that will ever be offered from your Majesty’s most faithful, most dutiful, and most obedient servant, Russell.
‘Newgate, July 19, 1683.’
He further drew up a long and detailed defence and explanation of his whole conduct, to be given by his own hands to the Sheriffs on the scaffold,—a precious record, preserved in letters of gold among the most cherished archives at Woburn, the scene of the noble writer’s youth and childhood.
The evening before his death, after bidding adieu to some of his friends, his wife and children came to take a last farewell. He parted with them (tender father and devoted husband as he was) in composed silence, and Lady Russell had such control over herself that when she was gone he said, ‘The bitterness of death is past.’ ‘He talked,’ says Burnet, ‘at much length about her. It had rather grieved him that she had run about so much beating every bush for his preservation, but that, perhaps, it would be a mitigation of her sorrow to feel she had done all in her power to save him.’ ‘Yet,’ he said, ‘what a blessing it was that she had that magnanimity of spirit joined to her tenderness as never to have desired him to do a base thing for the saving of his own life; there was a signal providence of God in giving him such a wife, with birth, fortune, understanding, religion, and great kindness to him. But her carriage in his extremity was above all! It was a comfort to leave his children in such a mother’s hands, who had promised him to take care of herself for his sake.’ Burnet further tells us that ‘the prisoner received the Sacrament from Archbishop Tillotson with much devotion, and I preached two short sermons, which he heard with great affection. He went into his chamber about midnight, and I stayed the whole night in the adjoining room. He went to bed about two in the morning, and was fast asleep about four, when, by his desire, we called him. He was quickly dressed, and lost no time in shaving, for he said he was not concerned in his good looks that day. He went two or three times back into his chamber to pray by himself, and then came and prayed again with Tillotson and me. He drank a little tea and some sherry, and then he said now he had done with time, and was going to eternity. He asked what he should give the executioner, and I told him ten guineas; he smiled, and said it was a pretty thing to give a fee to have his head cut off. The Sheriffs came about ten o’clock; Lord Cavendish was waiting below to take leave of him. They embraced very tenderly. Lord Russell on a second thought came back and pressed Cavendish earnestly to apply himself more to religion, telling him what great comfort and support he felt from it now in his extremity. Tillotson and I went in the coach with him. Some of the crowd wept, while others insulted him; he was touched with the one expression, but did not seem provoked by the other. He was singing psalms most of the way, and said he hoped to sing better soon. Looking at the great crowd he said ‘I hope I shall soon see a much better assembly.’ He walked about the scaffold four or five times, then he turned to the Sheriffs, and in presenting the paper he protested his innocence of any design against the King’s life, or any attempt to subvert the Government. He prayed God to preserve the Protestant religion, and earnestly wished that Protestants should love one another, and not make way for Popery by their animosities. He forgave all his enemies, and died in charity with all mankind. After this he prayed again with Archbishop Tillotson, and more than once by himself. Then William Russell stood erect, arranged his dress, and, without the slightest change of countenance, laid his noble head upon the block, ‘which was struck off (says Evelyn) by three butcherly strokes.’
Five years afterwards when James the Second stood on the brink of ruin, he did not disdain to apply to the Earl of Bedford for help. ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘you are an honest man, and of great credit in the country, and can do me signal service. ‘Ah, sire,’ replied the Earl, ‘I am old and feeble, and can be of little use, but I once had a son who could have assisted you, and he is no more.’ By which answer James was so struck, that he could not speak for several moments.
No. 14. WILLIAM HARVEY, M.D.
Black gown. Black skull-cap.
BORN 1578, DIED 1657-8.
By Riley.
SON of Thomas Harvey of Folkestone, in Kent, by Joan Hawke, and eldest of seven sons and two daughters. The parents were well-to-do people, who brought up their children carefully and respectably. Mrs. Harvey seems to have been a most estimable woman, if we only believe one half the virtues ascribed to her on the tablet in Folkestone Church, where she lies buried; the epitaph, though couched in the eulogistic and lengthy style which was the fashion of the day, is sufficiently characteristic to merit insertion. The mother of a great man is in our eyes always deserving of notice.
‘She was a godly, harmless woman, a chaste, loving wife, a charitable, quiet neighbour, a comfortable and friendly matron, a provident housewife and tender mother. Elected of God, may her soul rest in heaven (as her body in this grave), to her a happy advantage, to hers an unhappy loss.’
When only ten years old William Harvey went to a Grammar School, and subsequently to Caius College, Cambridge, where, we are told, ‘he studied classics, dialectics, and physics.’ It was the fashion of the day for young men of any standing to finish their education on the Continent, in one or other of those schools of learning and science which were indeed the resort of the youth of all nations. Harvey fixed his choice on Padua, then especially rich in eminent Professors in all branches of learning. He had been early destined, both by the wishes of his family and his own inclination, for the medical profession; and at Padua, under the auspices of the celebrated Fabricius of Acquapendente and others, our young Englishman, whose zeal was equal to his intelligence, laid the foundation of his future greatness, and made rapid strides in the path of fame. He remained five years at Padua, and before his departure, at the age of twenty-four, received his doctor’s diploma, with ‘licence to practise in every land and seat of learning.’ On his return to England he obtained his doctor’s degree at his old University of Cambridge, after which he settled in London, and married the daughter of one Lancelot Brown, M.D. Harvey soon got into extensive practice, enlarged his connection daily, and, while rising step by step in his profession, made himself beloved (as is mostly the case with the true disciple of St. Luke) by the skill and charity he exercised among the poor and afflicted by whom he was surrounded.
Before long he was elected a member of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and subsequently Principal Physician of that important establishment, where, in the course of his tenure, he introduced the most stringent reforms and regulations, which were considered needlessly severe by the younger students, who had grown into habits of laxity and idleness. But neither the duties of his office, nor his practice which he carried on outside the walls, were allowed to interfere in any way with his literary labours. Making the profoundest researches into every branch of medical science, perusing and weighing the arguments of those very writers whom he was destined to eclipse; he attracted the notice of King James the First, one of whose redeeming qualities it was to encourage learning, and who found great delight in the society of eminent men. The King named Harvey Physician Extraordinary, with a reversionary promise of the regular post at Court when it should become vacant, which did not occur till after the accession of Charles the First. He was also body physician to several noblemen and gentlemen of eminence, such as the Lord Chancellor Bacon and Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, with whom he travelled on the Continent. He was appointed Lecturer to the Royal College of Physicians, in Amen Corner, where, with some interruptions (through absence, Court duties, and other hindrances), he continued for many years to attract and interest his colleagues by his knowledge and eloquence. It was in the course of these lectures that he first promulgated his wondrous doctrines on the motions of the heart and the circulation of the blood; a subject with which the name of William Harvey is indissolubly connected. The theories that had been hatching in his prolific mind for long now took form and shape in his immortal work, which he dedicated to King Charles, and to his own College. It was this work (although one of many) which enriched the science of medicine, and rendered his name immortal. The circulation of the blood had from time immemorial been the theme of dispute and discussion among men of all nations; but it was reserved, says Birch, for William Harvey in 1628 to publish a book which was the clearest, the shortest, and the most convincing that had ever yet been written on the subject. The startling discoveries, and the bold manner in which they were expounded, kindled a flame of antagonism and rivalry in the medical world. Learned Professors, and men who professed without learning, rose to denounce, to question, to deny him even the merit of originality, for had not the same theories been known to the ancients? To the manifold attacks by which he was assailed Harvey maintained for the most part a dignified silence, though compelled in some cases to rise up and defend himself and his opinions from adversaries, both English and foreign.
In 1636 he accompanied his friend and patron, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, when that nobleman went on a special mission to the Emperor of Germany. Harvey did not neglect this opportunity of making the acquaintance of all the eminent men of science in the country, who in their turn were desirous (from mingled motives) of meeting a man with whose name Europe was now ringing. In a conclave of medical men at Nürnberg our doctor made a public declaration of his professional faith, when he was met by the most strenuous opposition. The learned Caspar Hoffman, in particular, was so violent and unreasonable in his arguments, that William Harvey, after listening with singular forbearance for a considerable time, laid down the scalpel, which he held and quietly left the apartment. It was in this expedition with Lord Arundel that one of his Excellency’s gentlemen told Aubrey that Lord Arundel was rendered very anxious by the frequent explorings of his physician into the woods, where was great fear, not only of wild beasts, but also of thieves, and where, indeed, the doctor one time narrowly escaped with life. But Harvey would not neglect the chance of studying the strange trees and foreign plants, and adding to his collection of toads, frogs, and the like, for the purpose of experimenting upon them—was sometimes like to be lost indeed, so that my Lord Ambassador was angry with him. With all these contentions and animadversions we are not surprised to hear that at one time Harvey’s practice declined, and Aubrey says, ‘He was treated by many as a visionary and a madman, and though everybody admired his anatomy, most people questioned his therapeutics, so much so that his bills (i.e. recipes and prescriptions) were not worth threepence.’ He now gave himself up to the prosecution of his Court duties, and was indefatigable in his attendance on the King. The relationship between Charles and his physician was of the most friendly and intimate nature. Harvey speaks of his royal master in terms of true affection, while the King took great delight in frequenting the doctor’s dissecting-room, and studying anatomy and medicine under his tutelage. On the breaking out of the civil wars Harvey became more than ever attached in every sense of the word to the person of the King, following him wheresoever he went, to court and camp. On their return from Scotland our peace-loving doctor was present at the battle of Edgehill, where Aubrey records a very characteristic, and almost comical adventure. It was in 1642, during the fight in question, that Harvey was intrusted with the care of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. He accordingly withdrew with his young charges to what he considered the shelter of a hedge, and finding the time hang heavy on his hands, he took a book from his pocket, which he began calmly and leisurely to peruse, when a large bullet grazed and disturbed the grass at his feet, and induced him to move further from the heat of the battle. Again we quote Aubrey, who met him at Oxford, where the Court then was, and though ‘too young to become acquainted with so learned a doctor,’ yet he remembers well how Harvey would come to our College to the chambers of George Bathurst, tutor, who kept hens for the hatching purposes in his rooms. Harvey would break the eggs daily at intervals in order to watch the different progress of formation towards the ‘perfect chick’; and all this with a view to the medical works he was writing. How widely at variance were these calm studies compared with the wild turmoil of political and military excitement by which he was surrounded! The Wardenship of Merton College becoming vacant by the resignation of Sir Matthew Brent, a Parliamentarian, the King recommended Harvey for the vacant post, which he obtained, but did not enjoy long, for when Oxford surrendered to the Roundheads, Brent resumed his office. We cannot be surprised to hear that so loyal a subject as Harvey incurred the ire of Cromwell, and on the doctor’s return to London he found his house sacked, the furniture destroyed, and, worse than all, as he himself told Aubrey, ‘No griefe was so crucifyinge as the loss of those papers (treating of his medical experiences and experiments) which neither love nor money could replace.’ It must have been about the year 1646 that Dr. Harvey made up his mind to resign his place at Court. Many reasons were given for this step, many apologies made for his forsaking his royal master; but he was near upon seventy, and it appears natural that a man of so peaceful a nature and of such studious taste should prefer a calmer existence than that of ‘following the drum.’ His retirement not only enabled him to pursue the bent of his inclinations and to indulge in contemplation, but also to enjoy the society of his brothers, who were of that number that verily dwelt together in unity. They held their elder in honour and affection, and vied with each other in welcoming him warmly to their respective homes. His next brother Eliab seems to have been his favourite, as he made his home for the most part either at the said Eliab’s London residence of Cokaine House, near the Poultry, or at Roehampton, in Surrey. On the leads of the former dwelling the doctor was wont to pass many hours in contemplation, arranging his different stations with a view to the sun and wind. At Combe there were caverns specially constructed in the garden for the physician to meditate, as he always found darkness most conducive to thought. The thrifty Eliab took William’s financial affairs in hand, which he conducted with so much energy and discernment as to increase his brother’s income, and enable him to indulge his generous propensities towards private individuals and public institutions. He became a munificent benefactor to his beloved College of Physicians, both by gifts in his lifetime, and bequest by testament. He enlarged the buildings, added a wing, and a large hall for conference, endowed it with a library and a museum, and, in fact, was so noble in his gifts that the grateful College erected a statue in his honour, with a long and flattering inscription. But, alas! all these valuable additions, together with the whole edifice, were destroyed in the Great Fire of London. At the age of seventy-one the doctor’s energy remained so unabated, that not only did he continue his literary labours, but he travelled to Italy with his friend and disciple Sir George Brent. On the last day of June 1657 William Harvey was stricken with the palsy, and, on endeavouring to speak, found that he had lost the power to do so. He ordered his apothecary by signs to ‘lett him blood,’ but this gave him no relief, and his professional knowledge warned him that the end was approaching. He therefore sent for his brother and nephews, to whom he himself delivered some little token of affection, a watch or what not, bidding them tenderly farewell, with dumb but eloquent signs of affection. He died the same day as he was stricken. His friend Aubrey exonerates him from the false charge of having hastened his own death by drinking opium, which he occasionally used as an alleviation of pain, but said Harvey had ‘an easy passport.’
A long train of his colleagues from the Royal College attended his funeral, and Aubrey himself was one of the bearers. He was buried at Hempstead, in Essex, and was ‘lapped’ in a leaden case, which was shaped in form of the body, with a label bearing the illustrious name of William Harvey, M.D., on his breast.
The last will and testament of men who lay claim to any celebrity appear to us to merit notice as indicative of character. Harvey’s will did not in any way belie his life. He left his faithful steward and brother, Eliab Harvey, the bulk of his property in money and land, as likewise (Aubrey thinks out of tender sentiment) his silver coffee-pot; for the brothers were wont to drink coffee together at a time when it was reckoned an uncommon luxury, before coffee-houses were prevalent in England. To all his other relations he left small sums that they might purchase remembrances; to his College, and to more than one hospital, generous bequests; scarcely any one was forgotten. To his dear and learned friend Mr. Thomas Hobbes £10, to Dr. Scarborough his velvet embroidered gown, to another his case of silver-mounted surgical instruments, and so on. Nor were his faithful servants, who had tended him in sickness, forgotten; ‘the pretty young wench’ who waited on him at Oxford, and to whom Aubrey alludes in jesting terms, in spite of Harvey’s proverbial insensibility to female charms, proved a most tender nurse, and was gratefully remembered. We hear very little at any time about Mistress Harvey, or the esteem in which her husband held her, but we are told she had a parrot, whose prattle much amused the learned doctor.
He corresponded with learned men, both at home and abroad, and was linked in friendship with such men as Hobbes, Robert Boyle, Cowley, and the like. By nature he was hot-tempered and outspoken, although a courtier. He rode to visit his patients on horseback, with a servant to follow him on foot—‘a decent custom,’ Aubrey thinks, the discontinuance of which he regrets. The same authority says Harvey ‘was of the lowest stature, and an olivaster complexion, like unto wainscott; little eye, round, bright, and black, and hair like the raven, but quite white before his death,’ which could scarcely be wondered at, as he was then eighty years of age. His friend, the learned Mr. Hobbes, says that Harvey was ‘the only man, perhaps, who ever lived to see his own doctrines established in his lifetime.’ This statement, the truth of which appears more than questionable, it is easy to imagine, was put forth under the influence of mortified feeling on the part of the ‘philosopher of Malmesbury.’ We refer the reader who is curious in such research to the catalogues of the principal scientific libraries, both in England and on the Continent, for a list of this great physician’s professional works, as their names alone would enlarge in an inconvenient manner the bulk of our volume.
No. 15. THE HONOURABLE EDWARD RUSSELL.
In armour. Red sash over right shoulder. White collar, with tassels.
Long hair.
DIED 1665.
By Remée.
HE was the youngest son of Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, by Catherine Brydges. He married Penelope, daughter and co-heir of Sir Moses Hill of Hillsborough Castle, Ireland (Knight Marshal of Ulster, and ancestor of the present Marquis of Downshire), and widow of Sir William Brooke, Knight, by whom he had five sons and daughters. His second son was eventually raised to the Peerage by the title of the Earl of Oxford. Edward Russell survived his wife, and, dying in 1665, was buried at Chenies.
No. 16. WILLIAM RUSSELL, FIFTH EARL, FIRST DUKE OF BEDFORD.
In armour. Lace cravat. Wig.
BORN 1613, DIED 1700.
By Sir Godfrey Kneller.
HE was the eldest son of Francis Russell, fourth Earl of Bedford, by Catherine Brydges, daughter and co-heir of Lord Chandos. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford; and after travelling abroad for two years, we are told he returned home in 1634, a very handsome and accomplished gentleman. Of his personal beauty and noble bearing the fine portrait of William Russell, and Lord Digby, by Vandyck, bears undoubted testimony. He had been created Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Charles the First. The representative of a high-born family, and heir to a very large fortune, young Lord Russell was keenly watched by the match-makers of the day. At that time three rival beauties divided the admiration of the Court—Lady Elizabeth Cecil, Lady Dorothy Sidney, and Lady Anne Carr, the only child of the Earl and Countess of Somerset. She was born in the Tower at the time of her mother’s imprisonment for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and had been brought up in total ignorance of her parents’ ignominy. ‘The voice goes,’ says a contemporary writer, ‘that young Russell bends somewhat towards the Lady Anne Carr.’ One would not be surprised to hear that Lord Bedford was most adverse to the union. He trembled for the future welfare of his son, and the honour of his house, for heavy was the blot on the young lady’s ‘scutcheon. He promised his consent to any other union his son should project; but it was too late: Lord Russell’s choice was free no more, and the sequel proved the selection had been for his own happiness, and that of the whole family. The King interested himself in the cause of the young lovers, and sent the Duke of Lennox to mediate with Lord Bedford in the matter. Lord Somerset, with all his crimes on his head, had proved himself the most tender and devoted of fathers, giving his child an excellent and strictly virtuous education, and he made every sacrifice in his power to give her a good dowry, seeing that her poverty was an additional obstacle to the marriage in Lord Bedford’s eyes; so Somerset sold his house at Chiswick, his furniture, his plate and jewels; in fact denuded himself of almost all he had, to make settlements on Lady Anne, ‘for,’ said he to the Lord Chamberlain, ‘if one of us is to be undone by the marriage, let it be myself, rather than my own deserving child.’ And so came about this marriage, and the lovely creature, whose sweet innocent young face is familiar to all lovers of Vandyck, became the wife of Lord Russell, and the future mother of the patriot William.
Lord Russell sat in Parliament for Tavistock, having for colleague the famous Mr. Pym; but in the commencement of his career he did not take much part in debate, but was chiefly employed in carrying messages from the Lower to the Upper House.
The death of Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, caused great excitement in political circles, and the new Earl received a deputation from the House of Peers expressive of condolence, and the hope that ‘as soon as his Lordship’s sorrow would allow him, he would take his seat, for no one could better supply the place of his deceased father.’ These conjectures were confirmed, for the new Lord followed in the footsteps of his father, and in all the part he took in the coming struggles, he was ever ready to support liberal and enlightened views, and to advocate what he considered necessary reforms; withstanding undue encroachments on the part of the King. He was, however, inclined to wise and moderate views from the beginning, and deeply regretted the circumstances which had led to civil dissension and open war; but the times were too stormy, and the pressure of the political barometer too high, to allow of a middle course. Disgusted with what he considered the arbitrary measures and the obstinacy of the King, Lord Bedford now espoused the cause of the Parliament, and even accepted the post of General in their army. He besieged the Royalist forces in Sherborne Castle, and afterwards, on joining the Earl of Essex on the eve of the battle of Edgehill, he accepted, under that general, the command of the corps de reserve. His conduct in the action gained him great distinction, as it was supposed to be owing to his skill and courage that the defeat of the Parliamentarians was averted, ‘for Lord Bedford brought up very gallantly amidst a play of cannon.’ He was ever ready to propose and to facilitate every means of pacification between Charles and his people, but all these endeavours proving fruitless, and finding himself in opposition to the ultra opinions and measures of the Roundheads, he, with some other Lords, determined on joining the King at Oxford. One of his biographers says, the Earl of Bedford came to Oxford, had his introduction, made a declaration of the motives which had actuated his past conduct, and received a formal pardon under the Great Seal. The King was naturally inclined to welcome so noble an adherent, but was rather lukewarm in his manner, while the Queen and the greater part of the courtiers treated him with much discourtesy. He fought with the Royalists at the siege of Gloucester and the battle of Newbury, where the gallant Falkland was killed. The Parliament, infuriated at Lord Bedford’s secession, sequestrated his estates; but this sentence was reversed shortly after the battle of Marston Moor in 1644. The next year Lord Bedford, with Lord Carlisle and four other Peers, who had come from the King’s quarters, went to the House of Parliament and took the Covenant before the Commissioners of the Great Seal; this being the only compliance made by Lord Bedford with the faction he had abandoned. He now retired from public life, absented himself from Parliament, and sought that quiet and domestic peace in the bosom of his family, for which it may be well imagined he had often sighed amid the turmoil and strife of political and military life. He repaired to his home at Woburn Abbey, where, between the years 1645 and 1647, his royal master visited him on three separate occasions. After the execution of the King, and during the vicissitudes of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, Lord Bedford continued to live in seclusion, and it was not until the Restoration (to which event he contributed, as far as in him lay, both by his influence and his aid in pecuniary matters) that he reappeared in public. How ill was he repaid by an ungrateful and cruel King! Lord Bedford carried St. Edward’s sceptre at the coronation of Charles the Second, and some time after received the Blue Ribbon of the Garter. He belonged to a large number of loyal spirits, who, after assisting and rejoicing in the return of the lawful Sovereign, experienced the most bitter disappointment at the tyrannical and unconstitutional course pursued by Charles, and following in the steps of his father, stood up manfully against the encroachments on civil and religious liberty; conduct which was supported and nobly carried out in the House of Commons by his son William, Lord Russell, whose union with Lady Vaughan about 1669 (better known to history as Rachel, Lady Russell) was a source of unalloyed satisfaction to Lord and Lady Bedford, to whom she became a tender and devoted daughter. In the life of William, Lord Russell, we have given full details of his political career, of the animosity his independent line of conduct aroused in the minds of the King and the Duke of York, of his arrest on the false pretence of being implicated in the Rye House Plot, of his unjust trial and hurried execution, particulars of which it would be superfluous to repeat here. Lady Russell spent the early days of her widowhood, and indeed the greater part of her subsequent life, at Woburn, with her father-in-law, affording and imparting sympathy. Lord Russell’s execution took place in July 1683, and within a year his fond mother followed him to the grave. Since the death of that beloved son, Lady Bedford’s health had gradually declined; she pined away silently, almost imperceptibly; but there is little doubt her death was accelerated by a strange and unforeseen incident. She was sitting one day in the gallery at Woburn, when her attention was attracted by a pamphlet which contained the whole history of her mother’s life, her marriage and divorce from Lord Essex, and the tragedy connected with the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, together with the complicity of both parents—the mother, whose memory she knew no reason to despise, the father whom she fondly believed she had every reason to adore. The next person who entered the room found the unhappy woman senseless on the floor, the fatal book beside her. It appears from some letters of her daughter-in-law at the time, that the family not only believed that this sad incident had hastened her death, but that if her life had been spared, her reason would have been endangered.
The remainder of Lord Bedford’s life is so intimately bound up with that of his daughter-in-law and her children, that we must refer the reader to our notice of Lady Russell for further particulars, even the passage in which we have given the account of the creation of the Dukedom, which honour was doubly acceptable to the aged Duke, as a tribute to the memory of his lamented son. His love for his grandchildren, and the tender letters he writes to their mother on their account, his delight in the society of Mistress Katey, his little playfellow of nine years old, when he was past eighty, all vouch for the gentleness of heart which characterised the first Duke of Bedford. He had lived to see his son’s memory vindicated, his son’s widow honoured and sought after by every class in the kingdom, beginning with the Sovereigns, William and Mary; the attainder reversed, his grandchildren prosperous, his grandson and heir married with his sanction and approbation, and the family name, in which he had a right to glory, respected through the kingdom. He was ready to depart, and ‘now his daily prayer was to the effect that the God in whom he had so humbly and faithfully trusted would grant him an easy passage to the tomb.’ And never did any person leave this world with greater inward peace, or with less struggle and discomposure; his lamp of life was not blown out: the oil wasted by degrees, nature was spent, and he fell asleep on the 7th September 1700, aged eighty-seven. He was buried at Chenies by the side of his beloved wife.
No. 17. SIR THOMAS MYDDLETON, BART., OF CHIRK.
Brown dress. Purple sleeves. Lace cravat. Long hair.
DIED 1683.
By Russell.
HE was the son of Sir Thomas Myddleton, first Baronet, who began his military career as a Parliamentarian, afterwards became a zealous adherent of the Royal cause, and was created a Baronet in 1660. The subject of the present notice married, first, Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of Sir Thomas Wilbraham of Woodney; and, secondly, Charlotte, daughter of Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Bart.; and had an only daughter, Charlotte, married first to Edward, Earl of Warwick, and secondly to the Right Hon. Joseph Addison.
No. 18. THE HONOURABLE FRANCIS RUSSELL.
In armour. Long fair hair.
DIED 1641.
By Remée.
HE was the second son of Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, by Catherine Brydges. He married Catherine, daughter of Lord Grey de Wark, and widow of Sir Edward Moseley, Bart., and of the Lord North and Gray, by whom he had no children. Francis Russell died in France shortly before his father. He was brother to the first Countess of Bradford, of the Newport family.
