“But sairly did she rue
When he thought that she spak’ true,
And the tear-drop it blinded her e’e;
But he only loved her ‘mair and mair,’
For her spirit it was noble and free;
Oh, lassie dear, relent,
Nor let a heart be rent
That lives but for its country and thee.
* * * * *
And did she say him nay?
Oh no, he won the day.”
An autumn session brought the honeymoon to a close by the middle of August; Lady John settled down in her husband’s house in Wilton Crescent, and began married life in good earnest. She found absorbing occupation in the six children, and in looking after the comfort and welfare of a Cabinet Minister. But Lord Melbourne’s Government was defeated on the address, and after the general election that followed the Tories were in the majority. Thus, although Lord John was leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, he was of course much more free than when in office. He and his wife and the children went to Endsleigh, near Tavistock in Devonshire, a place lent him by the Duke of Bedford. It was a beautiful spot, and Lady John, who had now leisure to realise all that the affection and sympathy and care of such a man as her husband meant, used to accompany him on his shooting expeditions, much as she hated sport that consisted in killing, and on botanizing expeditions, in which she could take her full share. There were happy visits to Bowood and Woburn, Brocket, the Grove, and Minto. But residence for some months of the year in London was still imperative. Lord John had built himself a house at 37 Chesham Place, and there, in 1842, Lady Fanny bore him a son.[22] The claims of society, less pressing it is true than when her husband was in office, yet took up a good deal of her energy. The life was too much for her strength, and for some time her health seriously suffered. In the autumn of 1845 she was able to travel to Minto, but before the winter set in it was deemed advisable for her to go to Edinburgh in order to have competent medical advice and care. The illness turned out to be long and tedious, and it greatly irked her to be tied to her sofa while her husband was living through exciting times in London. He was summoned by the Queen on Peel’s resignation to form a ministry, but as Lord Grey refused to serve with Lord Palmerston, and as Lord John felt he could not go on without both, Peel returned to office, Lord John undertaking to support him in a measure for the repeal of the Corn Laws. Lady John knew that the assumption of office would be a blow to the quiet domestic life she so loved, but her patriotism enabled her to encourage her husband during the days of suspense. She wrote to him: “My mind is made up. My ambition is that you should be the head of the most moral and religious Government the country has ever had.” But she was not the less glad that for a short time at least Lord John should be free from the anxieties and heavy duties of the high office of Prime Minister.
In the beginning of 1846 Lady Russell was still too ill to leave Edinburgh, and she felt deeply the enforced absence from her husband’s side. But they managed to keep up each other’s spirits; many a rhymed nonsense letter passed between them, and Lord John would sometimes send his wife little notes in dog-Latin. Lady John was able to read and talk, and much enjoyed the visits of her Edinburgh friends, among them Lord Jeffrey. She found that conversation there had more calmness and fairness and depth than was the rule in London, where people were too much occupied with the present to trouble themselves much about the past or future. Holland House was the only place where good conversation might really be heard, and the death of Lady Holland in November 1845 had been a great blow.
As a general rule, Lady John agreed and sympathised with her husband’s views and acts. But there were exceptions when her instinct and her judgment caused her to differ. The Irish Coercion Bill of 1846 was one. She frankly wrote to him from Edinburgh on 12th March 1846 that she was convinced it would not do the slightest good, and would embitter the Irish against the English. She deplored the continual outrages and murders in Ireland, but saw a remedy only in a long course of mild and good government. Lord John replied that the best authorities thought the Bill would tend to stop the crime and murder, and that he was disinclined to throw out a Bill that might have that good effect. It was probably due to his wife’s influence that he determined to move a resolution which should at the same time pledge the House to measures of remedy and conciliation. It will be remembered that the Government was defeated on the Bill, a circumstance which led to Lord John Russell’s first period of office as Prime Minister from July 1846 to February 1852.
His wife was now sufficiently recovered to join him, and he leased a country house, Chorley Wood, near Chenies, so that she might have a quiet retreat in the neighbourhood of London. Early in the New Year she had another bad bout of illness. On 1st March 1847 the Queen offered Lord John Pembroke Lodge, in Richmond Park, for a residence for his life. The place had become vacant through the death of its occupant, the Earl of Erroll, the husband of a natural daughter of William IV. The offer was gladly accepted by the Prime Minister, and the house became their permanent abode. Strangely enough, a year or two before they had gone with some of the children for a few days’ change of air to the Star and Garter at Richmond. While strolling in the park they sat down on a bench under a big oak, whence they could look into the grounds of Pembroke Lodge, and said that it would be just the place for them. Now the wish had come true. They always managed to be there, when the House was in session, from Wednesday to Thursday and from Saturday to Monday. Sometimes Lord John rode all the way, but often when returning from town he would drive to Hammersmith Bridge, where his horse would be brought to meet him, accompanied by all the children old enough to ride on their ponies. Lady John would watch for the return of the cavalcade from a hill in the garden.
Pembroke Lodge stood in a bit of the old forest that had been enclosed with its grand old oaks and bracken. The grounds were lovely at all seasons, but especially in May, with their wealth of white lilac, laburnum, hawthorn, and wild hyacinths, the blue of which under the tender green of the trees made an enchanting sight. The house stood on rising ground and commanded lovely views of the Thames valley. The flower-garden in its setting of greenery was a delight. The lawn under the spreading cedar was the scene of many enjoyable gatherings and memorable talks, for, as has well been said, Pembroke Lodge, while in the occupation of the Russells, was “a haunt of ancient peace as well as of modern fellowship.” All who were distinguished in English politics or English literature, with eminent foreigners of every walk in life, would gather there on Sunday afternoons in summer, and from 1847 onwards a long stream of celebrities passed the portals of Pembroke Lodge, which, while it was the scene of an ideal family life, dispensed also much pleasant hospitality. Although Lady John loved a secluded life among her family, she fully realised that it would not do to go on long cut off from the world and its ways, and from the blessing of the society of real friends; she knew, too, that as things are ordered it was impossible to enjoy that blessing without some intermixture of wearisome acquaintance. But she was occasionally cast down by the weight of the tiresome conventions imposed on such hospitality. “Why,” she asks, “cannot human nature find out and rejoice in blessings of civilisation and society without encumbering them with petty etiquettes and fashions and forms which deprive them of half their value? Human nature strives and struggles and gives life itself for political freedom, while it forges social chains and fetters for itself.”
One day Baroness Bunsen would drive with the Russells from their London house in Chesham Place to Kew, make the tour of the gardens and hothouses, and then go to Pembroke Lodge to lunch, where the other guests included the Duke of Wellington, the Duc de Broglie, Lord and Lady Palmerston, and Lord Lansdowne. Indeed, the list of their guests at different times would fill several pages: Thiers and Garibaldi, Baron and Baroness Bunsen, Macaulay, Froude and Lecky, Thackeray and Dickens, Thomas Moore and Rogers, Tennyson and Browning, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, Longfellow and Lowell, Sir Richard Owen, John Tyndall and Herbert Spencer, Frederic Harrison and Justin McCarthy, Sydney Smith, Dean Stanley, and Mr. Stopford Brooke—every shade of opinion, every type of mind, was at one time or another represented.