For four years now Lord John was out of office, and his wife was therefore less burdened with anxieties and irksome duties. The autumn and winter of 1856–57 were spent on the Continent. A visit was paid to Lady John’s sister, Lady Mary Abercromby, at The Hague, where her husband was British Minister. They went on to Switzerland, settling in a villa near Lausanne. At the end of September they crossed the Simplon, and after a few days’ halt at Turin, where they made the personal acquaintance of Cavour, proceeded to Florence and took up their residence for the winter in the Villa Capponi outside the Porta San Gallo. It was Lady John’s first visit to Florence, and it can readily be imagined that she quickly fell under its charm. Besides the natural beauty of the situation of the city of flowers and its wonderful buildings and art treasures, Lady John thoroughly enjoyed the society there, finding in it more cordiality and ease than in London. There were dancing and amateur theatricals for the young people, and for their parents intercourse with the men who were working for Italy’s independence, men who would “greatly dare and greatlier persevere,” and who became welcome guests at Pembroke Lodge when they visited England.
It is beyond the scope of this little sketch to describe the large part played by Lord John Russell in the making of Italy, but it is quite certain that his wife’s enthusiasm in the cause infected him, and urged him to action. Although Lady John was not inspired to write a “Casa Guidi (or rather a Villa Capponi) Windows” her championship of the cause of Italian liberty was as warm as that of Mrs. Browning or of Swinburne, and it has been told before, how in 1859, when Lord John was Foreign Secretary under Palmerston, the finishing stroke that gave Italy her independence was really due to Lady John’s agency. Lord John understood through Cavour that Garibaldi would only retard matters if he followed up his success in Sicily by landing in Naples. As a matter of fact this was not so, Cavour being anxious for matters to come to a head without delay. Lacaita, an Italian politician who had become naturalised in England in 1855, was asked by Cavour to tell Lord John the true state of affairs so that he might use his influence with France that Garibaldi’s expedition should go forward. Lacaita immediately called on Lord John, and found him engaged with the French and Neapolitan ambassadors and unable to see him at the moment. He then insisted on seeing Lady John, who was ill in bed, told her his business, and she sent down a little pencilled note to her husband asking him to come to her at once. He arrived at her bedside immediately, in a great state of alarm, thinking she had suddenly become worse. And so England did nothing to hinder Garibaldi, and Victor Emmanuel was saluted as King of Italy in October 1860.
In 1861 Lord John accepted a peerage. He was sixty-nine years of age and had been forty-seven years in the House of Commons. He took the title of Earl Russell, as he desired to retain the name by which he had been so long known. In the spring of 1864 Garibaldi lunched at Pembroke Lodge. It was a lovely sunny day, Richmond was en fête, the Park full of people, and the approach to Pembroke Lodge was lined by the school-children waving flags and cheering. Lady Russell recorded in her diary that they had much interesting conversation with him, and that there was simple dignity in every word he uttered.
On Palmerston’s death in 1865 Earl Russell once again became Prime Minister. In June 1866 the Ministry were defeated, Russell resigned and was never again in office. The autumn and winter (1866–67) were spent in Italy. While in Venice the Russells witnessed the entry of Victor Emmanuel by water as the King of all Italy, and felt the thrill that went through thousands and thousands of Italian hearts as the Sovereign passed before them in his gondola.
The next years passed calmly and pleasantly. From October 1869 to April 1870 the Russells took the [Villa Garbarino] at San Remo, enjoying the quiet life, the beautiful scenery, the delightful climate, and the pleasant society of English friends staying there or merely passing through, and of some of the Italian residents. Strangely enough their landlord, the Marchese Garbarino, was a great patriot, and had decorated his drawing-room ceiling with portraits of Cavour, Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Lord John Russell. Among their visitors were the Crown Princess of Prussia and Princess Louis of Hesse. Lady John was delighted with their informal ways; she found them as merry and as simple as if they had had no royalty about them, and she was especially struck with their wide liberal opinions on education.
On their way back Lord and Lady Russell halted at Paris and stayed ten days at the English Embassy. They dined at the Tuileries with the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Eugénie. At the dinner the Emperor told his guests of a riddle he had asked the Empress: “Quelle est la différence entre toi et un miroir?” She replied that she did not know. “Le miroir réfléchit; tu ne réfléchis pas,” explained Napoleon with more wit than politeness. But his Consort retorted, “Et quelle est la différence entre toi et un miroir?” The Emperor could not tell. “Le miroir est poli, et tu ne l’es pas,” was the witty answer to that riddle. In the course of their visit the Russells met many distinguished persons.
On her return to England and English society, Lady Russell was struck with the superiority of its best to that of other nations, but at the same time she found that there was in all classes in this country a larger proportion of vulgarity—ostentatious, aristocratic, and coarse. She was much disturbed by the Franco-German War; considered France was in the wrong at first, but that both France and Germany were in the wrong after Sedan, when peace ought to have been made. She hated war, and looked forward to a day, scarcely closer now than it was in 1870, when an arsenal would be an object of curiosity, and people would thank God that they did not live in an age “when sovereigns and rulers could command man to destroy his brother-man.”
The autumn was spent in Switzerland and the winter at Cannes. Lord Russell was beginning to fail. He had no special complaint, no pain or chronic ailment, but old age was visibly weakening both body and mind. He was able (in 1872) to go down to the House of Lords for an important debate, and to give the Presidential address to the Historical Society, but writing, walking, reading, talking easily tired him. Until his death on 28th May 1878, Lady Russell’s time was chiefly occupied in tending him. And these last years were filled with sorrows. Besides having to look on at the decay of her husband’s mental and physical powers, she had to mourn in 1874 the death of her daughter-in-law, Lady Amberley, and her little daughter. The summer of that year was spent at Tennyson’s house at Aldworth, near Haslemere, placed at their disposal by the poet. In January 1876 Lord Amberley died at the early age of thirty-three, and his two sons came to live permanently at Pembroke Lodge with their grandparents. On all these sad occasions Queen Victoria wrote touching letters of condolence to Lady Russell. On 28th May 1878, after thirty-seven years of happy married life, Lord Russell died. Burial in the Abbey was offered, but, in accordance with his wish, he was buried in the family vault at Chenies, where his first wife, his son, his daughter-in-law, and his granddaughter were already laid.
Lady Russell survived her husband for twenty years, but the “golden joys of perfect companionship which made the hours fly” when they were together were over. Yet in the children who remained to her she found consolation, and in the care of her grandchildren she had the occupation and interests that exactly suited her. The Queen permitted her to remain at Pembroke Lodge, the home that had seen her joys and sorrows and hopes, the chances and changes of her life, and that was bound up with innumerable memories, so that she was still able to look after the school at Petersham. Some verses written in February 1879, on the occasion of her stepdaughter Georgiana’s[23] birthday, from which I may quote a few lines, sufficiently indicate the state of her mind:
“Hushed now is the music! and hushed be my weeping
For days that return not and light that hath fled.
No more from their rest may I summon the sleeping,
Or linger to gaze on the years that are dead.