Biographical catalogue of the portraits at Weston, the seat of the Earl of Bradford

by Mary Louisa Boyle

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.