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