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.