After Lady Russell's death a few friends decided--unknown to her family, who were touched by this mark of respect--to put up a tablet to her memory and hold a Memorial Service in the Free Church at Richmond, Surrey. The tablet, which is of beaten copper, beautifully worked, bears the following inscription:--
In memory of Frances Anna Maria, daughter of Gilbert, second Earl of Minto, and widow of Lord John Russell, who was born November 15, 1815, and died January 17, 1898. In gratitude to God for her noble life this tablet is placed by her fellow-worshippers.
The Memorial Service was held on July 14, 1900, when the tablet was unveiled and the following address was delivered by Mr. Frederic Harrison.
Now that our gathering of to-day has given full scope to the loving sorrow and filial piety of the children, descendants, and family of her whom we meet to commemorate and honour--now that the minister, whom she was accustomed to hear, and the worshippers, with whom she was wont to join in praise and prayer, have recorded their solemn union in the same sacred memory, I crave leave to offer my humble tribute of devotion as representing the general circle of her friends, and the far wider circle of the public to whom she was known only by her life, her character, her nobility of soul, and her benefactions.
I do not presume to speak of that beauty of nature which Frances Countess Russell showed in the sanctity of the family, in the close intimacy of her private friends. Others have done this far more truly, and will continue to bear witness to her life whilst this generation and the next shall survive. My only title to join my voice to-day with that of her children and of this congregation resides in the fact that my memory of her goes back over so long a period; that I have known her under circumstances, first, of the highest public activity, and then again, in a time of severe retirement and private simplicity; that I have seen her in days of happiness and in days of mourning; at the height of her influence and dignity in the eyes of our nation and of the nations about us, as well as in her days of grief and disappointment at the failure of her hopes, and the break up of the causes she had at heart. And I have known her always, in light or in gloom, in joy or in misery, the same brave, fearless, natural, and true heart--come fair or foul, come triumph or defeat.
Yes! it was my privilege to have known Lady Russell in the lifetime of the eminent statesman whose name she bore, and whose life of toil in the public service she inspired; I knew them five-and-thirty years ago, when he was at the head of the State Government and immersed in public cares. And I am one of those who can bear witness to the simple dignity with which she adorned that high station and office, and the beautiful affection and quiet peace of the home-life she maintained, like a Roman matron, when her husband was called to serve the State. And it so happened that I passed part of the last summer that she lived to see, here in Richmond, within a short walk of her house. There I saw her constantly and held many conversations with her upon public affairs; and perhaps those were amongst the last occasions on which her powerful sense and heroic spirit had full play before the fatal illness which supervened in that very autumn.
I do not hesitate to speak of her powerful sense and her heroic spirit, for she united the statesman-like insight into political problems with the unflinching courage to stand by the cause of truth, humanity, and justice. She was not impulsive at all, not hasty in forming her decisions, still less did she seek publicity or take pleasure in heading a movement. But, with the great experience of politicians and of political things which in her long life and her rare opportunities she had acquired, she saw straight to the heart of so many vexed problems of our day; and when once convinced of the truth, she held fast to it with a noble intrepidity of soul. In a life more or less conversant with public men now for forty years past, I have rarely known either man or woman who had a more sound judgment in great public questions. And I have known none who surpassed her in courage, in directness, and in fixity of purpose. No sense that she and her friends had to meet overwhelming odds would ever make her faint-hearted. No desertion by friends and old comrades ever caused her to waver. No despair ever touched that stalwart soul, however dark the outlook might appear; for it was her faith that no right or just cause was ever really lost, however for the time it were defeated and contemned.
Lady Frances Elliot, as she was before marriage, came of a race of soldiers, governors, and tried servants of the State, and she married into a race which has long stood in the front rank of the historic servants of the Crown and of the people. But neither the house of Elliot nor that of Russell in so many generations ever bred man or woman with a keener sense of public duty, a more generous nature, and a more magnanimous soul. In the annals of that famous house, whose traditions are part of the history of England, there has been no finer example of the old motto, noblesse oblige, if we understand it to mean--those who have high place inherit with it heavy responsibilities. That idea was the breath of her life to Countess Russell, as assuredly it was also to her husband, and she whose memory we keep sacred to-day is worthy to take her place beside that Rachel Lady Russell of old, who, more than two centuries ago, suffered so deeply in the cause of freedom and of conscience; she whose blood runs in the veins of the children who to-day revere the memory of their mother.
The Italians call a man of heroic nature--a Garibaldi or a Manin--uomo antico--"one of the ancient type"--one whom we rarely see in our modern days of getting on in the world and following the popular cry. I have never heard the phrase applied to a lady, and, perhaps, donna antica might be held to bear a double sense. But we need some such phrase to describe the fine quality of the spirit which lit up the whole nature of Frances Countess Russell. She had within her that rare flame which we attribute to the martyrs of our sacred and secular histories--that power of inspiring those whom she impressed with the resolve to do the right, to seek the truth, to defend the oppressed, at all cost, and against all odds.