Lady Russell

“ Anne Russell is concluded; for my Lady Russell was at court, to desire the Queen’s leave, which is obtained.”
But on the 16th of May we are assured—“The marriage between Lord Herbert and Mrs. Anne Russell is at a stay, till it please her Majesty to appoint a day.” And further, that—“It will be honourably solemnized; and many take care to do her all the possible honour they can devise. The feast,” it is added, “will be in Blackfriars, my Lady Russell making exceeding preparations for it.” ”

“ Surely no fair woman ever won greater mediators as quickly as did poor Lady Betty.
Lady Russell hoped little, however, from their efforts, though she said not a word of this to the distracted young wife but, instead, pointed out the advantages of waiting until they could appeal to William quite alone—as two women in distress—and with no connection with any political embroglio. Indeed, the older woman knew the king well enough to be sure that his heart might be touched by a woman’s grief, though in affairs of state he could be adamant. ”

“ In Lady Russell’s view, it was perfectly natural that Mr Elliot, at a mature time of life, should feel it a most desirable object, and what would very generally recommend him among all sensible people, to be on good terms with the head of his family; the simplest process in the world of time upon a head naturally clear, and only erring in the heyday of youth. Anne presumed, however, still to smile about it, and at last to mention “Elizabeth.” Lady Russell listened, and looked, and made only this cautious reply:—“Elizabeth! very well; time will explain.” ”

“ Elizabeth: a shrewish, selfish old politician. Who of all these had loved? Arria: and Pætus dying, she could not love. Lady Russell: she lived and mourned. I looked but at one side of the argument, and drew my inferences from that, but they satisfied me. Soon I saw the dawn stretch its opal tints over the distant hills, and tinge the tree-tops with bloom. I heard the half-articulate music of birds, stirring in their nests; but before the sounds of higher life began to stir I had gone to sleep, firmly resolved to ride to the Lake, and to give Harry Tempest no opportunity to speak to me alone. ”

“ The talk rose and fell; some woman laughed, the shallow cackling laugh that comes from the empty heart and the empty head; the crackling of thorns under a pot.
An usher bowed before Lady Russell and she held out her hand to Betty. The duke smiled again reassuringly; and the two women walked slowly through the throng, passed in at a low doorway, and in a moment there was stillness. ”

“ Every one has heard of Rachel, Lady Russell, widow of the patriot and martyr, William Lord Russell.
As Lord Southampton was married a second and a third time, it might have been thought that his intimacy with the Ruvigny family cooled down to the intercourse of mere acquaintanceship. But such was not the case. The children of his first wife were his heiresses — their only surviving half-sister being, in right of her mother, rich and independent. A great man with Elizabeth and Rachel was their mother’s brother, Henri, Marquis de Ruvigny. ”

“ He is not at all a well-bred young man. I am sure you will not like him.”
“There we differ, Mary,” said Anne. “I think Lady Russell would like him. I think she would be so much pleased with his mind, that she would very soon see no deficiency in his manner.”
“So do I, Anne,” said Charles. “I am sure Lady Russell would like him. He is just Lady Russell’s sort. Give him a book, and he will read all day long.” ”

“ It was always thought that the Lord Russell had loved not only well, but wisely; for the Lady Anne was ever a faithful wife, and a loving, tender mother. It was not until some years after her marriage, that the Lady Russell discovered how the consent of the earl of Bedford had been obtained. Till then, she knew not that this consent had been withheld, until the Earl of Somerset should give his daughter a large sum as her marriage portion:—the Earl of Bedford calculating upon the difficulty, nay almost impossibility, of his ever raising this sum. ”

“ Lady Russell had to go to London to make the necessary arrangements, and felt it right to go more into society, though she said that going to parties was hard for one with a heavy and weary mind. The marriage was delayed by the bride having an attack of measles, and when it did take place, the young couple only spent three weeks together under Lady Russell’s care, and then Lord Cavendish was sent to finish his education by travelling on the continent for two years. A few years later Lady Russell married her younger daughter to the eldest son of the Duke of Rutland, the best match in England. ”

“ From Sir Edward Mackie, Lady Russell learned that morning the whole story, and her heart was touched by the despair of the young countess, suffering as she had suffered. Though of all women Lady Russell was the last one to sympathize with a Jacobite, yet her compassion moved her to forgive her enemies, and from her Lady Clancarty might look for more help than from any one, for she was an honored and revered friend of King William’s. ”

“ King William may turn as deaf an ear to me,” cried the young countess, with a quivering voice; “was ever fate more cruel? If he is beheaded I shall die!”
Lady Russell said nothing, but gave her so eloquent a look that Betty broke down.
“Forgive me!” she cried, “oh, forgive me! How selfish grief makes us; I forgot—”
“I lived,” said the widow quietly.
Betty fell to weeping silently.
“’Twould be worse to live!” she moaned.
“It is worse,” retorted Lady Russell; “grief eats into the heart like a canker; but I lived for his son!” ”

“ Her knowledge of her father and Elizabeth, inclined her to think that the sacrifice of one pair of horses would be hardly less painful than of both, and so on, through the whole list of Lady Russell's too gentle reductions.
How Anne's more rigid requisitions might have been taken, is of little consequence. Lady Russell's had no success at all—could not be put up with—were not to be borne. "What! Every comfort of life knocked off! Journeys, London, servants, horses, table,—contractions and restrictions every where. To live no longer with the decencies even of a private gentleman! ”

“ It was now some years since Anne had begun to learn that she and her excellent friend could sometimes think differently; and it did not surprise her, therefore, that Lady Russell should see nothing suspicious or inconsistent, nothing to require more motives than appeared, in Mr Elliot's great desire of a reconciliation. ”

“ The door was flung open and Devonshire’s messenger, plashed with mire from hard riding, bowed at the threshold, holding up a letter.
“From his grace to Lady Russell,” he said.
Lady Russell tore it open with shaking hands but Betty did not stir; she stood like [Pg 294] a statue; she thought her heart had stopped beating. The older woman clasped the paper to her bosom, murmuring a thanksgiving.
“He is saved!” she cried joyfully, holding out the letter to Lady Clancarty, “your husband is saved! The king grants his life, but exiles him.” ”

“ The excellent lady Russell, who was perhaps the very best woman in the world, lived in these profligate times.
Mary, the wife of William the Third, made industry, domestic virtue, and modest apparel, fashionable [Pg 143] by her own example; and during Anne’s reign the social intercourse of the sexes was polite and pleasant without being profligate. It is true that literature was not the order of the day; for the women of that period were as ignorant of their own language, as they had formerly been learned in the classics ”

“ RICHARD LOVETT, M.A. RACHEL, LADY RUSSEL. I. It is not often that we find the names of person illustrious in the annals of this world also pre-eminent in the records of the kingdom of heaven. "Not many wise, not many noble are called;" but sometimes the wisest and noblest appear among the truest and best of Christians. Such were, in our English history, William, Lord Russell, patriot and martyr, and his wife Rachel, Lady Russell, whom all agree in regarding as at once a heroine and a saint. ”

“ At seventeen he was sent to travel abroad, as Lady Russell believed that to “live well in the world, it is for certain necessary to know the world well.” During his travels he caused her some anxiety for he took to gambling, and lost so much money that when he came home, she had to ask his grandfather for money to pay his debts. Shortly afterwards his grandfather died, and he became Duke of Bedford. Now it seemed as if Lady Russell’s anxieties were over, since her three children were all happily married, but sorrow followed her to the last. ”

“ Lady John Russell herself is an abiding example of the best type of woman, quick to sympathise, ready to counsel, who, while admiring her husband as a statesman and giving him every assistance in his public career, admired the man more than the politician. ”

“ There is a side of Lady Russell's mind which her letters do not adequately represent. She was a great reader, and in her letters (written off with surprising rapidity) she does not often say much about the books she was so fond of discussing in talk. Among novelists, Sir Walter Scott was perhaps the one she read most often; Jane Austen too was a favourite; but she also much enjoyed many of the later novelists, especially Charles Dickens and George Eliot. ”

“ That Lady Russell, of steady age and character, and extremely well provided for, should have no thought of a second marriage, needs no apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably discontented when a woman does marry again, than when she does not; ”

“ Ah, my lord, when will the Traitor’s Gate close, save on a woman’s bleeding heart?” and she kissed the young countess on brow and cheek.
[Pg 273] “My husband,” faltered Betty, “you know, dear madam, that he is a Jacobite?”
“I know it,” Lady Russell answered sadly; “but he is also a brave man and, as I know, the idol of one woman’s heart. Alas, my lord,” she added gravely to Devonshire, “do you love us well enough to make amends for the broken hearts—the faithful broken hearts?” ”

“ I long that every one should know as we do what the extraordinary beauty of that daily life was. I always think it was the most perfect man's life that I ever knew of; and that could better bear the full flood of light than any other.
In January, 1890, after nearly twelve years' break in her diary, Lady Russell began writing again a few words of daily record. On the 6th she mentions a "most agreeable" visit from Mr. Froude; the same day she received Mr. Justin McCarthy to dinner, and adds that the talk was "more Shakespeare than Ireland." ”

“ Her only son, Wriothesley, when Marquis of Tavistock, she married in 1695, at the age of fifteen, to a wealthy Surrey heiress, Elizabeth, daughter of John Howland of Streatham. He, too, died in 1711, having succeeded his grandfather as second Duke of Bedford in 1700. The retirement in which Lady Russell spent the early years of her widowhood did not prevent her from following the course of events with keen interest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in others can equal, and Lady Russell had been less gifted in this part of understanding than her young friend. ”

“ She drew up, with Devonshire’s help, a formal petition to the king, not trusting to any verbal or interrupted statement of the case, and at last, just when the young countess was reduced almost to madness, she signified her readiness to accompany her to court.
The king was at Kensington and the two set out, a little before noon, in Lady Russell’s carriage, for the palace. Betty had worn her heart out with grief and impatience; she had not slept and she had scarcely tasted food, except under compulsion, and was a shadow of herself—but still a beautiful one. ”

“ MINTO, November 4, 1838
This morning brought us the sad, sad news of the death of Lady John Russell. God give strength to her poor unhappy husband, and watch over his dear little motherless children.
The only event of importance which occurred in the family during 1838 was the marriage of the eldest daughter, Mary, to Ralph Abercromby, son of the Speaker and afterwards Lord Dunfermline. It was a very happy marriage, but Lady Fanny missed her sister very much, and her accounts of the wedding and the last days before it are mixed with regrets. ”

“ How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!—Lady Russell had another excellent one at hand, for being extremely glad that Sir Walter and his family were to remove from the country. ”

“ Poor Lady Betty, she wept over it and caressed it like a living thing, for he had touched it; and she hid the shamrock and the ring in her bosom.
In this distracted state she waited forty-eight hours longer, until she knew that the three dukes had obtained no definite promise from the king and that the Earl of Sunderland, who was supposed to command his majesty’s ear, was proclaiming everywhere his approval of Spencer’s deed. The cloud grew darker rather than brighter, and in her agony she would have gone alone to Kensington, for Lady Russell’s caution seemed to her only distracting delay. ”