* * * * *
Lord Charles now retired to his home at Woburn, Bedfordshire, where
he spent the nineteen years of his remaining life. He had always
been devoted to the duties and amusements of the county, and his
two main joys were cricket and hunting. He was elected to M.C.C. in
1827, and for twenty years before his death I had been its senior
member. Lilywhite once said to him: "For true cricket, give _me_
bowling, _Pilch_ in, _Box_ at the wicket, and your Lordship looking
on."[*] He was a good though uncertain shot, but in the saddle he
was supreme--a consummate horseman, and an unsurpassed judge of
a hound. He hunted regularly till he was eighty-one, irregularly
still later, and rode till his last illness began. Lord Ribblesdale
writes: "The last time I had the good fortune to meet your father
we went hunting together with the Oakley Hounds, four or five years
before his death. We met at a place called Cranfield Court, and
Lord Charles was riding a young mare, five years old--or was she
only four?--which kicked a hound, greatly to his disgust! She was
not easy to ride, nor did she look so, but he rode her with the
ease of long proficiency--not long years--and his interest in all
that goes to make up a day's hunting was as full of zest and youth
as I recollect his interest used to be in all that made up a
cricket-match in my Harrow days."
[Footnote *: See _Lords and the M.C.C._, p. 86.]
In religion Lord Charles Russell was an Evangelical, and he was
a frequent speaker on religious platforms. In politics he was an
ardent Liberal; always (except in that soon-repented heresy about
Free Trade) rather in advance of his party; a staunch adherent
of Mr. Gladstone, and a convinced advocate of Home Rule, though
he saw from the outset that the first Home Rule Bill, without
Chamberlain's support, was, as he said, "No go." He took an active
part in electioneering, from the distant days when, as a Westminster
boy, he cheered for Sir Francis Burdett, down to September, 1892, when
he addressed his last meeting in support of Mr. Howard Whitbread,
then Liberal candidate for South Bedfordshire. A speech which he
delivered at the General Election of 1886, denouncing the "impiety"
of holding that the Irish were incapable of self-government, won the
enthusiastic applause of Mr. Gladstone. When slow-going Liberals
complained of too-rapid reforms, he used to say: "When I was a
boy, our cry was 'Universal Suffrage, Triennial Parliaments, and
the Ballot.' That was seventy years ago, and we have only got one
of the three yet."
In local matters, he was always on the side of the poor and the
oppressed, and a sturdy opponent of all aggressions on their rights.
"Footpaths," he wrote, "are a precious right of the poor, and
consequently much encroached on."
It is scarcely decent for a son to praise his father, but even a
son may be allowed to quote the tributes which his father's death
evoked. Let some of these tributes end my tale.
_June_ 29_th_, 1894.
My DEAR G. RUSSELL,
I am truly grieved to learn this sad news.
It is the disappearance of an illustrious figure to
us, but of much more, I fear, to you.
Yours most sincerely,
ROSEBERY.
_June_ 30_th_, 1894.