Brydges. He married Penelope, daughter and co-heir of Sir Moses Hill of
Hillsborough Castle, Ireland (Knight Marshal of Ulster, and ancestor of
the present Marquis of Downshire), and widow of Sir William Brooke,
Knight, by whom he had five sons and daughters. His second son was
eventually raised to the Peerage by the title of the Earl of Oxford.
Edward Russell survived his wife, and, dying in 1665, was buried at
Chenies.
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No. 16. WILLIAM RUSSELL, FIFTH EARL, FIRST DUKE OF BEDFORD.
_In armour. Lace cravat. Wig._
BORN 1613, DIED 1700.
BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
HE was the eldest son of Francis Russell, fourth Earl of Bedford, by
Catherine Brydges, daughter and co-heir of Lord Chandos. He was educated
at Magdalen College, Oxford; and after travelling abroad for two years,
we are told he returned home in 1634, a very handsome and accomplished
gentleman. Of his personal beauty and noble bearing the fine portrait of
William Russell, and Lord Digby, by Vandyck, bears undoubted testimony.
He had been created Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Charles the
First. The representative of a high-born family, and heir to a very
large fortune, young Lord Russell was keenly watched by the match-makers
of the day. At that time three rival beauties divided the admiration of
the Court—Lady Elizabeth Cecil, Lady Dorothy Sidney, and Lady Anne Carr,
the only child of the Earl and Countess of Somerset. She was born in the
Tower at the time of her mother’s imprisonment for the murder of Sir
Thomas Overbury, and had been brought up in total ignorance of her
parents’ ignominy. ‘The voice goes,’ says a contemporary writer, ‘that
young Russell bends somewhat towards the Lady Anne Carr.’ One would not
be surprised to hear that Lord Bedford was most adverse to the union. He
trembled for the future welfare of his son, and the honour of his house,
for heavy was the blot on the young lady’s ‘scutcheon. He promised his
consent to any other union his son should project; but it was too late:
Lord Russell’s choice was free no more, and the sequel proved the
selection had been for his own happiness, and that of the whole family.
The King interested himself in the cause of the young lovers, and sent
the Duke of Lennox to mediate with Lord Bedford in the matter. Lord
Somerset, with all his crimes on his head, had proved himself the most
tender and devoted of fathers, giving his child an excellent and
strictly virtuous education, and he made every sacrifice in his power to
give her a good dowry, seeing that her poverty was an additional
obstacle to the marriage in Lord Bedford’s eyes; so Somerset sold his
house at Chiswick, his furniture, his plate and jewels; in fact denuded
himself of almost all he had, to make settlements on Lady Anne, ‘for,’
said he to the Lord Chamberlain, ‘if one of us is to be undone by the
marriage, let it be myself, rather than my own deserving child.’ And so
came about this marriage, and the lovely creature, whose sweet innocent
young face is familiar to all lovers of Vandyck, became the wife of Lord
Russell, and the future mother of the patriot William.
Lord Russell sat in Parliament for Tavistock, having for colleague the
famous Mr. Pym; but in the commencement of his career he did not take
much part in debate, but was chiefly employed in carrying messages from
the Lower to the Upper House.
The death of Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, caused great excitement in
political circles, and the new Earl received a deputation from the House
of Peers expressive of condolence, and the hope that ‘as soon as his
Lordship’s sorrow would allow him, he would take his seat, for no one
could better supply the place of his deceased father.’ These conjectures
were confirmed, for the new Lord followed in the footsteps of his
father, and in all the part he took in the coming struggles, he was ever
ready to support liberal and enlightened views, and to advocate what he
considered necessary reforms; withstanding undue encroachments on the
part of the King. He was, however, inclined to wise and moderate views
from the beginning, and deeply regretted the circumstances which had led
to civil dissension and open war; but the times were too stormy, and the
pressure of the political barometer too high, to allow of a middle
course. Disgusted with what he considered the arbitrary measures and the
obstinacy of the King, Lord Bedford now espoused the cause of the
Parliament, and even accepted the post of General in their army. He
besieged the Royalist forces in Sherborne Castle, and afterwards, on
joining the Earl of Essex on the eve of the battle of Edgehill, he
accepted, under that general, the command of the _corps de reserve_. His
conduct in the action gained him great distinction, as it was supposed
to be owing to his skill and courage that the defeat of the
Parliamentarians was averted, ‘for Lord Bedford brought up very
gallantly amidst a play of cannon.’ He was ever ready to propose and to
facilitate every means of pacification between Charles and his people,
but all these endeavours proving fruitless, and finding himself in
opposition to the _ultra_ opinions and measures of the Roundheads, he,
with some other Lords, determined on joining the King at Oxford. One of
his biographers says, the Earl of Bedford came to Oxford, had his
introduction, made a declaration of the motives which had actuated his
past conduct, and received a formal pardon under the Great Seal. The
King was naturally inclined to welcome so noble an adherent, but was
rather lukewarm in his manner, while the Queen and the greater part of
the courtiers treated him with much discourtesy. He fought with the
Royalists at the siege of Gloucester and the battle of Newbury, where
the gallant Falkland was killed. The Parliament, infuriated at Lord
Bedford’s secession, sequestrated his estates; but this sentence was
reversed shortly after the battle of Marston Moor in 1644. The next year
Lord Bedford, with Lord Carlisle and four other Peers, who had come from
the King’s quarters, went to the House of Parliament and took the
Covenant before the Commissioners of the Great Seal; this being the only
compliance made by Lord Bedford with the faction he had abandoned. He
now retired from public life, absented himself from Parliament, and
sought that quiet and domestic peace in the bosom of his family, for
which it may be well imagined he had often sighed amid the turmoil and
strife of political and military life. He repaired to his home at Woburn
Abbey, where, between the years 1645 and 1647, his royal master visited
him on three separate occasions. After the execution of the King, and
during the vicissitudes of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, Lord
Bedford continued to live in seclusion, and it was not until the
Restoration (to which event he contributed, as far as in him lay, both
by his influence and his aid in pecuniary matters) that he reappeared in
public. How ill was he repaid by an ungrateful and cruel King! Lord
Bedford carried St. Edward’s sceptre at the coronation of Charles the
Second, and some time after received the Blue Ribbon of the Garter. He
belonged to a large number of loyal spirits, who, after assisting and
rejoicing in the return of the lawful Sovereign, experienced the most
bitter disappointment at the tyrannical and unconstitutional course
pursued by Charles, and following in the steps of his father, stood up
manfully against the encroachments on civil and religious liberty;
conduct which was supported and nobly carried out in the House of
Commons by his son William, Lord Russell, whose union with Lady Vaughan
about 1669 (better known to history as Rachel, Lady Russell) was a
source of unalloyed satisfaction to Lord and Lady Bedford, to whom she
became a tender and devoted daughter. In the life of William, Lord
Russell, we have given full details of his political career, of the
animosity his independent line of conduct aroused in the minds of the
King and the Duke of York, of his arrest on the false pretence of being
implicated in the Rye House Plot, of his unjust trial and hurried
execution, particulars of which it would be superfluous to repeat here.
Lady Russell spent the early days of her widowhood, and indeed the
greater part of her subsequent life, at Woburn, with her father-in-law,
affording and imparting sympathy. Lord Russell’s execution took place in
July 1683, and within a year his fond mother followed him to the grave.
Since the death of that beloved son, Lady Bedford’s health had gradually
declined; she pined away silently, almost imperceptibly; but there is
little doubt her death was accelerated by a strange and unforeseen
incident. She was sitting one day in the gallery at Woburn, when her
attention was attracted by a pamphlet which contained the whole history
of her mother’s life, her marriage and divorce from Lord Essex, and the
tragedy connected with the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, together with
the complicity of both parents—the mother, whose memory she knew no
reason to despise, the father whom she fondly believed she had every
reason to adore. The next person who entered the room found the unhappy
woman senseless on the floor, the fatal book beside her. It appears from
some letters of her daughter-in-law at the time, that the family not
only believed that this sad incident had hastened her death, but that if
her life had been spared, her reason would have been endangered.
The remainder of Lord Bedford’s life is so intimately bound up with that
of his daughter-in-law and her children, that we must refer the reader
to our notice of Lady Russell for further particulars, even the passage
in which we have given the account of the creation of the Dukedom, which
honour was doubly acceptable to the aged Duke, as a tribute to the
memory of his lamented son. His love for his grandchildren, and the
tender letters he writes to their mother on their account, his delight
in the society of Mistress Katey, his little playfellow of nine years
old, when he was past eighty, all vouch for the gentleness of heart
which characterised the first Duke of Bedford. He had lived to see his
son’s memory vindicated, his son’s widow honoured and sought after by
every class in the kingdom, beginning with the Sovereigns, William and
Mary; the attainder reversed, his grandchildren prosperous, his grandson
and heir married with his sanction and approbation, and the family name,
in which he had a right to glory, respected through the kingdom. He was
ready to depart, and ‘now his daily prayer was to the effect that the
God in whom he had so humbly and faithfully trusted would grant him an
easy passage to the tomb.’ And never did any person leave this world
with greater inward peace, or with less struggle and discomposure; his
lamp of life was not blown out: the oil wasted by degrees, nature was
spent, and he fell asleep on the 7th September 1700, aged eighty-seven.
He was buried at Chenies by the side of his beloved wife.
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No. 17. SIR THOMAS MYDDLETON, BART., OF CHIRK.
_Brown dress. Purple sleeves. Lace cravat. Long hair._
DIED 1683.
BY RUSSELL.
HE was the son of Sir Thomas Myddleton, first Baronet, who began his
military career as a Parliamentarian, afterwards became a zealous
adherent of the Royal cause, and was created a Baronet in 1660. The
subject of the present notice married, first, Elizabeth, daughter and
co-heir of Sir Thomas Wilbraham of Woodney; and, secondly, Charlotte,
daughter of Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Bart.; and had an only daughter,
Charlotte, married first to Edward, Earl of Warwick, and secondly to the
Right Hon. Joseph Addison.
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No. 18. THE HONOURABLE FRANCIS RUSSELL.
_In armour. Long fair hair._
DIED 1641.
BY REMÉE.
HE was the second son of Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, by Catherine
Brydges. He married Catherine, daughter of Lord Grey de Wark, and widow
of Sir Edward Moseley, Bart., and of the Lord North and Gray, by whom he
had no children. Francis Russell died in France shortly before his
father. He was brother to the first Countess of Bradford, of the Newport
family.
[Illustration]
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[Illustration]
BREAKFAST-ROOM.
[Illustration]
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BREAKFAST-ROOM.
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No. 1. PRINCE MAURICE.
_As a boy. In the character of Cupid._
BORN 1620, DIED 1653.
BY HONTHORST.
HE was the fourth son of Frederic, Elector Palatine (King of Bohemia),
by Elizabeth, Princess of England, daughter of James the First. After
the battle of Prague, which wrecked their fortunes, the unhappy ex-King
and Queen were driven from their palace at Prague, compelled to fly for
their lives by unfrequented roads, and through the blinding snowstorms,
which impeded the progress of their coach, and from which the fugitives
were obliged to alight, and take horse.
Elizabeth displayed the utmost courage and fortitude, despite the
intensity of the weather and the delicacy of her health, and mounted
gladly on a pillion behind a young English volunteer of the name of
Hopton, who would often speak in after-days with love and veneration of
his royal fellow-traveller, the Queen of Hearts, the only sovereignty
that was now left her. In their distress the unhappy pair sought about
for some place of shelter where Elizabeth might be cared for in her hour
of approaching trial and her husband appealed to his brother-in-law,
George William of Brandenburg, for the loan of one of his castles,
either of Spandau or Custrine. The answer was a grudging permission to
inhabit the latter residence, although the owner assured Frederic it was
no place for a Queen just fresh from a palace; that it was not
commodious or safe from the incursions of their enemies; and, moreover,
they would be exposed to cold and famine, as there was no fuel and no
food. The fugitives found this account but too true, and even this surly
permission would have been withheld but for the intercession of the
British Envoy, Wotton. Moreover, their parsimonious host bargained with
his needy relatives to defray all expenses, but Elizabeth’s condition
allowed of no alternative. Three days after their arrival Prince Maurice
was born in this dreary old barrack, with its bare walls and unfurnished
interior—a strange contrast to the scene of splendour and festivity
which characterised the birth of his brother Rupert. Before the proper
time had elapsed that it was advisable for her to travel, the ex-Queen
was hurried away, accompanied by little Rupert, to Wolfenbüttel, and
afterwards to the Hague, where she found a generous protector and
devoted friend in the Stadtholder; the new-born infant being despatched
to the care of his widowed grandmother, the Electress Juliana, in Polish
Russia. Poor child! he had not the traditional good fortune of one born
on Christmas Day. From his earliest childhood he bore his brother Rupert
the most devoted affection, and through their lives they were brothers
in very truth—brothers in arms and affection; their paths strangely
intertwined for soldiers of fortune; they were both prematurely brave,
and early initiated into the profession they so much adorned. When
together at the siege of Breda, Maurice, waking in the night, heard a
noise for which he could not account, so he roused Rupert, and they
crept out together in the dark, and were just in time to save the
garrison from a surprise. In 1638 Prince Maurice prosecuted his studies
at a French University, and in 1642 gained permission to accompany
Rupert, who had been appointed to a high command in the army of their
uncle, Charles the First. This gallant pair vied with each other in
loyalty and devotion to the English King. Their bravery, their exploits,
the various commands they filled, the numerous actions in which they
fought (frequently side by side), all these incidents belong to the
chronicles of the civil wars of the period. In 1646 the brothers left
England, Prince Rupert proceeding to St. Germain to join the
Queen-mother there in exile, while Prince Maurice embarked for Holland.
The subsequent life of this Prince appears to have been almost entirely
passed on the decks of the varied vessels which he in turn commanded,
for both he and Rupert secured glory and renown on the broad ocean, as
they had already done in the battlefield, and their voyages were
frequently made in company. In the notice of the elder, we have given
the account of a touching episode in the lives of the two brothers,
which we therefore omit here. But Maurice was doomed to find a watery
grave in the year 1653, in a hurricane which overtook his vessel off the
Virgin Islands. The following is a description of the tragic event: ‘In
this fatal wreck, besides many great gentlemen and others, the sea, to
glut itself, swallowed the Prince, whose fame the mouth of detraction
cannot blast. His very enemies bewailed his loss. Many had more power,
few more merit; he lived beloved, and died bewailed.’ Two years after
his death there was a rumour that he still lived (but the false report
soon died away), that he had been captured by a pirate, and was a slave
in Africa, but this unlikely tale gained little or no credence.
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No. 8. COLONEL WEST.
_Black cloak over doublet of same colour. Left hand gloved with white
glove and holding the other. Large white cuffs turned back. Hand
resting on hip. White deep turned-down collar with tassels._
BY WALKER.
HE was a distinguished Parliamentarian officer, and much valued by
Cromwell. He was engaged in Inverkeithing fight in 1651, and was
commended in Oliver Cromwell’s letter to the Speaker of the Parliament
of England, reporting the result of that engagement, which he described
as an ‘unspeakable mercy.’
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No. 16. THOMAS WRIOTHESLEY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON.
_Robes of the Garter. Wand of office._
DIED 1667.
BY SIR PETER LELY.
HE was the second born but only surviving son of the third Earl, by
Elizabeth, daughter of John Vernon of Hodnet, County Salop. Educated at
Eton and Oxford, where he distinguished himself, and afterwards
travelled abroad; remained some time in France, where he probably
espoused his first wife, and afterwards proceeded to the Low Countries.
His father and elder brother had also gone thither, and were attacked by
fever. The youth died, and his father (travelling before it was prudent
for him to do so), borne down by sorrow, soon followed his beloved child
to the grave. Thomas, who had now become Earl of Southampton, found on
his return to England that public affairs were in great confusion. The
Parliamentarians did all in their power to gain over the young nobleman
to their side, but he disapproved of their proceedings, and would take
no part in them. He was soon after appointed Privy Councillor and Lord
of the Bedchamber to the King, and became henceforth, in every sense of
the word, attached to the royal person, to whom he was an excellent
friend, often giving him unpalatable advice. He used to sleep in the
King’s apartment, and to the best of his power soothed his hours of
mental anguish. In 1647, when the unhappy monarch fled from Hampton
Court, he took shelter at Titchfield, in Hampshire, Lord Southampton’s
country-house, and when brought back to the palace in the hands of his
enemies, his first request was for the attendance of his trusty friend.
This permission was granted him, and Southampton was one of the last
allowed to remain with his royal master, and one of the four mourners
who paid the last sad duties to his remains. With Charles the Second he
kept up a continued correspondence, and supplied the exile with large
sums, hastening to meet him on his arrival in England, when he was
rewarded by being made Knight of the Garter, as were other faithful
adherents to the Crown, and was shortly afterwards appointed Lord High
Treasurer. In this capacity he showed so much independence of spirit and
interest in the public welfare as to offend the King, who did not,
however, remove him from his office, which was exercised by Southampton,
although suffering from a terrible and painful disease which made
business occasionally irksome to him. To his credit be it spoken, that
during seven years’ management of the Treasury he made but an ordinary
fortune, disdaining to sell places, as many of his predecessors had
done.
The Earl of Southampton was thrice married: first, to Rachel, daughter
of Daniel de Ruvigny, in France, by whom he had two sons, who died
young, and three daughters, the second of whom was Rachel, the faithful
wife and widow of the patriot, William, Lord Russell; his second
Countess was Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of Francis Booth, Lord
Dunsmore, by whom he had four girls; and his third wife was the daughter
of William, second Duke of Somerset, and widow of Viscount Molyneux. He
died at Southampton House, in Bloomsbury, which he bequeathed to his
daughter, Lady Russell, and was buried at Titchfield. By his death the
title of Southampton in the Wriothesley family became extinct.
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No. 28. COLONEL, AFTERWARDS LORD GORING.
_Slashed doublet. Long fair hair._
DIED 1662 _v.p._
BY STONE AFTER VANDYCK.
SIR George Goring of Hurstpierpoint, County Sussex, was created in 1629
Baron Goring, and in 1645 Earl of Norwich. He married Mary, daughter of
Edward Neville, Lord Abergavenny. Their third eldest son was George, the
subject of this notice, who distinguished himself greatly in the civil
wars. He married in early life Lady Lettice Boyle, daughter of the Earl
of Cork. He was wild, eccentric, and extravagant, and Lord Wentworth
(afterwards Earl of Strafford), speaking of him in a letter to Lord
Carlisle, 1633, says: ‘Young Mr. Goring is gone to travel, having run
himself out of £8000, which he purposes to redeem by frugality abroad,
unless my Lord Cork can be induced to put to his helping hand, which I
have undertaken to solicit for him the best I can, and shall do it with
all the power and care my credit and wit shall in any way suggest unto
me.’ The noble writer was successful in his negotiation, and Lord Cork
was most generous and liberal on this and several other occasions to a
son-in-law who gave him much trouble. Not long after the marriage Lord
Cork thus writes, in speaking of George Goring: ‘After borrowing money
from me for himself and his father, he departed from us without once
taking leave of me, and leaving his wife and servants, posted through
Scotland on to England on the choice gray gelding I bestowed upon him
called Gray Brown, hath much disquieted me, his wife, and friends.’ His
poor wife had good reason to be disquieted on this and many other
occasions, but she seems to have retained a real affection for her
unworthy husband, willing to join him at any summons, and frequently
interceding with her generous father for so-called loans and large sums,
which never appear to have been repaid.