Page:Biographical catalogue of the portraits at Weston, the seat of the Earl of Bradford (IA gri 33125003402027).pdf/19



No. 1.

RACHEL, LADY RUSSELL.

''In widow's weeds. Leaning her cheek on her hand.''

BORN (circa) 1636, DIED 1723.

She was the second daughter of Thomas, last Earl of Southampton, of the Wriothesley family, by his first wife, Rachel de Ruvigny, of an old Huguenot race, by whom he had two daughters, Elizabeth married to Edward, Lord Noel, eldest son of the Earl Campden, and Rachel, the subject of the present notice. She lost her mother when still a little child, and we do not hear much of her youth. Her father married a second and a third time, and it must have been about 1653 that she became the bride of Lord Vaughan, son of the Earl of Carbery. We are inclined to deduce from a passage in one of her letters that this marriage was one of convenance, as she says to a friend, 'The selection of the partners usually rests with the relations, and not with those most interested in the matter.' Of Lord Vaughan we have few records; but some letters addressed to his wife leave the impression that indolence was one of his chief characteristics, that he was