Page:Biographical catalogue of the portraits at Weston, the seat of the Earl of Bradford (IA gri 33125003402027).pdf/27

 plenipotentiary from Holland, arrived in London, he waited on Lady Russell by the commands of the Prince and Princess of Orange, being the bearer of autograph letters and the most flattering messages from their Highnesses, speaking in terms of the highest admiration and esteem of her patriot lord and the noble family to which he belonged, and assuring her of friendship and sympathy and the hope that they might in the future be useful to her and her son. Thus commenced a correspondence which brought forth important fruits in the coming changes. Her first visit to Stratton was very trying to her heart, and though grateful that the children were too young to share those feelings to any great extent, she could not but rejoice to perceive in Mistress Rachel some memory of the loss they had sustained, but then to be sure, as the reader will take into consideration, Rachel Russell the younger was already fourteen years of age and a promised wife! Three days the poor widow always gave to seclusion and reflection, the anniversaries of the arrest, trial, and execution of her lord. In the winter the family removed to London, and preparations were now going on briskly for the marriage, when the poor fiancée fell sick of the measles, and it was not till midsummer 1689 that the celebration of the marriage actually took place, being hurried at the last, we are told, because my Lord (Devonshire, the bridegroom's father) was in haste to go to the Bath.

The young couple spent their (crescent) honeymoon between Southampton House and Woburn Abbey, and then the bridegroom set forth on a course of foreign travel to finish his education which lasted two years, while my Lady Cavendish remained an inmate of her mother's home. The leading members of the houses of Cavendish and Russell were among those influential personages who had invited the Prince and Princess of Orange to come over to England to the rescue of the kingdom; and when they actually landed Rachel put her