Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/486

Russell and died on 30 Nov. 1669 (, Biogr. Illustr. of Worcestershire, pp. 118-20).

 RUSSELL, WILLIAM, (1639–1683), 'the patriot,' was the third son of  (and afterwards first duke) of Bedford [q. v.], and of his wife, Anne, daughter of Robert Carr, earl of Somerset [q. v.] He was born on 29 Sept. 1639, and was educated with his elder brother, Francis, who, by the death in infancy of the eldest son, John, had become heir to the paternal earldom. From the father's domestic chaplain, John Thornton, both brothers seem to have imbibed an inclination to favour the nonconformists (cf., Own Time, ii. 85). In 1654 they were residing at Cambridge (it is not known at what college). Thence they proceeded to the continent. Early in their travels, on which they were accompanied by a French protestant named De la Faisse, the brothers visited Lyons, where William's admiration was excited by Queen Christina of Sweden; they passed the winter of 1656-1657 at Augsburg. In 1658 William was at Paris, where a violent illness 'reduced him almost to the gates of death.'

After the Restoration, which the Earl of Bedford had promoted, 'Mr. Russell' (as he was styled) was elected M.P. for the family borough of Tavistock, which he represented till the dissolution of 1678. During many sessions—apparently till 1672—he remained a silent member; for some time he was much occupied with matters of a different sort. In July 1663, and again in August 1664, he writes to his father, requesting the payment of his modest debts in the event of his death in an imminent duel. In one such affair he was wounded.

In May 1669 Russell married Rachel Wriothesley (1636-1723), widow of Francis, lord Vaughan, and second daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, fourth earl of Southampton [q. v.], by his first wife, Rachel de Ruvigny (d. 16 Feb. 1640), 'la belle et vertueuse Huguenotte' (Strafford Papers ap., ii. 214). Her mother was eldest daughter of Daniel de Massue, seigneur of Ruvigny and of Raineval, and brother of Henri de Massue, first marquis de Ruvigny, some time ambassador at the court of Charles II; she was thus first cousin of Henri, the famous Earl of Galway [see ; cf. ''Bibliothèque Nationale, Cat. de Titres (Pièces Originales)'',vol. 1886]. Lady Russell was born in 1636, and was therefore Russell's senior by three years. She married, in 1653, her first husband, Francis, lord Vaughan, eldest son of Richard, second earl of Carbery, and chiefly lived at Lord Carbery's seat, Golden Grove in Carmarthenshire. In 1665 she gave birth to a child that died almost immediately; in 1667 Lord Vaughan died, and in the same year she lost her father, from whom she inherited the estate of Stratton in Hampshire (afterwards her and her second husband's favourite residence). In the early days of her widowhood she resided with her elder sister and coheiress, Lady Elizabeth Noel (whose husband afterwards became first Earl of Gainsborough), at Tichfield in Hampshire; on the death, in 1680, of her beloved sister and 'delicious friend,' she inherited this estate also, together with Southampton House (afterwards called Bedford House) in Bloomsbury Square. Totteridge in Hertfordshire was another of her later residences.

The political tendencies, as well as the religious sympathies, of the Wriothesley and Russell families were in general accord. Russell was desirous of obtaining her hand in the first year of her widowhood. Their union (May 1669) was from first to last one of unbroken affection. Their elder daughter, Rachel, was born in January 1674; their second, Catherine, on 23 Aug. 1676; their only son, Wriothesley, on 1 Nov. 1680.

Russell was one of those members of the country party who, in Macaulay's words, were 'driven into opposition by dread of popery, by dread of France, and by disgust at the extravagance, dissoluteness, and faithlessness of the court.' The country party seemed at last in the ascendant, when in 1673 it became evident that the days of the Cabal were numbered, and Shaftesbury (who was by marriage nearly connected with Lady Vaughan), after helping to carry the Test Act, was dismissed from the chancellorship and identified himself with the opposition. When parliament reassembled in 1674, intent upon a protestant policy at home and abroad, as well as upon the dismissal of all recalcitrant ministers, Russell (22 Jan.) delivered his first speech in a debate on these topics, inveighing against the stop of the exchequer and the attempt made to capture the Dutch Smyrna fleet before the actual declaration of war. In the course of the same session he made a savage attack upon Buckingham during the discussion of the proposal to remove him and Lauderdale from the king's presence and counsels. Of greater importance