Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/77

Rh U S S E L L 65 he became secretary of the colonies; but the errors in his negotiations at the Austrian capital followed him and forced him to retire. For some years after this he was the "stormy petrel " of politics. He was the chief instrument in defeating Lord Palmerston in 1857. He led the attack on the Tory Eeform Bill of 1859. A reconciliation was then effected between the rival Whig leaders, and Lord John Russell consented to become foreign secretary in Lord Palmerston's ministry, and to accept an earldom. During the American War Earl Russell's sympathies with the North restrained his country from embarking in the contest, but he was not equally successful in his desire to prevent the spoliation of Denmark. On Lord Palmerston's death (October 1865) Earl Russell was once more sum- moned to form a cabinet, but the defeat of his ministry in the following June on the Reform Bill which they had introduced was followed by his retirement from public life. His leisure hours were spent after this event in the preparation of numberless letters and speeches, and in the composition of his Recollections and Suggestions, but every- thing he wrote was marked by the belief that all philo- sophy, political or social, was summed up in the Whig creed of fifty years previously. Earl Russell died at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park, 28th May 1878. For more than half a century Earl Russell lived in the excitement of political life. He participated in the troubles of Whiggism before 1832, and shared in its triumph after that event. He expounded the principles of the first Reform Bill and lived to see a second carried into law by the Conservative ministry of Lord Derby. Un- limited confidence in his own resources exposed him to many jests from both friend and foe, but he rightly estimated his powers, and they carried him to the highest places in the state. His tragedies and his essays are forgotten, but his works on Fox are among the chief authorities on Whig politics. Earl Russell was twice married, first, in 1835, to Adelaide, daughter of Mr Thomas Lister, and widow of Thomas, second Lord Ribblesdale, and secondly, in 1841, to Lady Frances Ann Maria, daughter of the second earl of Minto. By the former he had two daughters, by the latter three sons and one daughter. His eldest son, Lord Amberley, predeceased him 9th January 1876. (W. P. C.) RUSSELL, WILLIAM RUSSELL, LORD (1639-1683), the third son of Lord Russell, afterwards fifth earl and still later first duke of Bedford, and Lady Anne Carr, daughter of the infamous countess of Somerset, was born September 29, 1639. Nothing is known of his early youth, except that about 1654 he was sent to Cambridge with his elder brother Francis. On leaving the university, the two brothers travelled abroad, visiting Lyons and Geneva, and residing for some while at Augsburg. His account of his impressions is spirited and interesting. He was at Paris in 1658, but had returned to Woburn in December 1659. At the Restoration he was elected for the family borough of Tavistock. For a long while he appears to have taken no part in public affairs, but rather to have indulged in the follies of court life and intrigue ; for both in 1663 and 1664 he was engaged in duels, in the latter of which he was wounded. In 1669 he married the second daughter of the earl of Southampton, the widow of Lord Vaughan, thus becoming connected with Shaftesbury, who had mar- ried Southampton's niece. With his wife Russell always lived on terms of the greatest affection and confidence. It was not until the formation of the " country party," in opposition to the policy of the Cabal and Charles's French-Catholic plots, that Russell began to take an active part in affairs. He then joined Cavendish, Birch, Hamp- den, Powell, Lyttleton, and others in vehement antagonism to the court. With a passionate hatred and distrust of the Catholics, and an intense love of political liberty, he united the desire for ease to Protestant Dissenters. His first speech appears to have been on January 22, 1673, in which he inveighed against the stop of the exchequer, the attack on the Smyrna fleet, the corruption of courtiers with French money, and "the ill ministers about the king." He also supported the proceedings against the duke of Buckingham. In 1675 he moved an address to the king for the removal of Danby from the royal councils, and for his impeachment. On February 15, 1677, in the debate on the fifteen months' prorogation, he moved the dissolu- tion of parliament; and in March 1678 he seconded the address praying the king to declare war against France. The enmity of the country party against Danby and James, and their desire for a dissolution and the disbanding of the army, were greater than their enmity to Louis. The French king therefore found it easy to form a temporary alliance with Russell, Hollis, and the opposition leaders, by which they engaged to cripple the king's power of hurting France, and to compel him to seek Louis's friendship, that friendship, however, to be given only on the condition that they in their turn should have Louis's support for their cherished objects. Russell in particular entered into close communication with Rouvigny, who came over with money for distribution among members of parliament. By the tes- timony of Barillon, however, it is clear that Russell himself utterly refused to take any part in the intended corruption. By the wild alarms which culminated in the Popish Terror Russell appears to have been affected more com- pletely than his otherwise sober character would have led people to expect. He threw himself into the party which looked to Monmouth as the representative of Protestant interests, a grave political blunder, though he afterwards was in confidential communication with Orange. On November 4, 1678, he moved an address to the king to re- move the duke of York from his person and councils. At the dissolution of the pensionary parliament, he was, in the new elections, returned for Bedfordshire. Danby was at once overthrown, and in April 167,9 Russell was one of the new privy council formed by Charles on the advice of Temple. Only six days after this we find him moving for a committee to draw up a bill to secure religion and pro- perty in case of a Popish successor. He does not, how- ever, appear to have taken part in the exclusion debates at this time. In June, on the occasion of the Covenanters' rising in Scotland, he attacked Lauderdale personally in full council. In January 1680 Russell, along with Cavendish, Capell, Powell, Essex, and Lyttleton, tendered his resignation to the king, which was received by Charles "with all my heart." On June 16 he accompanied Shaftesbury, when the latter indicted James at Westminster as a Popish re- cusant; and on October 26 he took the extreme step of moving " how to suppress Popery, and prevent a Popish successor " ; while on November 2, now at the height of his influence, he went still further by seconding the motion for exclusion in its most emphatic shape, and on the 19th carried the bill to the House of Lords for their concurrence. The limitation scheme he opposed, on the ground that monarchy under the conditions expressed in it would be an absurdity. The statement, made by Echard alone, that he joined in opposing the indulgence shown to Lord Straf- ford by Charles in dispensing with the more horrible parts of the sentence of death an indulgence afterwards shown to Russell himself is entirely unworthy of credence. On December 18 he moved to refuse supplies until the king passed the Exclusion Bill. The Prince of Orange having come over at this time, there was a tendency on the part of the opposition leaders to accept his endeavours to secure a compromise on the exclusion question. Russell, however, refused to give way a hair's breadth. On March 26, 1681, in the parliament held at Oxford, Russell again seconded the Exclusion Bill. Upon the dissolution he retired into privacy at his country seat of Stratton in Hampshire. It was, however, no doubt at his wish that his chaplain wrote the Life of Julian the Apos- XXI. - 9