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LADY JOHN RUSSELL Irish Coercion Bill of 1846 was one. She frankly wrote to him from Edinburgh on 12th March 1846 that she was convinced it would not do the slightest good, and would embitter the Irish against the English. She deplored the continual outrages and murders in Ireland, but saw a remedy only in a long course of mild and good government. Lord John replied that the best authorities thought the Bill would tend to stop the crime and murder, and that he was disinclined to throw out a Bill that might have that good effect. It was probably due to his wife's influence that he determined to move a resolution which should at the same time pledge the House to measures of remedy and conciliation. It will be remembered that the Government was defeated on the Bill, a circumstance which led to Lord John Russell's first period of office as Prime Minister from July 1846 to February 1852.

His wife was now sufficiently recovered to join him, and he leased a country house, Chorley Wood, near Chenies, so that she might have a quiet retreat in the neighbourhood of London. Early in the New Year she had another bad bout of illness. On 1st March 1847 the Queen offered Lord John Pembroke Lodge, in Richmond 75