ENTRANCE HALL. (continued 2)

To the cruel and hideous sentence for the execution of ‘a traitor,’ which was read aloud in English (instead of Latin) by his own desire, the prisoner listened with that decency and composure, ‘which,’ Burnet tells us, ‘characterised his whole behaviour during the trial; even as if the issue were a matter of indifference to him.’ The result of the proceedings produced an intense excitement. The most strenuous efforts were made in all quarters to save Lord Russell’s life both at home and abroad. It was intimated to the King that M. de Ruvigny, a kinsman of Lady Russell’s in favour at the Court of France, was coming over with a special message from Louis the Fourteenth to intercede for the prisoner; but Charles was said to have answered with cruel levity that he should be ‘happy to receive M. de Ruvigny, but that Lord Russell’s head would be off before he arrived.’ Many men of position and influence waited on the King in person, and argued with him on the bad effect the execution would produce in many quarters. The Duchess of Portsmouth had a large sum of money offered to secure her interference, but all in vain. Then Lord Russell’s ‘noble consort’ cast herself at the King’s feet, and adjured him, by the memory of her father, the loyal and gallant Southampton, to let his services atone for ‘the errors into which honest but mistaken principles had seduced her husband.’ This was the last instance of female weakness, if it deserve the name, into which Rachel Russell was betrayed. But Charles was inexorable. He whose weak heart was too easily swayed by beauty, too frequently overcome by emotion of a baser kind, remained impervious to 54the tears and anguish of this lovely and virtuous woman. Even the scanty mercy of a short respite was denied her. She rose from her knees, collected her courage, and from that moment she fortified herself against the fatal blow, and endeavoured by her example to strengthen the resolution of her husband. ‘She gave me no disturbance,’ was one of the touching tributes he paid her. Lord Cavendish sent a proposition to the prisoner offering to facilitate his escape, even to change clothes with him, and remain in his stead; but Lord Russell returned a firm though grateful refusal, considering the plan impracticable, unlawful, and dangerous to his faithful friend, and so prepared quietly and calmly for the end, expressing his conviction that the day of his execution would not be so disturbing to him as the day of his trial. The time allotted to him was short. He occupied himself much in writing. He addressed a letter to the King, which he intrusted to his uncle, Colonel John Russell, to deliver to Charles immediately after the execution; a noble and temperate letter, in which the writer hopes his Majesty will excuse the presumption of an attainted man. He asks pardon for anything he might have said or done that looked like a want of respect to the King or duty to the Government. He acquits himself of all designs (and goes on to declare his ignorance of any such) against either King or Government.

‘Yet I do not deny that I have heard many things, and said some, contrary to my duty, for which I have asked God’s pardon, and do now humbly beg your Majesty’s. I take the liberty to add that though I have met with hard measure, yet I forgive all concerned in it, from the highest to the lowest; and I pray God to bless your person and government, and that the public peace and the true Protestant religion may be preserved under you; and I crave leave to end my days with this sincere protestation, that my heart was ever devoted to that which I thought was your true 55interest, in which, if I was mistaken, I hope that your displeasure will end with my life, and that no part of it shall fall on my wife and children, being the last petition that will ever be offered from your Majesty’s most faithful, most dutiful, and most obedient servant, Russell.

‘Newgate, July 19, 1683.’

He further drew up a long and detailed defence and explanation of his whole conduct, to be given by his own hands to the Sheriffs on the scaffold,—a precious record, preserved in letters of gold among the most cherished archives at Woburn, the scene of the noble writer’s youth and childhood.

The evening before his death, after bidding adieu to some of his friends, his wife and children came to take a last farewell. He parted with them (tender father and devoted husband as he was) in composed silence, and Lady Russell had such control over herself that when she was gone he said, ‘The bitterness of death is past.’ ‘He talked,’ says Burnet, ‘at much length about her. It had rather grieved him that she had run about so much beating every bush for his preservation, but that, perhaps, it would be a mitigation of her sorrow to feel she had done all in her power to save him.’ ‘Yet,’ he said, ‘what a blessing it was that she had that magnanimity of spirit joined to her tenderness as never to have desired him to do a base thing for the saving of his own life; there was a signal providence of God in giving him such a wife, with birth, fortune, understanding, religion, and great kindness to him. But her carriage in his extremity was above all! It was a comfort to leave his children in such a mother’s hands, who had promised him to take care of herself for his sake.’ Burnet further tells us that ‘the prisoner received the Sacrament from Archbishop Tillotson with much devotion, and I preached two short sermons, which he heard with great affection. 56He went into his chamber about midnight, and I stayed the whole night in the adjoining room. He went to bed about two in the morning, and was fast asleep about four, when, by his desire, we called him. He was quickly dressed, and lost no time in shaving, for he said he was not concerned in his good looks that day. He went two or three times back into his chamber to pray by himself, and then came and prayed again with Tillotson and me. He drank a little tea and some sherry, and then he said now he had done with time, and was going to eternity. He asked what he should give the executioner, and I told him ten guineas; he smiled, and said it was a pretty thing to give a fee to have his head cut off. The Sheriffs came about ten o’clock; Lord Cavendish was waiting below to take leave of him. They embraced very tenderly. Lord Russell on a second thought came back and pressed Cavendish earnestly to apply himself more to religion, telling him what great comfort and support he felt from it now in his extremity. Tillotson and I went in the coach with him. Some of the crowd wept, while others insulted him; he was touched with the one expression, but did not seem provoked by the other. He was singing psalms most of the way, and said he hoped to sing better soon. Looking at the great crowd he said ‘I hope I shall soon see a much better assembly.’ He walked about the scaffold four or five times, then he turned to the Sheriffs, and in presenting the paper he protested his innocence of any design against the King’s life, or any attempt to subvert the Government. He prayed God to preserve the Protestant religion, and earnestly wished that Protestants should love one another, and not make way for Popery by their animosities. He forgave all his enemies, and died in charity with all mankind. After this he prayed again with Archbishop Tillotson, and more than once by himself. Then William Russell stood erect, arranged his dress, and, without the slightest change of countenance, 57laid his noble head upon the block, ‘which was struck off (says Evelyn) by three butcherly strokes.’

Five years afterwards when James the Second stood on the brink of ruin, he did not disdain to apply to the Earl of Bedford for help. ‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘you are an honest man, and of great credit in the country, and can do me signal service. ‘Ah, sire,’ replied the Earl, ‘I am old and feeble, and can be of little use, but I once had a son who could have assisted you, and he is no more.’ By which answer James was so struck, that he could not speak for several moments.

No. 14. WILLIAM HARVEY, M.D.

Black gown. Black skull-cap.

BORN 1578, DIED 1657-8.

By Riley.

SON of Thomas Harvey of Folkestone, in Kent, by Joan Hawke, and eldest of seven sons and two daughters. The parents were well-to-do people, who brought up their children carefully and respectably. Mrs. Harvey seems to have been a most estimable woman, if we only believe one half the virtues ascribed to her on the tablet in Folkestone Church, where she lies buried; the epitaph, though couched in the eulogistic and lengthy style which was the fashion of the day, is sufficiently characteristic to merit insertion. The mother of a great man is in our eyes always deserving of notice.

‘She was a godly, harmless woman, a chaste, loving wife, a charitable, quiet neighbour, a comfortable and friendly matron, a provident housewife and tender mother. Elected of God, 58may her soul rest in heaven (as her body in this grave), to her a happy advantage, to hers an unhappy loss.’

When only ten years old William Harvey went to a Grammar School, and subsequently to Caius College, Cambridge, where, we are told, ‘he studied classics, dialectics, and physics.’ It was the fashion of the day for young men of any standing to finish their education on the Continent, in one or other of those schools of learning and science which were indeed the resort of the youth of all nations. Harvey fixed his choice on Padua, then especially rich in eminent Professors in all branches of learning. He had been early destined, both by the wishes of his family and his own inclination, for the medical profession; and at Padua, under the auspices of the celebrated Fabricius of Acquapendente and others, our young Englishman, whose zeal was equal to his intelligence, laid the foundation of his future greatness, and made rapid strides in the path of fame. He remained five years at Padua, and before his departure, at the age of twenty-four, received his doctor’s diploma, with ‘licence to practise in every land and seat of learning.’ On his return to England he obtained his doctor’s degree at his old University of Cambridge, after which he settled in London, and married the daughter of one Lancelot Brown, M.D. Harvey soon got into extensive practice, enlarged his connection daily, and, while rising step by step in his profession, made himself beloved (as is mostly the case with the true disciple of St. Luke) by the skill and charity he exercised among the poor and afflicted by whom he was surrounded.

Before long he was elected a member of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and subsequently Principal Physician of that important establishment, where, in the course of his tenure, he introduced the most stringent reforms and regulations, which were considered needlessly severe by the younger students, who had grown into habits of laxity and idleness. But neither the duties of his office, nor his practice which he 59carried on outside the walls, were allowed to interfere in any way with his literary labours. Making the profoundest researches into every branch of medical science, perusing and weighing the arguments of those very writers whom he was destined to eclipse; he attracted the notice of King James the First, one of whose redeeming qualities it was to encourage learning, and who found great delight in the society of eminent men. The King named Harvey Physician Extraordinary, with a reversionary promise of the regular post at Court when it should become vacant, which did not occur till after the accession of Charles the First. He was also body physician to several noblemen and gentlemen of eminence, such as the Lord Chancellor Bacon and Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, with whom he travelled on the Continent. He was appointed Lecturer to the Royal College of Physicians, in Amen Corner, where, with some interruptions (through absence, Court duties, and other hindrances), he continued for many years to attract and interest his colleagues by his knowledge and eloquence. It was in the course of these lectures that he first promulgated his wondrous doctrines on the motions of the heart and the circulation of the blood; a subject with which the name of William Harvey is indissolubly connected. The theories that had been hatching in his prolific mind for long now took form and shape in his immortal work, which he dedicated to King Charles, and to his own College. It was this work (although one of many) which enriched the science of medicine, and rendered his name immortal. The circulation of the blood had from time immemorial been the theme of dispute and discussion among men of all nations; but it was reserved, says Birch, for William Harvey in 1628 to publish a book which was the clearest, the shortest, and the most convincing that had ever yet been written on the subject. The startling discoveries, and the bold manner in 60which they were expounded, kindled a flame of antagonism and rivalry in the medical world. Learned Professors, and men who professed without learning, rose to denounce, to question, to deny him even the merit of originality, for had not the same theories been known to the ancients? To the manifold attacks by which he was assailed Harvey maintained for the most part a dignified silence, though compelled in some cases to rise up and defend himself and his opinions from adversaries, both English and foreign.

In 1636 he accompanied his friend and patron, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, when that nobleman went on a special mission to the Emperor of Germany. Harvey did not neglect this opportunity of making the acquaintance of all the eminent men of science in the country, who in their turn were desirous (from mingled motives) of meeting a man with whose name Europe was now ringing. In a conclave of medical men at Nürnberg our doctor made a public declaration of his professional faith, when he was met by the most strenuous opposition. The learned Caspar Hoffman, in particular, was so violent and unreasonable in his arguments, that William Harvey, after listening with singular forbearance for a considerable time, laid down the scalpel, which he held and quietly left the apartment. It was in this expedition with Lord Arundel that one of his Excellency’s gentlemen told Aubrey that Lord Arundel was rendered very anxious by the frequent explorings of his physician into the woods, where was great fear, not only of wild beasts, but also of thieves, and where, indeed, the doctor one time narrowly escaped with life. But Harvey would not neglect the chance of studying the strange trees and foreign plants, and adding to his collection of toads, frogs, and the like, for the purpose of experimenting upon them—was sometimes like to be lost indeed, so that my Lord Ambassador was angry with him. With all these contentions and 61animadversions we are not surprised to hear that at one time Harvey’s practice declined, and Aubrey says, ‘He was treated by many as a visionary and a madman, and though everybody admired his anatomy, most people questioned his therapeutics, so much so that his bills (i.e. recipes and prescriptions) were not worth threepence.’ He now gave himself up to the prosecution of his Court duties, and was indefatigable in his attendance on the King. The relationship between Charles and his physician was of the most friendly and intimate nature. Harvey speaks of his royal master in terms of true affection, while the King took great delight in frequenting the doctor’s dissecting-room, and studying anatomy and medicine under his tutelage. On the breaking out of the civil wars Harvey became more than ever attached in every sense of the word to the person of the King, following him wheresoever he went, to court and camp. On their return from Scotland our peace-loving doctor was present at the battle of Edgehill, where Aubrey records a very characteristic, and almost comical adventure. It was in 1642, during the fight in question, that Harvey was intrusted with the care of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. He accordingly withdrew with his young charges to what he considered the shelter of a hedge, and finding the time hang heavy on his hands, he took a book from his pocket, which he began calmly and leisurely to peruse, when a large bullet grazed and disturbed the grass at his feet, and induced him to move further from the heat of the battle. Again we quote Aubrey, who met him at Oxford, where the Court then was, and though ‘too young to become acquainted with so learned a doctor,’ yet he remembers well how Harvey would come to our College to the chambers of George Bathurst, tutor, who kept hens for the hatching purposes in his rooms. Harvey would break the eggs daily at intervals in order to watch the different progress of formation towards the ‘perfect chick’; 62and all this with a view to the medical works he was writing. How widely at variance were these calm studies compared with the wild turmoil of political and military excitement by which he was surrounded! The Wardenship of Merton College becoming vacant by the resignation of Sir Matthew Brent, a Parliamentarian, the King recommended Harvey for the vacant post, which he obtained, but did not enjoy long, for when Oxford surrendered to the Roundheads, Brent resumed his office. We cannot be surprised to hear that so loyal a subject as Harvey incurred the ire of Cromwell, and on the doctor’s return to London he found his house sacked, the furniture destroyed, and, worse than all, as he himself told Aubrey, ‘No griefe was so crucifyinge as the loss of those papers (treating of his medical experiences and experiments) which neither love nor money could replace.’ It must have been about the year 1646 that Dr. Harvey made up his mind to resign his place at Court. Many reasons were given for this step, many apologies made for his forsaking his royal master; but he was near upon seventy, and it appears natural that a man of so peaceful a nature and of such studious taste should prefer a calmer existence than that of ‘following the drum.’ His retirement not only enabled him to pursue the bent of his inclinations and to indulge in contemplation, but also to enjoy the society of his brothers, who were of that number that verily dwelt together in unity. They held their elder in honour and affection, and vied with each other in welcoming him warmly to their respective homes. His next brother Eliab seems to have been his favourite, as he made his home for the most part either at the said Eliab’s London residence of Cokaine House, near the Poultry, or at Roehampton, in Surrey. On the leads of the former dwelling the doctor was wont to pass many hours in contemplation, arranging his different stations with a view to the sun and wind. At Combe there were caverns specially 63constructed in the garden for the physician to meditate, as he always found darkness most conducive to thought. The thrifty Eliab took William’s financial affairs in hand, which he conducted with so much energy and discernment as to increase his brother’s income, and enable him to indulge his generous propensities towards private individuals and public institutions. He became a munificent benefactor to his beloved College of Physicians, both by gifts in his lifetime, and bequest by testament. He enlarged the buildings, added a wing, and a large hall for conference, endowed it with a library and a museum, and, in fact, was so noble in his gifts that the grateful College erected a statue in his honour, with a long and flattering inscription. But, alas! all these valuable additions, together with the whole edifice, were destroyed in the Great Fire of London. At the age of seventy-one the doctor’s energy remained so unabated, that not only did he continue his literary labours, but he travelled to Italy with his friend and disciple Sir George Brent. On the last day of June 1657 William Harvey was stricken with the palsy, and, on endeavouring to speak, found that he had lost the power to do so. He ordered his apothecary by signs to ‘lett him blood,’ but this gave him no relief, and his professional knowledge warned him that the end was approaching. He therefore sent for his brother and nephews, to whom he himself delivered some little token of affection, a watch or what not, bidding them tenderly farewell, with dumb but eloquent signs of affection. He died the same day as he was stricken. His friend Aubrey exonerates him from the false charge of having hastened his own death by drinking opium, which he occasionally used as an alleviation of pain, but said Harvey had ‘an easy passport.’

A long train of his colleagues from the Royal College attended his funeral, and Aubrey himself was one of the bearers. He was buried at Hempstead, in Essex, and was 64‘lapped’ in a leaden case, which was shaped in form of the body, with a label bearing the illustrious name of William Harvey, M.D., on his breast.

The last will and testament of men who lay claim to any celebrity appear to us to merit notice as indicative of character. Harvey’s will did not in any way belie his life. He left his faithful steward and brother, Eliab Harvey, the bulk of his property in money and land, as likewise (Aubrey thinks out of tender sentiment) his silver coffee-pot; for the brothers were wont to drink coffee together at a time when it was reckoned an uncommon luxury, before coffee-houses were prevalent in England. To all his other relations he left small sums that they might purchase remembrances; to his College, and to more than one hospital, generous bequests; scarcely any one was forgotten. To his dear and learned friend Mr. Thomas Hobbes £10, to Dr. Scarborough his velvet embroidered gown, to another his case of silver-mounted surgical instruments, and so on. Nor were his faithful servants, who had tended him in sickness, forgotten; ‘the pretty young wench’ who waited on him at Oxford, and to whom Aubrey alludes in jesting terms, in spite of Harvey’s proverbial insensibility to female charms, proved a most tender nurse, and was gratefully remembered. We hear very little at any time about Mistress Harvey, or the esteem in which her husband held her, but we are told she had a parrot, whose prattle much amused the learned doctor.

He corresponded with learned men, both at home and abroad, and was linked in friendship with such men as Hobbes, Robert Boyle, Cowley, and the like. By nature he was hot-tempered and outspoken, although a courtier. He rode to visit his patients on horseback, with a servant to follow him on foot—‘a decent custom,’ Aubrey thinks, the discontinuance of which he regrets. The same authority says Harvey ‘was of the lowest stature, and an olivaster complexion, 65like unto wainscott; little eye, round, bright, and black, and hair like the raven, but quite white before his death,’ which could scarcely be wondered at, as he was then eighty years of age. His friend, the learned Mr. Hobbes, says that Harvey was ‘the only man, perhaps, who ever lived to see his own doctrines established in his lifetime.’ This statement, the truth of which appears more than questionable, it is easy to imagine, was put forth under the influence of mortified feeling on the part of the ‘philosopher of Malmesbury.’ We refer the reader who is curious in such research to the catalogues of the principal scientific libraries, both in England and on the Continent, for a list of this great physician’s professional works, as their names alone would enlarge in an inconvenient manner the bulk of our volume.

No. 15. THE HONOURABLE EDWARD RUSSELL.

In armour. Red sash over right shoulder. White collar, with tassels.

Long hair.

DIED 1665.

By Remée.

HE was the youngest son of Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, by Catherine Brydges. He married Penelope, daughter and co-heir of Sir Moses Hill of Hillsborough Castle, Ireland (Knight Marshal of Ulster, and ancestor of the present Marquis of Downshire), and widow of Sir William Brooke, Knight, by whom he had five sons and daughters. His second son was eventually raised to the Peerage by the title of the Earl of Oxford. Edward Russell survived his wife, and, dying in 1665, was buried at Chenies.

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No. 16. WILLIAM RUSSELL, FIFTH EARL, FIRST DUKE OF BEDFORD.

In armour. Lace cravat. Wig.

BORN 1613, DIED 1700.

By Sir Godfrey Kneller.

HE was the eldest son of Francis Russell, fourth Earl of Bedford, by Catherine Brydges, daughter and co-heir of Lord Chandos. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford; and after travelling abroad for two years, we are told he returned home in 1634, a very handsome and accomplished gentleman. Of his personal beauty and noble bearing the fine portrait of William Russell, and Lord Digby, by Vandyck, bears undoubted testimony. He had been created Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Charles the First. The representative of a high-born family, and heir to a very large fortune, young Lord Russell was keenly watched by the match-makers of the day. At that time three rival beauties divided the admiration of the Court—Lady Elizabeth Cecil, Lady Dorothy Sidney, and Lady Anne Carr, the only child of the Earl and Countess of Somerset. She was born in the Tower at the time of her mother’s imprisonment for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and had been brought up in total ignorance of her parents’ ignominy. ‘The voice goes,’ says a contemporary writer, ‘that young Russell bends somewhat towards the Lady Anne Carr.’ One would not be surprised to hear that Lord Bedford was most adverse to the union. He trembled for the future welfare of his son, and the honour of his house, for heavy was the blot on the young lady’s ‘scutcheon. He promised his consent to any other union his 67son should project; but it was too late: Lord Russell’s choice was free no more, and the sequel proved the selection had been for his own happiness, and that of the whole family. The King interested himself in the cause of the young lovers, and sent the Duke of Lennox to mediate with Lord Bedford in the matter. Lord Somerset, with all his crimes on his head, had proved himself the most tender and devoted of fathers, giving his child an excellent and strictly virtuous education, and he made every sacrifice in his power to give her a good dowry, seeing that her poverty was an additional obstacle to the marriage in Lord Bedford’s eyes; so Somerset sold his house at Chiswick, his furniture, his plate and jewels; in fact denuded himself of almost all he had, to make settlements on Lady Anne, ‘for,’ said he to the Lord Chamberlain, ‘if one of us is to be undone by the marriage, let it be myself, rather than my own deserving child.’ And so came about this marriage, and the lovely creature, whose sweet innocent young face is familiar to all lovers of Vandyck, became the wife of Lord Russell, and the future mother of the patriot William.

Lord Russell sat in Parliament for Tavistock, having for colleague the famous Mr. Pym; but in the commencement of his career he did not take much part in debate, but was chiefly employed in carrying messages from the Lower to the Upper House.

The death of Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, caused great excitement in political circles, and the new Earl received a deputation from the House of Peers expressive of condolence, and the hope that ‘as soon as his Lordship’s sorrow would allow him, he would take his seat, for no one could better supply the place of his deceased father.’ These conjectures were confirmed, for the new Lord followed in the footsteps of his father, and in all the part he took in the coming struggles, he was ever ready to support liberal and enlightened views, 68and to advocate what he considered necessary reforms; withstanding undue encroachments on the part of the King. He was, however, inclined to wise and moderate views from the beginning, and deeply regretted the circumstances which had led to civil dissension and open war; but the times were too stormy, and the pressure of the political barometer too high, to allow of a middle course. Disgusted with what he considered the arbitrary measures and the obstinacy of the King, Lord Bedford now espoused the cause of the Parliament, and even accepted the post of General in their army. He besieged the Royalist forces in Sherborne Castle, and afterwards, on joining the Earl of Essex on the eve of the battle of Edgehill, he accepted, under that general, the command of the corps de reserve. His conduct in the action gained him great distinction, as it was supposed to be owing to his skill and courage that the defeat of the Parliamentarians was averted, ‘for Lord Bedford brought up very gallantly amidst a play of cannon.’ He was ever ready to propose and to facilitate every means of pacification between Charles and his people, but all these endeavours proving fruitless, and finding himself in opposition to the ultra opinions and measures of the Roundheads, he, with some other Lords, determined on joining the King at Oxford. One of his biographers says, the Earl of Bedford came to Oxford, had his introduction, made a declaration of the motives which had actuated his past conduct, and received a formal pardon under the Great Seal. The King was naturally inclined to welcome so noble an adherent, but was rather lukewarm in his manner, while the Queen and the greater part of the courtiers treated him with much discourtesy. He fought with the Royalists at the siege of Gloucester and the battle of Newbury, where the gallant Falkland was killed. The Parliament, infuriated at Lord Bedford’s secession, sequestrated his estates; but this sentence was reversed shortly after the battle of Marston Moor in 1644. 69The next year Lord Bedford, with Lord Carlisle and four other Peers, who had come from the King’s quarters, went to the House of Parliament and took the Covenant before the Commissioners of the Great Seal; this being the only compliance made by Lord Bedford with the faction he had abandoned. He now retired from public life, absented himself from Parliament, and sought that quiet and domestic peace in the bosom of his family, for which it may be well imagined he had often sighed amid the turmoil and strife of political and military life. He repaired to his home at Woburn Abbey, where, between the years 1645 and 1647, his royal master visited him on three separate occasions. After the execution of the King, and during the vicissitudes of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, Lord Bedford continued to live in seclusion, and it was not until the Restoration (to which event he contributed, as far as in him lay, both by his influence and his aid in pecuniary matters) that he reappeared in public. How ill was he repaid by an ungrateful and cruel King! Lord Bedford carried St. Edward’s sceptre at the coronation of Charles the Second, and some time after received the Blue Ribbon of the Garter. He belonged to a large number of loyal spirits, who, after assisting and rejoicing in the return of the lawful Sovereign, experienced the most bitter disappointment at the tyrannical and unconstitutional course pursued by Charles, and following in the steps of his father, stood up manfully against the encroachments on civil and religious liberty; conduct which was supported and nobly carried out in the House of Commons by his son William, Lord Russell, whose union with Lady Vaughan about 1669 (better known to history as Rachel, Lady Russell) was a source of unalloyed satisfaction to Lord and Lady Bedford, to whom she became a tender and devoted daughter. In the life of William, Lord Russell, we have given full details of his political career, of the animosity his independent line of conduct aroused in the 70minds of the King and the Duke of York, of his arrest on the false pretence of being implicated in the Rye House Plot, of his unjust trial and hurried execution, particulars of which it would be superfluous to repeat here. Lady Russell spent the early days of her widowhood, and indeed the greater part of her subsequent life, at Woburn, with her father-in-law, affording and imparting sympathy. Lord Russell’s execution took place in July 1683, and within a year his fond mother followed him to the grave. Since the death of that beloved son, Lady Bedford’s health had gradually declined; she pined away silently, almost imperceptibly; but there is little doubt her death was accelerated by a strange and unforeseen incident. She was sitting one day in the gallery at Woburn, when her attention was attracted by a pamphlet which contained the whole history of her mother’s life, her marriage and divorce from Lord Essex, and the tragedy connected with the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, together with the complicity of both parents—the mother, whose memory she knew no reason to despise, the father whom she fondly believed she had every reason to adore. The next person who entered the room found the unhappy woman senseless on the floor, the fatal book beside her. It appears from some letters of her daughter-in-law at the time, that the family not only believed that this sad incident had hastened her death, but that if her life had been spared, her reason would have been endangered.

The remainder of Lord Bedford’s life is so intimately bound up with that of his daughter-in-law and her children, that we must refer the reader to our notice of Lady Russell for further particulars, even the passage in which we have given the account of the creation of the Dukedom, which honour was doubly acceptable to the aged Duke, as a tribute to the memory of his lamented son. His love for his grandchildren, and the tender letters he writes to their mother on their account, his delight in the society of Mistress Katey, his 71little playfellow of nine years old, when he was past eighty, all vouch for the gentleness of heart which characterised the first Duke of Bedford. He had lived to see his son’s memory vindicated, his son’s widow honoured and sought after by every class in the kingdom, beginning with the Sovereigns, William and Mary; the attainder reversed, his grandchildren prosperous, his grandson and heir married with his sanction and approbation, and the family name, in which he had a right to glory, respected through the kingdom. He was ready to depart, and ‘now his daily prayer was to the effect that the God in whom he had so humbly and faithfully trusted would grant him an easy passage to the tomb.’ And never did any person leave this world with greater inward peace, or with less struggle and discomposure; his lamp of life was not blown out: the oil wasted by degrees, nature was spent, and he fell asleep on the 7th September 1700, aged eighty-seven. He was buried at Chenies by the side of his beloved wife.

No. 17. SIR THOMAS MYDDLETON, BART., OF CHIRK.

Brown dress. Purple sleeves. Lace cravat. Long hair.

DIED 1683.

By Russell.

HE was the son of Sir Thomas Myddleton, first Baronet, who began his military career as a Parliamentarian, afterwards became a zealous adherent of the Royal cause, and was created a Baronet in 1660. The subject of the present notice married, first, Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of Sir Thomas Wilbraham of Woodney; and, secondly, Charlotte, daughter of Sir Orlando 72Bridgeman, Bart.; and had an only daughter, Charlotte, married first to Edward, Earl of Warwick, and secondly to the Right Hon. Joseph Addison.

No. 18. THE HONOURABLE FRANCIS RUSSELL.

In armour. Long fair hair.

DIED 1641.

By Remée.

HE was the second son of Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, by Catherine Brydges. He married Catherine, daughter of Lord Grey de Wark, and widow of Sir Edward Moseley, Bart., and of the Lord North and Gray, by whom he had no children. Francis Russell died in France shortly before his father. He was brother to the first Countess of Bradford, of the Newport family.

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