SOME ACCOUNT

OF

THE LIFE

OF

RACHAEL WRIOTHESLEY

LADY RUSSELL.

.

THE biographers of those who have been distinguished in the active paths of life, who have directed the councils or fought the battles of nations, have, perhaps, an easier task than those who engage to satisfy the curiosity sometimes excited by persons whose situation, circumstances, or sex, have confined them to private life. To the biographers of public characters, the pages of history, and the archives of the state, furnish many of the documents required; while those of private individuals have to collect every particular from accidental materials, from combining and comparing letters and, otherwise insignificant, papers, never intended

B

to convey any part of the information sought in

them.

In this predicament is placed the author of the following pages. The veil which covered the unassuming virtues of Lady Russell in early life, naturally increases a desire, in intelligent minds, to become acquainted with her sentiments and situation before she was called to the exercise of the most difficult virtues, and the display of the most heroic courage.

Few of her sex have been placed in such a distinguished situation. Still fewer, after having so conducted themselves, have, like her, shrunk from all public notice, and returned to the unobtrusive performance of accustomed duties, and the unostentatious consolations of accustomed piety.

The incidents in the life of Lady Russell will be found so few, and her superior merits remain so much confined within the pale of private life and female duties, that, unlike most heroines, her character deserves to be held up yet more to the example than to the admiration of her country-women.

Lady Rachael Wriothesley was the second daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, by his first wife, Rachael de Ruvigny, of an ancient Hugonot family in France: she

was born about the year 1636: her mother died in her infancy; and her father married, for his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Francis Leigh, afterwards created Earl of Chichester, by whom he had four other daughters, one of whom only survived him.

As Lady Rachael was born at the beginning of those political disturbances which so long agitated England, her early education was probably less sedulously attended to, and fewer means of accomplishment afforded her, than would have been the case in more peaceable times. This may be conjectured from the many grammatical errors, and the often defective orthography in all her unpremeditated letters in early life; until the practice of writing much on her own and her children's affairs, had given her greater habits of correctness.

Lord Southampton, during the first period of the disputes between Charles and his Parliaments, (as his illustrious friend Lord Clarendon informs us,) disapproved of the measures of the court, and conceiving himself also to have been individually oppressed, kept so much aloof from all intercourse with it, that he was considered as one of the peers the most attached to the cause of the people. Lord Strafford's government he also greatly disliked; and it was not till after he had seen the course of justice per

verted on his trial, and the popular tide setting so violently against all monarchical government, that Lord Southampton reluctantly allowed himself to be attached to the court first, by being made a privy councillor, and soon after gentleman of the bedchamber to the King. As he had previously refused to sign the protestation of the two Houses of Parliament, for disabling their members from holding any place, either in Church or State, he was believed to have accepted these offices, expressly to show how little he regarded the framers and advisers of such measures.

He afterwards accompanied the King to York and to Nottingham; was present at Edgehill; and went from thence to Oxford, where he remained with the court during the rest of the war; a war, of whose success he despaired from the beginning, and during the whole course of which, he was the unvarying and indefatigable advocate of peace. During the conferences at Uxbridge, which lasted twenty days, and which, together with Sir Edward Nicholas, the Secretary of State, he conducted on the part of the King, Lord Clarendon remarks of him, that although a person naturally loving "his ease, and allowing himself never less than "ten hours' repose, he was then never more "than four hours in bed;" bending his whole

"

soul towards effecting an union which he never ceased to consider as the greatest blessing which could befall his afflicted country.

After this attempt, which violence on the one side and obstinacy on the other rendered abortive, Lord Southampton faithfully persevered in his attendance on the daily-diminishing court of the misguided Charles, whilst he was yet a free agent. Afterwards, when he was a prisoner, in the power of his own provoked subjects, now become enraged persecutors, Lord Southampton made every possible attempt to deliver him from their hands (1); and when at length the sacrifice of his life expiated the culpable weaknesses of his character, and eventually secured the permanent liberty of his people, Lord Southampton was one of the four faithful servants who asked and obtained permission to pay the last sad duty to his remains, divested of all accustomed ceremonial. After this event Lord Southampton retired to his seat at Tichfield, in Hampshire, obstinately rejecting every subsequent advance from Cromwell to court his friendship or engage his com

(1) The King was for some time at Lord Southampton's house at Tichfield, in Hampshire, as the visiter, and under the protection of the old Countess of Southampton, his mother, after he left Hampton Court, and before he was conducted by Colonel Hammond to the Isle of Wight.