Chapter III

1841

"He served his country well in choosing thee." [20]

[20] From a sonnet to Lady John Russell by Lord Wriothesley Russel, written after reading Lady Minto's ballad in which these words occur: "His country and thee."

Parliament had been dissolved soon after Peel's motion of a want of confidence had been carried. In the election which followed Lord John was returned for the City of London on June 30th.

ADMIRALTY, _June_ 26, 1841

Day of nomination in the City. He says the show of hands was
greatly in his favour.... Mama says he looked so calm, in the midst
of the uproar.

"True dignity is his, _his_ tranquil mind Virtue has raised
above the things below!"

And whether storms may await us in our journey together, even to
the wreck of all earthly hopes, I know that he will rise superior
to them--and oh! to think that I may be by his side to support him
in adversity as well as to share in his prosperity and glorious
fate, for which God enable me to be rightly grateful.

The family moved to Minto before the result was declared; from London Lord John wrote the following letters:

_Lord John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

WILTON CRESCENT, _June_ 25, 1841

Your letters have filled us all with joy and completed what was
wanting. I feel very grateful to you for the kindness with which
you express yourself.... The happiness of possessing her has
blinded me, I dare say, to her real interest; but when I find that
you all approve and feel conscious that I shall do all in my power
to make her life happy, I gain some confidence. Among many
anxieties, Lady Minto naturally felt that the charge of so many
children would be a very serious burthen to her, but the children
themselves are so good, so much disposed to love her, and their
health is at present so good, that I trust they will be to her as
they are to me, a daily comfort, making the house cheerful with
their merry and affectionate voices. The greatest fear perhaps is,
that her generosity and devotion to others may make her undertake
what is beyond her strength.

_Lord John Russell to Lady Fanny Elliot_

DOWNING STREET, _July_ 3, 1841

If I am sorry that Saturday is come, I am much more glad that
Tuesday is so near. I am not at all anxious for a merry party at
Minto--the quieter the better for me. But I can understand that
Lady Minto would like some gaiety to divert her spirits, when "Our
dear Fanny" is gone. I cannot say how much I think on the prospect
of finding you at Minto--and of Bowhill likewise. I hope I am not
unworthy of the heart you gave me ... and I trust every day will
prove how grateful I am to you.

WILTON CRESCENT, _July_ 4, 1841

I got your little note yesterday, after I had sealed my letter....
My dearest Fanny, I am so happy at the thought of being soon at
Minto. If you believe that I feel the strongest devotion to you,
and am resolved to do all in my power to make you happy, you
believe what is true.... This will reach you soon after your
arrival. I can imagine how busy you will be ... and long to join
you.

A few days later he reached Minto himself. Lady Fanny, writing to her sister Mary, describes their days together, and adds: "They are all except Gibby so much too respectful to Lord John. Not to me, for they take their revenge upon me, and I am unsparingly laughed at, which is a great comfort. I shall write once before it happens. I dare not think what I shall be when you receive this."

MINTO, _July_ 19, 1841

My last day as a child of Minto. How fast it flew. How quickly
good-night came--that sad, that dreaded good-night. But sadness may
be of such a kind as to give rise to the happiest, the purest
feelings--and such was this.... He and I sat in the Moss house.
Never saw the glen more beautiful; the birch glittering in the sun
and waving its feathery boughs; the burn murmuring more gently than
usual; the wood-pigeons answering one another from tree to tree.
Had not courage to be much with Mama.

They were married on July 20th in the drawing-room at Minto, and set off for Bowhill, which had been lent them for the honeymoon by the Duke of Buccleuch. Never did statesman on his wedding-day take away a bride more whole-heartedly resolved to be all a wife can be to him in his career. Her mother was now perfectly happy about the marriage, though the disparity of age, and fears about the great responsibility her daughter was undertaking in the care of a young family--one boy and five girls--had undoubtedly made her anxious. Lady Minto felt very deeply the parting with her dearly-loved child, and after the wedding she sent her the following little ballad:

A BORDER BALLAD

AIR: "_Saw ye my father_"

Oh saw ye the robber
That cam' o'er the border
To steal bonny Fanny away?
She's gane awa' frae me
And the bonny North Countrie
And has left me for ever and for aye.

He cam' na wi' horses,
He cam' na wi' men,
Like the bauld English knights langsyne;
But he thought that he could fleech
Wi' his bonny Southron speech
And wile awa' this lassie o' mine.

"Gae hame, gae hame
To your ain countrie,
Nor come o'er the March for me."
But sairly did she rue
When he thought that she spak' true
And the tear-drop it blinded her e'e.

His heart it was sair
And he lo'ed her mair and mair,
For her spirit was noble and free;
"Oh lassie dear, relent,
Nor let a heart be rent
That lives but for its country and thee."

And did she say him nay?
Oh no, he won the day,
Could an Elliot a Russell disdain?
And he's ta'en awa' his bride
Frae the bonnie Teviot-side,
And has left me sae eerie alane.

Oh where's now the smile
Used to cheer me ilk morn,
Like a blink o' the sun's ain light;
And where the voice sae sweet
That aye gar'd my bosom beat
When sae saftly she bade me gude-night.

Now lang, lang are the nights
And dowie are the days
That sae cheerie were ance for me.
And oh the thought is sair
That she'll mine be never mair,
I'm alane in the North Countrie.

MARY MINTO, _July_, 1841

But before following the future, it will be well to look back. Lord John himself must play so large a part in a biography of his wife that a sketch of his life up to this point, and some reminders of the kind of man he was, may interest the reader; not a review of his political achievements, but an outline of the events which had left him at his second marriage a leader among his countrymen.

Lord John Russell, born in 1792, was the third son of John, sixth Duke of Bedford. He was only nine years old when he lost his mother, whom he remembered to the end of his life with tender affection. He always spoke gratefully of the invariable kindness and affection of his father, who married again in 1803, and of his stepmother, but he felt that the shyness and reserve which often caused him to be misunderstood and thought cold were largely due to the loss of his mother in his childhood. He was educated at Westminster, but he was not robust enough to stand a rough life, and it was decidedly rough. His education was continued at Woburn under a tutor. He was a book-loving boy, and the earliest exercise of his powers was in verses, prologues, and plays. Going to the play was one of the chief enjoyments of his childhood, and he never lost his liking for the drama. Travelling was also a great delight to him, either by coach in England or in foreign countries, and this enjoyment, with a wonderfully keen observation of all that he saw of different places and peoples, lasted to old age.

In 1835 Lord John married Lady Ribblesdale, widow of the second Lord Ribblesdale.

She had by her first husband four children; one son and three daughters. [21] After her marriage with Lord John Russell she had two daughters, Georgiana Adelaide, born in 1836, and Victoria, born in 1838. The marriage had been a most happy one, and her death on November 1, 1838, was a severe blow to Lord John.

[21] Lord Ribblesdale, Adelaide Lister (Mrs. Drummond), Isabel Lister (Mrs. Warburton), Elizabeth Lister (Lady Melvill).

A slight sketch of the more public side of his career will be enough here. A visit to Fox in June, 1806, was perhaps the first experience which turned his interests and ambitions towards politics. All his life he looked up to the memory of Fox. There was in Fox an element which made him more akin to the Liberals, who succeeded him, than to the old Whig party. Lord John, as different from Fox in temperament as a man could be, was the inheritor of the spirit which leavened the old Whig tradition. In Lord John the sentiments of Fox took on a more deliberate air. He was a more intellectual man than his lavish, emotional, imposing forbear; and if it is remembered that he had, in addition, the diffidence of a sensitive man, these facts go far to explain an apparent contradiction in his character which puzzled contemporaries. To the observer at a distance there seemed to be two John Russells: the man who appeared to stand off coldly from his colleagues and backers (he was certainly as incapable as the younger Pitt of throwing round him those heartening glances of good-fellowship which made the followers of Fox feel like a band of brothers); and again, the man who, to the rapture of adherents, could lift debate at moments to a level where passionate principles swept all hesitation away. It was surprising to find, in one who commonly wore the air of picking his steps with care, the dash and anger of the fighter. Bulwer Lytton has described such moments in "The New Timon"--

"When the steam is on,
And languid Johnny glows to glorious John."

His speeches, if they had not the animated, flowing reasonableness of Cobden's, resembled them in this, that they belonged to that class of oratory which aims at convincing the reason rather than at persuading the emotions. Lord John had, however, one quality likely to make him widely popular--his pluck; at bay he was formidable. If there was a trace of injustice or unreasonableness in his adversaries, though their case might be overwhelmingly plausible, it was ten to one he routed them in confusion. He was ready in retort. One example of this readiness Gladstone was fond of quoting: Sir Francis Burdett had made a speech against the Whigs, in which he spoke of the "cant of patriotism." "There is one thing worse than the cant of patriotism," retorted Lord John, "and that is the recant of patriotism." Again, when the Queen once asked him, "Is it true, Lord John, that you hold that a subject is justified, in certain circumstances, in disobeying his sovereign?" his answer to this difficult question could not have been better: "Well, speaking to a sovereign of the House of Hanover, I can only say that I suppose he is."

One more characteristic must be mentioned. Like most men scrupulous and slow in determining what to do, his confidences often were withheld from others till the last moment, and sometimes beyond the moment, when it would have been wisest to admit his colleagues to his own counsel. In consequence he often appeared disconcertingly abrupt in decision.

In 1808 he accompanied Lord and Lady Holland to Spain and Portugal, and on his return he was sent by his father to Edinburgh University, the Duke having little confidence in the education then procurable at either Oxford or Cambridge. At Edinburgh he took part in the proceedings of the Speculative Society, read essays to them and debated; and he left the University still tending more towards literature than politics. There is no doubt that Edinburgh helped to form him. His mind was one naturally open to influences which are summed up as "the academic spirit"; dislike of exaggeration, impatience with brilliancy which does not illuminate, and distrust of enthusiasm which is not prepared to show its credentials at every step. His own style is marked by these qualities, and in addition by a reminiscence of eighteenth-century formality, more likely to please perhaps future than present readers; accurate, a little distant, it pleases because it conveys a sense of modesty and dignity. When he speaks of himself he does it to perfection.

After leaving the University he served in the Bedford militia. In 1814 he went to Italy, and crossed to Elba, where he saw Napoleon. Lord John was always a most authentic reporter. His description of the Emperor, written the next day, besides its intrinsic interest, is so characteristic of the writer himself that it may be quoted here. It is as matter-of-fact as one of Wellington's dispatches and as shrewd as a passage from one of Horace Walpole's letters.

PORTO FERRAJO, December 25, 1814 [22]

At eight o'clock in the evening yesterday I went to the Palace
according to appointment to see Napoleon. After waiting some
minutes in the ante-room I was introduced by Count Drouet and found
him standing alone in a small room. He was drest in a green coat
with a hat in his hand very much as he is painted, but excepting
this resemblance of dress, I had a very mistaken idea of him from
his portrait. He appears very short, which is partly owing to his
being very fat, his hands and legs being quite swollen and
unwieldy; this makes him appear awkward and not unlike the whole
length figures of Gibbon, the historian. Besides this, instead of
the bold marked countenance that I expected, he has fat cheeks and
rather a turn-up nose, which, to bring in another historian, made
the shape of his face resemble the portraits of Hume. He has a
dusky grey eye, which would be called a vicious eye in a horse, and
the shape of his mouth expresses contempt and derision--his manner
is very good-natured, and seems studied to put one at one's ease by
its familiarity; his smile and laugh are very agreeable--he asks a
number of questions without object, and often repeats them, a habit
he has no doubt acquired during fifteen years of supreme
command--to this I should also attribute the ignorance he seems to
show at times of the most common facts. When anything that he likes
is said, he puts his head forward and listens with great pleasure,
repeating what is said, but when he does not like what he hears, he
looks away as if unconcerned and changes the Subject. From this one
might conclude that he was open to flattery and violent in his
temper.

He began asking me about my family, the allowance my father gave
me, if I ran into debt, drank, played, etc.

He asked me if I had been in Spain, and if I was not imprisoned by
the Inquisition. I told him that I had seen the abolition of the
Inquisition voted, and of the injudicious manner in which it was
done.

He mentioned Infantado, and said, "II n'a point de caractere."
Ferdinand he said was in the hands of the priests--afterwards he
said, "Italy is a fine country; Spain too is a fine
country--Andalusia and Seville particularly."

_F. R._ Yes, but uncultivated.

_N._ Agriculture is neglected because the land is in the hands
of the Church.

_F. R._ And of the Grandees.

_N._ Yes, who have privileges contrary to the public
prosperity.

_F. R._ Yet it would be difficult to remedy the evil.

_N._ It might be remedied by dividing property and abolishing
hurtful privileges, as was done in France.

_F. R._ Yes, but the people must be industrious--even if the
land was given to the people in Spain, they would not make use of
it.

_N._ Ils succomberaient.

_F. R._ Yes, Sire.

He asked many questions about the Cortes, and when I told him that
many of them made good speeches on abstract questions, but that
they failed when any practical debate on finance or war took place,
he said, "Oui, faute de l'habitude de gouverner." He asked if I had
been at Cadiz at the time of the siege, and said the French failed
there.

_F. R._ Cadiz must be very strong.

_N._ It is not Cadiz that is strong, it is the Isle of
Leon--if we could have taken the Isle of Leon, we should have
bombarded Cadiz, and we did partly, as it was.

_F. R._ Yet the Isle of Leon had been fortified with great
care by General Graham.

_N._ Ha--it was he who fought a very brilliant action at
Barrosa.

He wondered our officers should go into the Spanish and Portuguese
service. I said our Government had sent them with a view of
instructing their armies; he said that did well with the
Portuguese, but the Spaniards would not submit to it. He was
anxious to know if we supported South America, "for," he said, "you
already are not well with the King of Spain."

Speaking of Lord Wellington, he said he had heard he was a large,
strong man, _grand chasseur_, and asked if he liked Paris. I
said I should think not, and mentioned Lord Wellington having said
that he should find himself much at a loss what to do in peace
time, and I thought scarcely liked anything but war.

_N._ La guerre est un grand jeu, une belle occupation.

He wondered the English should have sent him to Paris--"On n'aime
pas l'homme par qui on a été battu. Je n'ai jamais envoyé a Vienne
un homme qui a assisté à la prise de Vienne." He asked who was our
Minister (Lord Burghersh) at Florence, and whether he was
_honnête homme_, "for," he said, "you have two kinds of men in
England, one of _intrigans_, the other of _hommes très
honnêtes_."

Some time afterwards he said, "Dites moi franchement, votre
Ministre à Florence est il un homme à se fier?"

He had seen something in the papers about sending him (Napoleon) to
St. Helena, and he probably expected Lord Burghersh to kidnap
him--he inquired also about his family and if it was one of
consequence.

His great anxiety at present seems to be on the subject of France.
He inquired if I had seen at Florence many Englishmen who came from
there, and when I mentioned Lord Holland, he asked if he thought
things went well with the Bourbons, and when I answered in the
negative he seemed delighted, and asked if Lord Holland thought
they would be able to stay there. I said I really could not give an
answer. He said he had heard that the King of France had taken no
notice of those Englishmen who had treated him well in
England--particularly Lord Buckingham; he said that was very wrong,
for it showed a want of gratitude. I told him I supposed the
Bourbons were afraid to be thought to depend upon the English.
"No," he said, "the English in general are very well received." He
asked sneeringly if the Army was much attached to the Bourbons.

Talking of the Congress, he said, "There will be no war; the Powers
will disagree, but they will not go to war"--he said the Austrians,
he heard, were already much disliked in Italy and even at Florence.

_F. R._ It is very odd, the Austrian government is hated
wherever it has been established.

_N._ It is because they do everything with the baton--the
Italians all hate to be given over to them.

_F. R._ But the Italians will never do anything for
themselves--they are not united.

_N._ True.

Besides this he talked about the robbers between Rome and Florence,
and when I said they had increased, he said, "Oh! to be sure; I
always had them taken by the _gendarmerie_."

_F. R._ It is very odd that in England, where we execute so
many, we do not prevent crimes.

_N._ It is because you have not a _gendarmerie_.

He inquired very particularly about the forms of the Viceregal
Court in Ireland, the _Dames d'honneur_, pages, etc.; in some
things he was strangely ignorant, as, for instance, asking if my
father was a peer of Parliament.

He asked many questions three times over.

He spoke of the Regent's conduct to the Princess as very impolitic,
as it shocked the _bienséances_, by which his father had
become so popular.

He said our war with America was a _guerre de vengeance_, for
that the frontier could not possibly be of any importance.

He said, "You English ought to be very well satisfied with the end
of the war."

_F. R._ Yes, but we were nearly ruined in the course of it.

_N._ Ha! le système continental, ha--and then he laughed very
much.

He asked who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at present, but made no
remark on my answer.

I asked him if he understood English; he said that at Paris he had
had plenty of interpreters, but that he now began to read it a
little.

Many English went to Elba about this time; the substance of their
conversations is still in my recollection--April 2, 1815. He said
that he considered the great superiority of England to France lay
in her aristocracy, that the people were not better, but that the
Parliament was composed of all the men of property and all the men
of family in the country; this enabled the Government to resist the
shock which the failure of the Duke of York's expedition was liable
to cause--in France it would have destroyed the Government. (This
is an opinion rather tinged by the Revolution, but it is true that
our House of Commons looks to final results.) They were strong, he
said, by "les souvenirs attachants à l'histoire"; that on the
contrary he could make eighty senates in France as good as the
present; that he had intended to create a nobility by marrying his
generals, whom he accounted as quite insignificant, notwithstanding
the titles he had given them, to the offspring of the old nobility
of France. He had reserved a fund from the contribution which he
levied when he made treaties with Austria, Prussia, etc., in order
to found these new families. "Did you get anything from Russia?"

_N._ No, I never asked anything from her but to shut her ports
against England.

He wished, he said, to favour the re-establishment of the old
families, but every time he touched that chord an alarm was raised,
and the people trembled as a horse does when he is checked.

He told the story of the poisoning, and said there was some truth
in it--he had wished to give opium to two soldiers who had got the
plague and could not be carried away, rather than leave them to be
murdered by the Turks, but the physician would not consent. He said
that after talking the subject over very often he had changed his
mind on the morality of the measure. He owned to shooting the
Turks, and said they had broken their capitulation. He found great
fault with the French Admiral who fought the battle of the Nile,
and pointed out what he ought to have done, but he found most fault
with the Admiral who fought--R. Calder--for not disabling his
fleet, and said that if he could have got the Channel clear then,
or at any other time, he would have invaded England.

He said the Emperor of Russia was clever and had "idées libérales,"
but was a veritable Grec. At Tilsit, the Emperor of Russia, King of
Prussia, and N. used to dine together. They separated early--the
King of Prussia went to bed, and the two Emperors met at each
other's quarters and talked, often on abstract subjects, till late
in the night. The King of Prussia a mere corporal, and the Emperor
of Austria very prejudiced--"d'ailleurs honnête homme."

Berthier quite a pen-and-ink man--but "bon diable qui servit le
premier, à me témoigner ses regrets, les larmes aux yeux."

Metternich a man of the world, "courtisan des femmes," but too
false to be a good statesman-"car en politique il ne faut pas étre
_trop_ menteur."

It was his maxim not to displace his Marshals, which he had carried
to a fault in the case of Marmont, who lost his cannon by
treachery, he believed--I forget where. The Army liked him, he had
rewarded them well.

Talleyrand had been guilty of such extortion in the peace with
Austria and with Bavaria that he was complained against by those
Powers and therefore removed--it was he who advised the war with
Spain, and prevented N. from seeing the Duke d'Enghien, whom he
thought a "brave jeune homme," and wished to see.

He said he had been fairly tried by a military tribunal, and the
sentence put up in every town in France, according to law.

Spain ought to have been conquered, and he should have gone there
himself had not the war with Russia occurred.

Lord Lauderdale was an English peer, but not of "la plus belle
race." England will repent of bringing the Russians so far: they
will deprive her of India.

If Mr. Fox had lived, he thought he should have made peace--praised
the noble way in which the negotiation was begun by him.

The Archduke Charles he did not think a man of great abilities.
"Tout ce que j'ai publié sur les finances est de l'Evangile," he
said--he allowed no _gaspillage_ and had an excellent
treasurer; owing to this he saved large sums out of his civil list.

The conscription produced 300,000 men yearly.

He thought us wrong in taking Belgium from France--he said it was
now considered as so intimately united that the loss was very
mortifying. Perhaps it would have been better, he said, to divide
France--he considered one great advantage to consist as I--(_End
of Journal_.)

[22] This account is copied from the old leather-bound journal, in which it was written by Lord John the day after the interview; there is no gap in the account, but the last part appears to have been written later, and is unfinished.

During the session of 1813 Lord John was returned for the family borough of Tavistock. He was obliged, however, principally owing to ill-health, to retire from active life at the end of three years, during which time he made a remarkable speech against the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. It must have been at about this time that he thought of giving up politics and devoting himself to literature, which brought the following "Remonstrance" from his friend Thomas Moore:

REMONSTRANCE

(_After a conversation with Lord John Russell in which he had intimated some idea of giving up all political pursuits_.)

What! _thou_, with thy genius, thy youth, and thy name--
Thou, born of a Russell--whose instinct to run
The accustomed career of thy sires, is the same
As the eaglet's to soar with his eyes on the sun.

Whose nobility comes to thee, stamped with a seal,
Far, far more ennobling than monarch e'er set,
With the blood of thy race, offered up for the weal
Of a nation that swears by that martyrdom yet I

Shalt _thou_ be faint-hearted and turn from the strife,
From the mighty arena, where all that is grand,
And devoted and pure, and adorning in life,
'Tis for high-thoughted spirits like thine to command?

Oh no, never dream it--while good men despair
Between tyrants and traitors, and timid men bow,
Never think, for an instant, thy country can spare
Such a light from her darkening horizon as thou.

With a spirit as meek as the gentlest of those
Who in life's sunny valley lie sheltered and warm;
Yet bold and heroic as ever yet rose
To the top cliffs of Fortune and breasted her storm;

With an ardour for liberty, fresh as in youth
It first kindles the bard and gives life to his lyre,
Yet mellowed even now by that mildness of truth
Which tempers, but chills not, the patriot fire;

With an eloquence--not like those rills from a height,
Which sparkle and foam, and in vapour are o'er;
But a current that works out its way into light
Through the filtering recesses of thought and of lore.

Thus gifted, thou never canst sleep in the shade;
If the stirrings of Genius, the music of fame,
And the charms of thy cause have not power to persuade,
Yet think how to Freedom thou'rt pledged by thy Name.

Like the boughs of that laurel, by Delphi's decree,
Set apart for the Fane and its service divine,
So the branches that spring from the old Russell tree,
Are by Liberty _claimed_ for the use of her shrine.

THOMAS MOORE.

In spite of strong literary proclivities it would certainly have been a wrench to Lord John to leave the stirring scenes of Parliamentary life, and his feeling about it may be gathered from a letter written to his brother in 1841:

_Lord John Russell to the Duke of Bedford_

ENDSLEIGH, _October_ 13, 1841

Whatever may be said about other families, I do not think ours
ought to retire from active exertion. In all times of popular
movement the Russells have been on the "forward" side. At the
Reformation the first Earl of Bedford, in Charles the First's days
Francis the great Earl, in Charles the Second's William, Lord
Russell, in later times Francis Duke of Bedford--my
father--you--and lastly myself in the Reform Bill.

At the General Election in 1818 Lord John was again elected for Tavistock, and began to make the furtherance of Parliamentary Reform his particular aim. In 1820 he became member for Huntingdonshire. Henceforward, whenever the question of Reform came before the House, Lord John was recognized as its most prominent supporter. As early as 1822 he moved that "the present state of representation of the people in Parliament requires the most serious consideration of the House." In 1828 he succeeded in carrying the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. He was also an ardent supporter of the Catholic Relief Bill. Thus in religious, educational, and parliamentary questions he stood up stoutly for liberty. When Lord Grey succeeded the Duke of Wellington, Lord John took a large part in drafting the famous measure of Reform, and the Bill of 1831 was introduced by him; after which speech he became the most popular man in England. Beaten in Committee, the Reform party appealed to the country and returned with a larger majority. On June 24, 1831. he introduced the Bill for the second time.

This Bill, after being carried in the House of Commons, was rejected by the House of Lords, and it was not till June, 1832. that the great Reform Bill (the third introduced within twelve months) became the law of the land. Lord John, who had been admitted to the Cabinet in 1831 during Lord Grey's Government, became Home Secretary in Lord Melbourne's Government in 1835, and in 1839 he was appointed Colonial Secretary, which office he held at the time of his second marriage. Up to this point we have only followed his career at a distance, but now through the letters and diaries of his wife we shall be enabled to follow it more intimately to the end.