No. 6. THE HONOURABLE ANDREW NEWPORT.
HE was the son of Lord Newport, the noted Royalist, by Rachel, daughter of Sir John Levison, Knight, of Harington, County Kent, and sister of Sir Richard Levison, Knight of the Bath, of Trentham, County Stafford.
Andrew was Commissioner of Customs to Charles the Second. He was M.P. for Shrewsbury from 1689 to 1698. Died unmarried, and was buried at Wroxeter. He bequeathed his manor of Dythan, County Montgomery, and other estates in the same county, and in that of Salop, to his nephew Richard, Lord Newport, son of Francis, Earl of Bradford. Lord Clarendon, in his History of the Civil Wars, makes frequent mention of Andrew Newport.
No. 9. THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD, AND HIS SECRETARY.
THE eldest son of Sir William Wentworth of Wentworth Wodehouse, County York, by Anne Atkinson of Stowel, County Gloucester. He succeeded his father in his large estates when only twenty-one, being already the husband of ‘a fair wife.’
Shortly after his succession he was elected M.P. for York and Custos Rotulorum in place of Lord Savile, superseded on account of misconduct, an office from which the Duke of Buckingham requested him to retire that Lord Savile might be reinstated, a proceeding which nettled the high spirit of Sir Thomas, who wrote a refusal so indignant as to make a lifelong enemy of the favourite.
Until the accession of Charles the First, Wentworth, although a silent member of the House of Commons, was a zealous advocate of the Liberal party and a strenuous opposer of the encroachments of the Court. Through the instrumentality of Buckingham he was disqualified from voting by having the post of High Sheriff thrust upon him, and he was soon after summarily dismissed from his office of Custos Rotulorum. In the ensuing year he was summoned before the Council and sentenced to imprisonment for refusing to contribute to a loan (levied without the consent of Parliament), on which occasion he made a noble speech expressing his loyalty to the person of Charles the First and his desire to serve him in any way consistent with his duty to his country. On his release from prison he became a strong leader of the Opposition and an eloquent advocate of the famous ‘Petition of Rights,’ to which the King was compelled to yield his unwilling consent. Then suddenly came the adoption of that line of conduct, so differently judged and so differently accounted for by different biographers. Wentworth declared his conviction that the nation might now be content with the concessions made by the Crown, bade adieu to the party of the ‘Pyms and the Prynnes,’ walked over to the other side of the House and offered his services, head, heart, and sword, to the royal cause. By some he was termed a traitor, a time-server, an apostate, while others upheld the conduct of a man who chose the moment of impending danger to rally round the unsteady throne and the unpopular sovereign. Charles naturally received him with open arms, and loaded him with favours; but his old ally, Pym, meeting him one day, uttered these ominous words, ‘You are going to leave us, but I will never leave you while you have ahead on your shoulders’; words too cruelly redeemed.
The murder of the Duke of Buckingham made way for Wentworth’s advancement. Raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Wentworth, he was appointed Lord-Deputy and Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, and sailed for that ‘distressful country’ with a code for his own government, drawn up by himself, in his pocket, from which he never swerved. Lord Wentworth’s administration of Irish affairs, his transient popularity, his reforms in matters civil, military, and religious, his quarrels with the Irish nobles, his punctilio in minute questions of form and ceremony, his hurried voyages to and from England, are subjects intimately connected with the history of the times, but too lengthy to be detailed here. It would have been well for the Lord-Deputy if he had taken the advice of his lifelong friend and correspondent, Archbishop Laud, and had curbed his impetuosity on many occasions.
In 1639 he crossed to England, was created Earl of Strafford, gained the title of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, was received into the King’s full confidence, and was for a time virtually Prime Minister. Not content with advocating the necessities of raising subsidies, he contributed £20,000 from his own privy purse (as an example to the nation) towards the impending war with Scotland. In spite of ill-health and increasing infirmities, Strafford crossed and recrossed St. George’s Channel to attend to his duties on either side; the last time in a terrible storm, and nearly died at Chester, on his road to London. Yet his indomitable spirit would not yield. He joined the King at York, and found the army in a sad plight, all hope and spirit fled, and the royal cause ‘in the dust.’ He became the real, though not the nominal, Commander-in-chief, and although unable to walk, and scarcely able to sit upright on his saddle, Strafford rallied the troops, upbraided the sluggishness of the leaders, and set a brilliant example of energy and courage. But the King stayed his hand and thwarted his activity, loud all the while in his praises, and giving him the Garter. Charles also insisted that they should travel together to London, a proceeding to which Strafford was strongly opposed,—two victims hastening to their doom.
A few days after the opening of Parliament Pym began his long-meditated attack on his former friend—the blood-hounds were on the track, the hunt was up. Our limited space forbids us to do more than glance at the circumstances of Strafford’s arrest and trial, but in truth it is a well-known tale. He was impeached by Pym of high treason, compelled to listen to the charge on his knees, was given into custody, and lodged in the Tower. There is extant a most graphic description of the scene which Westminster Hall presented on the occasion of the trial, crowded to the roof, the King and Queen being present, and the whole court and nobility of England, ladies of the highest rank, whose tears flowed copiously, and whose verdict was unanimous in favour of the illustrious prisoner. It was well said by the elder Disraeli, that ‘Strafford’s eloquence was so great as to perpetuate the sympathy which he received in the hour of his agony.’ He had indeed need of his eloquence. Every obstacle was thrown in his way, especially in the matter of summoning witnesses, while his personal enemies were invited from all parts of the country. His confidence was betrayed, his words perverted, the whole proceedings were unlawful and unprecedented, and the Solicitor-General heaped insults on the accused. A Bill of Attainder was provided, and the few individuals who gave negative votes had their names posted up in the City as Straffordians.
There was a passage of arms between the two Houses on the subject, but the vultures were hovering round, and would not be disappointed of their prey. Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was declared guilty of high treason. On this sad passage, the saddest of all in Charles’s sad life, we need not dwell long. He had pledged his royal word to his noble friend, ‘You shall not suffer in honour, in fortune, or in life.’ Yet after some hesitation and delay, weeping all the time, he signed the death-warrant, laying up for himself hours of deep remorse during the few years he survived. The generous prisoner wrote to his master, indeed, to absolve him from his promise; but when he learned he was to prepare for death, he raised his eyes to heaven exclaiming, ‘Put not your trust in princes, or in any child of man.’
During the short interval between the sentence and the execution, the captive busied himself in settling his worldly affairs, writing wise, tender, and pathetic letters to his relatives, and devoting his mind to the fulfilment of his religious duties.
An earnest request to be allowed to visit his attached friend and fellow-prisoner, Archbishop Laud, was cruelly refused, and he was only permitted to send him a message, entreating the prelate’s blessing as he passed to execution. Accordingly, on the 12th of May 1641, Strafford, on his way to the scaffold, raised his eyes to the window of the cell where the Archbishop was confined, and perceived the aged and trembling hand waving through the bars a solemn farewell to the man he had so long and so faithfully loved. Thousands of spectators lined the streets, the passions of the mob had been so excited against the prisoner that the guards kept close to the carriage lest he should be torn to pieces. Strafford smiled calmly, and remarked it would matter little to him whether he died by the hands of the executioner or by those of the people. ‘He had faced death too often to fear it in any shape.’
His friend, Archbishop Ussher, and his brother, Sir George Wentworth, were already on the platform. Strafford spoke for some time. He declared that his whole aim through life had been the joint and individual prosperity of the King and the people, although he had had the misfortune to be misconstrued. He denied all the charges brought against him, asked forgiveness of all men he had injured, and prayed ‘that we may all meet eternally in heaven, where sad thoughts shall be driven from our hearts, and tears wiped from our eyes.’ Then he bade farewell to those near him, embracing his brother, by whom he sent tender messages to his wife and children. ‘One stroke,’ he said, ‘will make my wife husbandless, my children fatherless, my servants masterless; but let God be to you and to them all in all.’ Taking off his doublet, he thanked God he could do so as cheerfully as ever he did when going to bed. Then he forgave the executioner and all the world. It was indeed an imposing scene,—Strafford on that momentous day apparently restored to all the energy of health and vigour, his symmetrical form, his regular features, with a complexion ‘pallid but manly.’ Once more he knelt in prayer between the Archbishop and the Minister, tried the block, and having warned the executioner that he would give the sign, stretched forth his white and beautifully formed hands, which Vandyck has immortalised, which Henrietta Maria, his sworn enemy, had pronounced the finest in the world; and one stroke from the cruel axe ended the mortal career of Thomas, Earl of Strafford.
He was thrice married,—first, to Lady Margaret Clifford, who died childless; secondly, to Lady Arabella Holles, daughter to the Earl of Clare, by whom he had one son and two daughters; and thirdly, to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Godfrey Rhodes (the marriage was a clandestine one), from whom he was separated for a period immediately after the ceremony, and it was some time before he would acknowledge her openly; in fact a mystery hung over the whole matter. Lord Strafford’s letters to this lady during his trial were couched in affectionate terms. She bore him several children, one of whom alone survived him. Of his connection with that beautiful schemer, Lady Carlisle, born Percy, there can be no doubt,—‘she who,’ says Sir Philip Warwick, ‘changed her gallant from Strafford to Pym, thus going over to his deadly enemy’; but there were many other names coupled with that of Lord Strafford, apparently without any reason, save the love of slander.
No. 10. COLONEL THE HONOURABLE JOHN RUSSELL.
HE was the youngest son of Francis, fourth Earl of Bedford, by Catherine Bridges. He served with distinction in the royal army under Charles the First, and at the Restoration was appointed Colonel of the first regiment of the Foot Guards. At one time there were negotiations carrying on for his marriage with a daughter of the Earl of Bath, which was prevented by the young lady’s family, who were desirous she should marry her cousin, heir to the Earldom of Bath. The gallant colonel then became a suitor for the hand of the famous beauty La Belle Hamilton. There is a laughable description of him in the Memoires de Grammont, and we cannot but think that as the chronicler himself carried off the prize, he might have been rather more generous in his delineation of an unsuccessful rival:
‘M. Le Colonel Russell avoit bien soixante ans, son courage et sa fidélité l’avoient distingué dans les guerres civiles. Il n’y avoit pas longtemps qu’on avoit quitté le ridicule, des chapeaux pointus, pour tomber dans l’autre extrémité. Le vieux Russell, effraié d’une chute si terrible, voulut prendre un milieu qui le rendit remarquable. Il l’étoit encore par la constance envers les pourpoints taillardés qu’il a soutenus longtemps après leur suppression universelle. Mais ce qui surprenoit le plus c’étoit un certain mélange d’avarice et de libéralité sans cesse en guerre l’une avec l’autre, depuis qu’il y étoit avec l’amour.’
He was selected by his nephew, Lord Russell, to carry the noble letter which the prisoner had written from Newgate on the 19th July 1683 to the King.
No. 11. FRANCIS RUSSELL, FOURTH EARL OF BEDFORD.
HE was the only son of William Russell, called the Heroic Baron of Thornhaugh, whom he accompanied to Ireland when only nine years old. A curious picture at Woburn leads us to believe that the young Francis shared his father’s love of sport, being there represented in a white hunting jacket with green hose, a hawk on his hand, and two dogs in couples beside him. He was knighted in 1604 by James the First, at Whitehall, and the ensuing year he married Catherine, daughter and co-heir of Gyles Brydges, third Lord Chandos, with whom he lived very happily; and during the first years of his marriage he devoted himself to domestic life, and took great delight in study. Having received a legal education he prosecuted his researches into questions of law, parliamentary privileges and the like, which were destined to prove useful to him in his public career. He succeeded his father, as Baron Thornhaugh, in 1613; and his cousin, Edward Russell, in the Earldom of Bedford in 1627. He frequented the society of such men as Sir Robert Cotton, Selden, Eliott, and was ever ready, says one of his biographers, to uphold the liberty of the subject against such despots as James the First. On the accession of Charles the First, Lord Bedford continued the same independent line of conduct, and several times fell under the displeasure of the Court. In 1628 he distinguished himself by his steadfast advocacy of the famous Petition of Rights (to which Charles was in the end compelled to give an unwilling consent); and he received in consequence the royal commands to betake himself to the distant county of Devonshire, of which he was Lord-Lieutenant. Both political bias and private friendship attached him to the so-called popular party, which laid down as their principle for action ‘to prescribe limits to the monarchical power.’ The profession of such opinions naturally led to the fact that Lord Bedford, among many others, became an object of suspicion to the Court. A rumour was set on foot that he had been instrumental in the circulation of a seditious pamphlet, and on this plea he was arrested and imprisoned for a short time. In 1630 he took a prominent part in the drainage of the Fens in the centre of England, including the counties of North Hants, Lincoln, Hunts, Bedford, Cambridge, and Norfolk; called the Great Level, and subsequently in his honour the Bedford Level. In 1637 this generous and public-minded man had expended for his own share of this great work £100,000, but he was not destined to witness its completion. The part that Lord Bedford took in the political events of the day—in the struggles between King and Parliament, in the differences with the Scots—is not all this written in the chronicles of the civil wars of Charles the First’s disastrous reign? Suffice it to say that some of the popular Lords, and Lord Bedford in particular, became aware of the advisability of moderation, and the necessity of curbing the headlong opposition of the popular party. But we cannot do better than to quote the eloquent words of the great historian Lord Clarendon (then Mr. Hyde). He says: ‘This Lord was the person of the greatest interest in the whole party, being of the best estate and best understanding, and therefore most likely to govern the rest.’ He was also of great civility and good-nature, and though occasionally hot-tempered, and for the moment impatient of contradiction, yet his opinions were wise and moderate. He was a good adviser to the King, and served him in the end far better than many who cajoled and flattered him. Lord Bedford was a man of strict religion, and withstood the attempt to evict the bishops from the Upper House. He with many others of the same party were sworn of the Privy Council, and in this manner gained Charles’s ear, and exercised some degree of influence over him in regulating and modifying measures that appeared prejudicial to the common good. He was selected to be one of the Lords Commissioners sent to confer with the Scots in the hope to compose the long-existing differences. The King liked to transact business with him, and was inclined to listen to his suggestions as to persons fitted to be appointed to offices of state. Indeed Charles pressed upon Lord Bedford himself the post of Lord Treasurer, ‘which the Bishop of London was as willing to lay down as any one else could be to take up,’ but Lord Bedford refused the office. He was one of the few Peers (to his honour be it spoken) who exerted himself to the utmost to save the life of Lord Strafford. He pleaded his cause vainly with his colleague, the Earl of Essex; and finding him inexorable, prevailed on Mr. Hyde (in a long interview he had on the subject) to intercede with Lord Essex. He also endeavoured to keep the King up to his original intention of commuting or mitigating the sentence. He observed to Mr. Hyde that he thought ‘the Earl of Strafford’s business was a rock on which they would all split, and that he was sure the passion of Parliament would undo the kingdom.’
But a sudden attack of illness arrested Lord Bedford’s useful and noble career. He was seized with the small-pox, and on ascertaining the fact, his first step was to send away his daughter, Lady Brooke, lest she should fall a victim to the fell disease which wrought such havoc in the house of Russell, seeing that his son and great-grandson both died of the same. Lord Bedford was very much averse to the treatment which his physician, Dr. Cragg, prescribed for him, namely, to be kept a close prisoner to his bed. And when forbidden to get up, he sighed dolefully and said, ‘Well, then, I must die to observe your rules.’
Dr. Cademan, a medical man who had advocated a different treatment, published a pamphlet, which gave as his opinion that Lord Bedford ‘had died of too much bed, rather than of the small-pox.’ The same authority, speaking of the Earl’s devotion, says: ‘I never saw the like, though I have waited upon many who had no other business left but to die well. Commending his body to be buried with decency, but without pomp, his breath was spent before his hands and eyes ceased to be lifted up to Heaven, as if his soul would have carried his body along with it.’
So passed away on the 9th of May 1641 Francis Russell, called the wise Earl of Bedford, a loss to the unfortunate Strafford, whose sentence was carried out in a few days; a loss to the King, whose wholesome adviser he was; a loss to the popular party, whose violence he would fain have curbed. His death was universally mourned, and every mark of respect paid to his memory. Three hundred coaches with Peers and their servants attended; a long and solemn procession followed the body on its road to Chenies, the burying-place of the Russell family, with led horses, banners displayed, Garter King-at-Arms, ‘all the pomp of heraldry and pride of power’; and this great and good man was interred amid the prayers and tears of a large multitude. His widow survived him some years, and was then buried beside him.
No. 13. WILLIAM, LORD RUSSELL.
HE was born second son of William, fifth Earl, afterwards first Duke, of Bedford. He went with his elder brother, Lord Russell, to Cambridge, and later travelled in his company, and that of a learned tutor on the Continent. At Augsburg the brothers separated, and William proceeded to Lyons, whence his letters home proved he amused himself very much, and amidst a gay and brilliant society formed a close acquaintance with the eccentric and celebrated ex-Queen, Christina of Sweden, who appeared to have gained great influence over the young Englishman, who evinced a great inclination for some time to enter the Swedish army as a volunteer. His letters during his sojourn in France, many of which were addressed to his tutor, to whom he was much attached, do him honour. When en route for England he fell sick at Paris, and finding himself, as he writes, ‘at the gates of death,’ he assures his old friend that he prays constantly to God to ‘give me grace that I may employ in His service the life His mercy has spared to me.’
On his arrival at home, William for a time devoted himself to the care of his brother, then in ill-health, and to giving his father assistance in domestic affairs. At the Restoration, Lord Bedford and his family were marked out for favour, and the Earl carried the sceptre at the Coronation, and soon after William was elected member for Tavistock. Handsome, accomplished, and nobly born, he became a shining light at the brilliant Court of Charles the Second, but his tastes were too earnest, and his bias too virtuous to find any lasting satisfaction in a society so frivolous and immoral. An early attachment to a good and beautiful woman proved a strong safeguard to the young courtier, which was crowned about the year 1669, by a marriage, the happiness of which family and historical records can vouch. It was indeed a well-assorted union, the commencement of ‘domestic bliss,’ as the poet says, ‘the only happiness which has survived the Fall.’ William Russell’s choice was Rachel, the daughter of the noble loyalist, Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and the daughter-in-law of the Earl of Carbery, being the widow of his eldest son, Lord Vaughan. We refer our readers to our sketch of Lady Russell’s life, who retained her widowed title of Lady Vaughan until the death of William’s elder brother. In the meantime he began his political career by a zealous and conscientious attention to his parliamentary duties, and was not long before he incurred the lasting animosity of the Duke of York, and indeed of the King himself, by his zealous opposition to many arbitrary measures proposed by the Court party, which, in Russell’s opinion, were calculated to endanger ‘the liberty of the subject, the safety of the kingdom, and the welfare of the Protestant religion.’ In 1679 he was made a Privy Councillor, a dignity he did not long enjoy, for we read shortly after ‘that the Lords Russell, Cavendish, and others, finding the King’s heart and head were against popular councils, and that their presence in Council could no longer prevent pernicious measures, and not being willing to serve him against the interests of their country, went to him together, and desired him to excuse their attendance any more at Council.’ The King gladly accepted their resignation, for he wanted men who would promote his arbitrary measures, and thus, says Smollett, ‘Lord Russell, one of the most popular and virtuous men of the nation, quitted the Council Board.’
He was a prominent promoter of the Bill of Exclusion to prevent the Duke of York, or any Papist whatsoever, from succeeding to the Throne. When the Bill passed the Commons, it was Lord Russell who carried it in person to the Upper House, on which occasion he made a most eloquent speech, and wound up by saying that in the event of changes so occurring, he should be prevented living a Protestant, it was his fixed resolution to die one. But all opposition to the Papal succession was unavailing, and in 1681 the King dissolved Parliament, by which means Lord Russell found himself at liberty for a short space to indulge in the retirement and pleasures of a happy home with the wife and children he adored. But his country’s welfare was ever paramount in his mind, and he kept up his interest in public affairs.
During the ensuing summer the Prince of Orange visited England, and had several interviews and confidential conversations with Lord Russell, who, moreover, made himself doubly obnoxious to the Court party by meeting the Duke of Monmouth in his progress through the North, at the head of a considerable body of men.
In conversation with his domestic chaplain Lord Russell once remarked that he was convinced he should one day fall a sacrifice, since arbitrary government could never be set up in England while he lived to oppose it, and that to the last drop of his blood. And it was evident he took little pains to prevent the fulfilment of his own prophecy. This was a period of plots and counter-plots. There had been much talk lately of a Popish plot, and now the Protestant, or Rye House Plot, was said to have been discovered, the object of which, it was affirmed, was to seize the persons of the King and Duke of York on their return from Newmarket. The enemies of Lord Russell, and several other noblemen, who participated in his political views, were glad to take hold of any pretext to secure the ruin of the men on whose downfall they were bent, and many of the highest of England’s nobility were now loudly accused of being implicated in the conspiracy, and orders were issued for their arrest. The Duke of Monmouth was not forthcoming, but Lord Russell, strong in his own innocence, refused to make his escape, though strongly urged to do so by many of his friends. He disdained the notion of flight, though from the beginning he gave himself up for lost. So he sat calmly in his study awaiting the arrival of the officers, to whom he made no resistance, and was conveyed first to the Tower and thence to Newgate.
Lord Essex was the next so-called conspirator apprehended, and he also refused every argument for flight, saying that he considered his own life not worth saving, if by drawing suspicion on Lord Russell, so valuable a life as his, also should be endangered. The Duke of Monmouth had it conveyed to Lord Russell that he would willingly give himself up and share his fate. But the noble prisoner answered it would be no advantage to him that his friends should suffer, and so, on the 13th of July 1683, William, Lord Russell, stood at the bar of the Old Bailey on a charge of high treason. That very morning the Lord Essex, who was only a prisoner of three days’ standing, was found dead in the Tower with his throat cut. This strange and melancholy event gave rise to conflicting rumours. Many people were of opinion that there had been foul play, and Evelyn was as surprised as he was grieved, ‘My Lord Essex being so well known to me as a man of sober and religious deportment.’ The news coming to Westminster Hall on the very day of Lord Russell’s trial, was said to have had no little influence on the verdict which the jury returned. The prisoner’s demeanour during his examination was marked by calm dignity and absence of any sign of agitation, though he occasionally expostulated against the injustice with which the proceedings were carried on. Being asked how he wished to be tried, he replied, ‘By God and my country.’ Alas! alas! the voices of Justice and of Mercy were alike unheard in the courts of law that day. The prisoner represented that he had been kept in ignorance, until the moment of his appearing at the bar, of the nature of the charges which were to be brought against him, and that he was allowed no time to select his own counsel, etc. etc. He asked permission to employ the hand of another to take notes of the evidence, upon which the Attorney-General (resolved to deprive him of the help of any counsel) churlishly replied, he might have one of his own servants to assist him. ‘Then,’ said Lord Russell, ‘the only assistance I will ask is that of the lady beside me.’ At these words, says a contemporary writer, ‘a thrill of anguish passed through the court’—a moment of intense pathos, the frequent and glowing records of which, by poet, painter, and historian, pale before the vivid colouring of the fact itself: the noble prisoner turning in his hour of utmost need to the gentle helpmate beside him, his servant, in the literal acceptation of the word—for who could love or serve him better? Rachel, Lady Russell, rose with a calm she had borrowed from her husband’s example. Crushing down and stifling the varied emotions of sorrow, indignation, and apprehension, forcing back the rising tears lest they should dim the vision of the scribe, clenching the small white hand to restore its requisite steadiness, Rachel stood motionless for an instant, with every eye upon her—the cold scrutiny of the cruel judges, the inquisitive stare of false friends and perjured witnesses,—while the Attorney-General, in a more subdued tone of voice, said, ‘As the lady pleases.’ She then with a firm step left her husband’s side, and took up her post at the table below. That picture still remains stamped on the memory of her countrymen through the lapse of more than two centuries, and many who only half remember the details of that remarkable trial, and its undoubted importance as regards subsequent events, still bear in mind the touching episode of the beautiful secretary, the faithful servant, the devoted wife and widow of William, Lord Russell. The jury were not long in returning the verdict of Guilty,—‘an act,’ says Rapin, ‘of the most crying injustice that ever was perpetrated in England.’
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 the 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 interest, 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. He 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, laid 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.
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, may 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 carried 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 which 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 animadversions 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’; and 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 constructed 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 ‘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, like 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.