The Town Part 21

This is impartial. But surely an imprudence so extremely dangerous, and an intercourse on any terms with an envoy's agent, the nature of which it must have been necessary to conceal, partook of a disingenuousness and selfwill that cannot be held innocent. That Lord Russell had the best intentions is granted; but his principles were specially opposed by the doctrine of "doing evil, that good might come;" and if it be argued that good men are sometimes defeated in their intentions by not imitating the less scrupulous conduct of evil ones, it is to be replied, that there is no end of the re-actions consequent on such imitations, nor any bounds, on the other hand, to be put to the good consequences of a perfect example, even should its very perfection r.e.t.a.r.d them. Good causes are not lost for want of pa.s.sion and energy, but for that defect of faith and openness, which is the worst destroyer of both, and the loss of which is the worst hazard produced by a defect of example. We should be surprised that the patriots, while they were about it, did not denounce Charles's anti-const.i.tutional behaviour more than they did, and openly demand their rights as a matter of course; but it is easy to account for it upon the supposition that they were hampered with court connections, and not sure of one another.

The worst thing to be said of Lord Russell (for as to the letters he wrote for pardon, they must be considered as obtained from him by his friends and a tender wife) is, that when Lord Stafford, the victim of a plot charged on the papists, was sentenced to death, Russell opposed the King's privilege of dispensing with a barbarous part of the execution; so unworthy the rest of their character can men be rendered by party feeling, and so little do they foresee what they may themselves require in a day of adversity. When Charles II. was applied to on the same point in behalf of Lord Russell, he is reported to have said, "Lord Russell shall find I am possessed of that prerogative, which in the case of Lord Stafford he thought fit to deny me." The sarcasm (if made--for there is no real authority for it) was cruel; but it is not to be denied, that Lord Stafford, a man old and feeble, whose protestations of innocence called forth tears from the spectators when he was on the scaffold, might have thought Russell's conduct equally so. Let us congratulate ourselves, that the fiery trials which men of all parties have gone through, have enabled us to benefit by their experience, to be grateful for what was n.o.ble in them, and to learn (with modesty) how to avoid what was infirm.

Lord Russell, besides the general regard of posterity, has left two glorious testimonies to his honour--his behaviour in his last days, and the inextinguishable grief of one of the best of women. The latter, the celebrated Lady Rachael Russell, the daughter of Charles's best servant, Southampton, threw herself at the King's feet, "and pleaded," says Hume, "with many tears, the merit and loyalty of her father, as an atonement for those errors into which honest, however mistaken, principles had seduced her husband. These supplications were the last instance of female weakness (if they deserve the name) which she betrayed. Finding all applications vain, she collected courage, and not only fortified herself against the fatal blow, but endeavoured by her example to strengthen the resolution of her unfortunate lord."[205]

Echard says, that Charles refused her a reprieve of six weeks. If so, he probably feared some desperate attempt in Russell's favour; which, in fact, was proposed, as we shall see; and it is possible, that remembering what had happened to Charles I., and conscious of his own deserts, he might really have thought that Lord Russell would willingly have seen him put to death; for Rapin tells us that he said, in answer to Lady Rachael, "How can I grant that man six weeks, who, if it had been in his power, would not have granted me six hours?"[206] And Lord Dartmouth in his notes upon Burnet, tells us that when his (Dartmouth's) father represented to the King the obligations which a pardon would lay upon a great family, and the regard that was due to Southampton's daughter and her children, the King answered, "All that is true; but it is as true, that if I do not take his life, he will soon have mine;" "which," says Dartmouth, "would admit of no reply."[207] Some, however, have said, that the King would have granted Russell his life, if he had not been afraid of his brother, the Duke of York; and as an instance of what was thought of the characters of these two princes, whether the story is true or not, it was added, that Charles did not like to hear any discourses about the pardon, because he could not grant it; whereas James would hear anything, though he resolved to grant nothing.

Every other effort was made to save the life of Russell.

"Money," says Burnet, "was offered to the Lady Portsmouth, and to all that had credit, and that without measure. He was pressed to send pet.i.tions and submissions to the King and to the Duke; but he left it to his friends to consider how far these might go, and how they were to be worded. All that he was brought to was, to offer to live beyond sea, in any place that the King should name; and never to meddle any more in English affairs. But all was in vain. Both King and Duke were fixed in their resolutions; but with this difference, as Lord Rochester afterwards told me, that the Duke suffered some, among whom he was one, to argue the point with him, but the King could not bear the discourse. Some said, that the Duke moved that he might be executed in Southampton Square before his own house, but that the King rejected that as indecent. So Lincoln's Inn Fields was appointed for the place of his execution."[208]

As a last resource Lord Cavendish offered to attack the coach on either side with a troop of horse, and take his friend out of it; but Russell would not consent to bring any one into jeopardy on his behalf.

It has been said that Lincoln's Inn Fields was chosen, in order that the people might witness the triumph of the Court, in seeing him led through the city; but others have reasonably observed upon this, that as he was to be taken from Newgate, the desire of making him a spectacle to the citizens would have been better gratified by his being carried to the old place of execution, the Tower. It is most probable, that Lincoln's Inn Fields was selected, as being the nearest feasible spot to the great town property of the Bedford family; Bloomsbury lying opposite, and Covent garden on one side.

The following is the letter addressed to the King by Russell's father, followed by that of Russell himself, which Burnet has mentioned as being drawn from him by his friends.

"To the King's most Excellent Majesty.

"The humble pet.i.tion of William, Earl of Bedford: "Humbly sheweth;

"That could your pet.i.tioner have been admitted into your presence, he would have laid himself at your royal feet, in behalf of his unfortunate son, himself, and his distressed and disconsolate family, to implore your royal mercy, which he never had the presumption to think could be obtained by any indirect means. But shall think himself, wife, and children, much happier to be left but with bread and water, than to lose his dear son for so foul a crime as treason against the best of princes; for whose life he ever did, and ever shall pray, more than for his own.

"May G.o.d incline your Majesty's heart to the prayers of an afflicted old father, and not bring grey hairs with sorrow to my grave.

"BEDFORD."

"To the King's most Excellent Majesty.

"The humble pet.i.tion of William Russell: "Most humbly sheweth;

"That your pet.i.tioner does once more cast himself at your Majesty's feet, and implores, with all humility, your mercy and pardon, still avowing that he never had the least thought against your Majesty's life, nor any design to change the government; but humbly and sorrowfully confesses his having been present at those meetings, which he is convinced were unlawful, and justly provoking to your Majesty; but being betrayed by ignorance and inadvertence, he did not decline them as he ought to have done, for which he is truly and heartily sorry; and, therefore, humbly offers himself to your Majesty, to be determined to live in any part of the world which you shall appoint, and never to meddle any more in the affairs of England, but as your Majesty shall be pleased to command me.

"May it therefore please your Majesty to extend your royal favour and mercy to your pet.i.tioner, by which he will be for ever engaged to pray for your Majesty, and to devote his life to your service.

"WILLIAM RUSSELL."

The third is to the Duke of York. It is certainly to be regretted, that these letters were drawn from a patriot, willing, there is no doubt, to have endured all extremities without compromising the dignity of conscious right: but the reader will bear in mind what has been said of them; and we shall see presently what the writer said of the present one.

"May it please your Highness;

"The opposition I have appeared in to your Highness's interest has been such, as I have scarce the confidence to be a pet.i.tioner to you, though in order to the saving of my life.

Sir, G.o.d knows what I did did not proceed from any personal ill-will, or animosity to your royal Highness, but merely because I was of opinion, that it was the best way for observing the religion established by law, in which, if I was mistaken, yet I acted sincerely, without any ill end in it. And as for any base design against your person, I hope your Royal Highness will be so just to me as not to think me capable of so vile a thought. But I am now resolved, and do faithfully engage myself, that if it shall please the King to pardon me, and if your Royal Highness will interpose in it, I will in no sort meddle any more, but will be readily determined to live in any part of the world which his Majesty shall prescribe, and will never fail in my daily prayers, both for his Majesty's preservation and honour, and your Royal Highness's happiness, and will wholly withdraw myself from the affairs of England, unless called by his Majesty's orders to serve him, which I shall never be wanting to do, to the uttermost of my power. And if your Royal Highness will be so gracious to me, as to move on my account, as it will be an engagement upon me, beyond what I can in reason expect, so it will make the deepest impressions on me possible; for no fear of death can work so much with me, as so great an obligation will for ever do upon me. May it please your Royal Highness, your Royal Highness's most humble and most obedient servant,

"W. RUSSELL."

"Newgate, July 16th, 1683."

Burnet says of this last letter, which he tells us was written at the "earnest solicitations" of Lady Rachael, that as Russell was folding it up, he said to him, "This will be printed, and will be selling about the streets as my submission, when I am led out to be hanged."

All efforts failed, and the patriot and husband composed himself to die. The touching particulars of his last days we shall extract from the account of his friend Bishop Burnet. It is one that, as it contains no disputed points, may be safely relied on; and indeed, if we had not wished to show how interested we are in the case of this advancer of public right, and how anxious to spare no proper trouble for our readers, we might safely have copied the whole case from the lively pages of that historian, whose writings, whatever may have been his faults of partizans.h.i.+p and complexion, have risen in value, in proportion as doc.u.ments come to light. A great modern statesman, equally qualified to judge of it, both as a politician and a man, alludes with interesting emotion to Burnet's account of his last hours. Speaking of the dying behaviour of Russell and Sidney, he says, "In courage they are equal, but the fort.i.tude of Russell, who was connected with the world by private and domestic ties, which Sidney was not, was put to the severer trial; and the story of the last days of this excellent man's life fills the mind with such a mixture of tenderness and admiration, that I know not any scene in history that more powerfully excites our sympathy, or goes more directly to the heart."[209]

"The last week of his life," says Burnet, "he was shut up all the morning as he himself desired. And about noon I came to him, and staid with him till night. All the while he expressed a very Christian temper, without sharpness or resentment, vanity or affectation. His whole behaviour looked like a triumph over death. Upon some occasions, as at table, or when his friends came to see him, he was decently cheerful. I was by him when the sheriffs came to show him the warrant for his execution. He read it with indifference; and when they were gone he told me it was not decent to be merry with such a matter, otherwise he was near telling Rich (who, though he was now on the other side, yet had been a member of the House of Commons, and had voted for the exclusion), that they should never sit together in that house any more to vote for the bill of exclusion. The day before his death he fell a bleeding at the nose; upon that he said to me pleasantly, I shall not now let blood to divert this: that will be done to-morrow. At night it rained hard, and he said, such a rain to-morrow will spoil a great show, which was a dull thing in a rainy day. He said, the sins of his youth lay heavy upon his mind; but he hoped G.o.d had forgiven them, for he was sure he had forsaken them, and for many years he had walked before G.o.d with a sincere heart. If in his public actings he had committed errors, they were only the errors of his understanding; for he had no private ends, nor ill designs of his own in them; he was still of opinion that the King was limited by law, and that when he broke through those limits, his subjects might defend themselves and restrain him. He thought a violent death was a very desirable way of ending one's life; it was only the being exposed to be a little gazed at, and to suffer the pain of one minute, which, he was confident, was not equal to the pain of drawing a tooth. He said he felt none of those transports that some good people felt; but he had a full calm in his mind, no palpitation at heart, nor trembling at the thoughts of death. He was much concerned at the cloud that seemed to be now over his country; but he hoped his death would do more service than his life could have done.

"This was the substance of the discourse between him and me.

Tillotson was oft with him that last week. We thought the party had gone too quick in their consultations, and too far; and that resistance in the condition we were then in was not lawful. He said he had leisure to enter into discourses of politics; but he thought a government limited by law was only a name, if the subjects might not maintain those limitations by force; otherwise all was at the discretion of the Prince: that was contrary to all the notions he had lived in of our government.[210] But, he said, there was nothing among them but the embryos of things that were never like to have any effect, and they were now quite dissolved. He thought it was necessary for him to leave a paper behind him at his death: and, because he had not been accustomed to draw such papers, he desired me to give him a scheme of the heads fit to be spoken to, and of the order in which they should be laid; which I did. And he was three days employed for some time in the morning to write out his speech. He ordered four copies to be made of it, all which he signed; and gave the original with three of the copies to his lady, and kept the other to give to the sheriffs on the scaffold. He writ it with great ease, and the pa.s.sages that were tender he writ in papers apart, and showed them to his lady and to myself, before he writ them out fair. He was very easy when this was ended. He also writ a letter to the King, in which he asked pardon for every thing he had said or done contrary to his duty, protesting he was innocent as to all designs against his person or government, and that his heart was ever devoted to that which he thought was his Majesty's true interest. He added that, though he thought he had met with hard measures, yet he forgave all concerned in it, from the highest to the lowest; and ended, hoping that his Majesty's displeasure at him would cease with his own life, and that no part of it should fall on his wife and children. The day before his death he received the sacrament from Tillotson with much devotion: and I preached two short sermons to him, which he heard with great affection; and we were shut up till towards the evening. Then he suffered his children that were very young, and some few of his friends, to take leave of him; in which he maintained his constancy of temper, though he was a very fond father. He also parted from his lady with a composed silence; and as soon as she was gone, he said to me, 'The bitterness of death is pa.s.sed;' for he loved and esteemed her beyond expression, as she well deserved it in all respects. She had the command of herself so much that at parting she gave him no disturbance. He went into his chamber about midnight, and I stayed all night in the outward room. He went not to bed till about two in the morning, and was fast asleep at four, when, according to his order, we called him. He was quickly dressed, but would lose no time in shaving, for, he said, he was not concerned in his good looks that day."

"Lord Russell," continues Burnet, "seemed to have some satisfaction to find that there was no truth in the whole contrivance of the Rye Plot; so that he hoped that infamy, which now blasted their party, would soon go off. He went into his chamber six or seven times in the morning, and prayed by himself, and then came out to Tillotson and me; he drank a little tea and some sherry. He wound up his watch, and said, now he had done with time, and was going to eternity. He asked what he should give the executioner: I told him ten guineas: he said, with a smile, it was a pretty thing to give a fee to have his head cut off. When the sheriffs called him about ten o'clock, Lord Cavendish was waiting below to take leave of him.

They embraced very tenderly. Lord Russell, after he had left him, upon a sudden thought came back to him, and pressed him earnestly to apply himself more to religion, and told him what great comfort and support he felt from it now in his extremity.

Lord Cavendish had very generously offered to manage his escape, and to stay in prison for him while he should go away in his clothes; but he would not hearken to the motion. The Duke of Monmouth had also sent me word to let him know, that if he thought it could do him any service, he would come in and run fortunes with him. He answered, it would be of no advantage to him to have his friends die with him. Tillotson and I went in the coach with him to the place of execution. Some of the crowd that filled the streets wept, while others insulted; he was touched by the tenderness that the one gave him, but did not seem at all provoked by the other. He was singing psalms a great part of the way, and said, he hoped to sing better very soon.[211] As he observed the great crowds of people all the way, he said to us, 'I hope I shall quickly see a much better a.s.sembly.' When he came to the scaffold, he walked about it four or five times. Then he turned to the sheriffs, and delivered his paper. He protested that he had always been far from any designs against the King's life or government. He prayed G.o.d would preserve both, and the Protestant religion. He wished all Protestants might love one another, and not make way for Popery by their animosities."

Of the paper given by Russell to the sheriffs, Burnet has given the following honest abridgment. This testament to patriotism made a great sensation. To posterity, who have so benefited by its spirit, it is surely still of great interest.

"The substance of the paper he gave them," says Burnet, "was, first, a profession of his religion, and of his sincerity in it; that he was of the Church of England, but wished all would unite together against the common enemy; that churchmen would be less severe, and dissenters less scrupulous. He owned he had a great zeal against Popery, which he looked on as an idolatrous and b.l.o.o.d.y religion; but that, though he was at all times ready to venture his life for his religion or his country, yet that would never have carried him to a black or wicked design. No man ever had the impudence to move to him anything with relation to the King's life: he prayed heartily for him, that in his person and government he might be happy, both in this world and the next. He protested that in the prosecution of the Popish Plot he had gone on in the sincerity of his heart, and that he never knew of any practice with the witnesses. He owned he had been earnest in the matter of the exclusion, as the best way, in his opinion, to secure both the King's life and the Protestant religion, and to that he imputed his present sufferings; but he forgave all concerned in them, and charged his friends to think of no revenges. He thought his sentence was hard, upon which he gave an account of all that had pa.s.sed at Shepherd's. From the heats that were in choosing the sheriffs, he concluded that matter would end as it now did, and he was not much surprised to find it fall upon himself; he wished it might end in him; killing by forms of law was the worst sort of murder. He concluded with some very devout e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns.

"After he had delivered this paper, he prayed by himself; then Tillotson prayed with him. After that he prayed again by himself, and then undressed himself and laid his head on the block, without the least change of countenance; and it was cut off at two strokes."

The following additional particulars are from Burnet's "Journal:"--

"When my lady went, he said he wished she would give over beating every bush, and running so about for his preservation.

But when he considered that it would be some mitigation of her sorrow afterwards, that she left nothing undone that could have given any probable hopes, he acquiesced: and, indeed, I never saw his heart so near failing him, as when he spake of her.

Sometimes I saw a tear in his eye, and he would turn about and presently change the discourse.

"At ten o'clock my lady left him. He kissed her four or five times; and she kept her sorrows so within herself, that she gave him no disturbance by their parting. After she was gone, he said, 'Now the bitterness of death is pa.s.sed,' and ran out a long discourse concerning her--how great a blessing she had been to him; and said what a misery it would have been to him, if she had not 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 life; whereas, otherwise, what a week should I have pa.s.sed, if she had been crying on me to turn informer, and be a Lord Howard; though he then repeated what he often before said, that he knew of nothing whereby the peace of the nation was in danger; and that all that ever was, was either loose discourse, or at most embryos that never came to anything, so that there was nothing on foot to his knowledge.

"As we came to turn into Little Queen Street, he said, 'I have often turned to the other hand with great comfort, but now I turn to this with greater,' and looked towards his own house; and then, as the Dean of Canterbury, who sat over against him, told me, he saw a tear or two fall from him.

"When he had lain down, I looked once at him and saw no change in his looks; and though he was still lifting up his hands, there was no trembling, though, in the moment in which I looked, the executioner happened to be laying the axe to his neck to direct him to take aim. I thought it touched him, but I am sure he seemed not to mind it."

The widow of Lord Russell, daughter of the Lord Southampton above mentioned, the most honest man ever known to have been in the service of Charles the Second, was grand-daughter of Shakspeare's Southampton, and appears to have united in her person the qualities of both. She was at once a pattern of good sense, and of romantic affection. Nor are the two things incompatible, when either of them exist in the highest degree, as she proved during the remainder of her life; for though she continued a widow all the rest of it, and it was a very long one, and though she never ceased regretting her lord's death, and had great troubles besides, yet the high sense she had of the duties of a human being enabled her to enjoy consolations that ordinary pleasure might have envied; first, in the education of her children, and secondly, in the tranquillity which health and temperance _forced_ upon her. Her letters, with which the public are well acquainted, are not more remarkable for the fidelity they evince to her husband's memory, than for the fine sense they display in all matters upon which the prejudices of education had left her a free judgment, and especially for their delightful candour. It has been thought that the blindness into which she fell in her old age was owing to weeping; but Mr. Howell, the judicious editor of the "State Trials," informs us, upon the authority of "a very learned, skilful, and experienced physiologist," "that a cataract, which seems," he says, "to have been the malady of Lady Rachael's eyes, is by no means likely to be produced by weeping."[212]

We will here insert a few of the most touching pa.s.sages from the "Letters of Lady Russell" (seventh edition, 1819). On the 30th of September, she writes thus to her friend. Dr Fitzwilliam:--

"I endeavour to make the best use I can of both (a letter and prayer which the Doctor sent her); but I am so evil and unworthy a creature, that though I have desires, yet I have no disposition, or worthiness, towards receiving comfort." And again:--"I know I have deserved my punishment, and will be silent under it; but yet secretly my heart mourns, and cannot be comforted, because I have not the dear companion and sharer of all my joys and sorrows. I want him to talk with, to walk with, to eat and sleep with; all these things are irksome to me now; all company and meals I could avoid, if it might be. Yet all this is, that I enjoy not the world in my own way, and this same hinders my comfort. When I see my children before me, I remember the pleasure he took in them; this makes my heart shrink."

On the 21st July, 1685, the anniversary of her husband's death, two years after it, she writes thus:--

"My languis.h.i.+ng weary spirit rises up slowly to all good; yet I hope by G.o.d's abundant grace, in time, your labours will work the same effect in my spirits: they will, indeed, in less time on others better disposed and prepared than I am, who in the day of affliction seem to have no remembrance with due thankfulness of prosperity."

In a letter written the 4th October, 1686, she says, speaking of a recovery of one of her children from sickness,--

"I hope this has been a sorrow I shall profit by; I shall, if G.o.d will strengthen my faith, resolve to return him a constant praise, and make this the season to chase all secret murmurs from grieving my soul for what is past, letting it rejoice in what it should rejoice, his favour to me, in the blessings I have left, which many of my betters want, and yet have lost their chiefest friend also. But, oh, Doctor! the manner of my deprivation is yet astonis.h.i.+ng."

The following is dated five years after her loss. She is speaking of a letter she wrote once a week to Dr. Fitzwilliam. Her grief had now begun to taste the sweets of patience and temperance; but we see still how real it is:--

"I can't but own there is a sort of secret delight in the privacy of one of those mournful days; I think, besides a better reason, one is, that I do not tie myself up as I do on other days; for, G.o.d knows, my eyes are ever ready to pour out marks of a sorrowful heart, which I shall carry to the grave, that quiet bed of rest."

In 1692, Lady Russell writes less patiently, but shortly afterwards appears to have regained her composure; and in Letter 134, there is a remark on the blessings of health, and on the comfort of being able to do one's duty, if we aim at it. In 1711, she lost her only son, the Duke of Bedford, in his 31st year; and six months afterwards was deprived of one of her daughters, who died in childbed. It was on this occasion that an affecting anecdote is told. She had another daughter who happened to be in childbed also; and as it was necessary to conceal from her the death of her sister, this admirable woman a.s.sumed a cheerful air, and in answer to her daughter's anxious inquiries, said, with an extraordinary colouring of the fact, for which a martyr to truth could have loved her, "I have seen your sister out of bed to-day."