# Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906/Chapter 3

LADY JOHN RUSSELL WITH HER ELDEST SON
After Thorburn's miniature, by courtesy of Messrs. Methuen &c. Co. Ltd.
III
LADY JOHN RUSSELL
"A wife with all those qualities, virtues, and graces which not only adorn life, but make life worth living."
FRANCES ANNA MARIA ELLIOT, the second daughter of the second Earl of Minto, was born at Minto House, Roxburghshire, on 15th November 1815. Her mother was Mary, eldest daughter of Patrick Brydone. Lady Fanny, as she was generally known before her marriage, was one of a family of ten, five boys and five girls. She had the education usual at the time for English girls in her position. She had the run of the standard books in her father's library, so that good literature was available for her at will. Reading aloud in the evening was a family custom, and sometimes a new book from London would be enjoyed in that way. But the most important part of the girl's education was not derived from books. Her training was the wholesome discipline of a large family of brothers and sisters, ​with the free outdoor life possible for children brought up in the depths of the country, and, removed as they were from a town and its ready-made distractions, with the necessity of making their own amusements. Culture and knowledge were absorbed almost unconsciously in listening to the talk of the distinguished men who were frequent guests at Minto. Lady Fanny learnt to write good English, displayed throughout her life a pretty gift for making verses, and very early began to take a deep and highly intelligent interest in contemporary politics. Perhaps she loved more than all the free life in the open air amid the beautiful scenery surrounding Minto House. Scott mentions Minto Crags, which were not far from the house, as rocks
"Where falcons hang their giddy nest."
She would ride among the hills, fish in "Teviot's tide," accompany her brothers on their hunting or shooting expeditions among the rocks, and now and again with one or the other of them would get up before dawn, climb to the top of a neighbouring hill, and watch till the sun "brightened Cheviot grey" and
"The wild birds told their warbling tale,  And waken'd every flower that blows."
Not only did Lady Fanny Elliot hear politics freely discussed, and with childish enthusiasm enter into the great causes which the leaders with whom she came in contact had so much at heart, but early in life she began to have experience of affairs in her own person and at close quarters. At fourteen years of age she commenced keeping a journal. In 1830 the family were in Paris, and she has recorded the aspect of things there in the months following the deposition of Charles X. At a children's ball at the Palais Royal she saw the King and Queen, and described them as "nice-looking old bodies." She heard the people in the streets singing Casimir Delavigne's "Parisienne," the Marseillaise of 1830. But, notwithstanding all the glories and excitements of the French capital at that period. Lady Fanny was delighted to get back to Scotland in June 1831.
The next year her father was appointed minister at Berlin, and here again in the Prussian ​capital the girl came in contact with interesting people, Humboldt and Bismarck among them. At a ball Lady Fanny refused to dance with the latter, a circumstance she afterwards regretted.
The family returned to England in 1834, and the next year Lord Minto was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in Lord Melbourne's Government. Part of each year was now necessarily spent in London, and Lady Fanny entered into society in good earnest. Breakfast-parties at the house of Rogers or of the Duchess of Buccleuch, luncheon-parties at Holland House, dinner-parties at all the leading Whig houses, assemblies at Miss Berry's, and balls everywhere kept her time well filled. She was present at the opening of Parliament in 1836 and pitied the poor old King, who could not see to read his speech until Lord Melbourne, looking "very like a Prime Minister"—she always had a great admiration for him—held a candle for him. Lord Minto retained office at the accession of Queen Victoria, and Lady Fanny witnessed the coronation in Westminster Abbey. After the ceremony she walked through the crowd in her fine gown and reached the Admiralty in time to see the procession go past.
Lady Fanny had of course heard much of ​Lord John Russell. He was still the hero of the Reform Bill, of which Sydney Smith had said that:
"All young ladies expect that, as soon as this Bill is carried, they will be instantly married; schoolboys believe that gerunds and supines will be abolished, and that currant tarts must ultimately come down in price; the Corporal and Sergeant are sure of double pay; bad poets expect a demand for their epics; and fools will be disappointed, as they always are."
Lord John Russell married in 1835 Lady Ribblesdale, widow of the second Lord, and mother of four children by her first husband. At the time when Lord Minto was at the Admiralty Lord John was leader of the House of Commons, and Lady Fanny often met him and his wife, and records that she was always glad to see them. Two daughters were the issue of that marriage. The younger, born in October 1838, was named Victoria by the Queen's desire, ​but unhappily the mother was seized with fever and died on 1st November. Lady Fanny, guileless of what was to come, grieved much over "the poor unhappy husband and his dear little motherless children." Lord John, doubtless finding such sympathy pleasant, became a frequent visitor at Putney, where Lord Minto had taken a house in order to have a quiet refuge from the stir of the Admiralty. Putney was then quite in the country; the banks of the river were beautiful with azaleas, lilac, and hawthorn, the garden was full of nightingales, and the young people lingered there late on summer evenings to listen to their song. Miss Lister, a sister-in-law of Lord John, used fairly often to bring her nephews and nieces, six children, ranging in age from fourteen years to two, out to Putney; Lady Fanny would play games with them and amuse them, and Lord John, who was now Colonial Secretary and was often consulted by his colleague, would join in the sport. Informal little cabinet meetings would be held after dinner, when, according to Lady Fanny, the nation's affairs would be discussed and the three Ministers, Lord John, Lord Minto, and Lord Palmerston, would "talk war with France till bedtime." This was in ​1840. In one way or another Lord John managed to see a good deal of Lady Fanny, who was approaching the age of twenty-five. Lord John Russell was forty-eight, but Lord Minto used to declare that he never thought of him as old until he proposed to his daughter.
In spite of her youth, Lady Fanny was serious-minded, wholly without self-consciousness, never realising her beauty and attractiveness, very intelligent and observant, full of enthusiasm for every good cause that made for progress and improvement, delighting in literature and poetry, and indeed in every way suited to become the life companion of a great statesman. Lord Minto evidently saw how the land lay, and invited Lord John to accompany them to Minto when Parliament rose. Accordingly he travelled there in their company, taking with him his stepson. Lord Ribblesdale. Lady Fanny began now to realise what was in Lord John's mind. During the visit, however, he said nothing definite, but on his departure he left a letter for her in which he asked her to marry him. She answered it immediately with a refusal. This saddened him greatly, although he declared that it had been a foolish notion of his to think that she might throw herself away ​on a person of broken spirits, worn out by time and trouble. The girl was evidently bewildered at the honour paid her by so distinguished a man. She owned to her mother that she liked him very much, but "not in that way." As often happens in such cases, no sooner had Lady Fanny, as she thought, put her lover out of her reach and her mind for ever than she began to think and to dream about him. Miss Lister pleaded his cause by praising him; she assured Lady Fanny that his equal was not to be found in the whole world, and told her much that forced her to admire and like him still more. Despite the girl's refusal, when the family returned to London at the beginning of 1841, Lord John continued to be a frequent visitor at the Admiralty, and to pay her attention when he met her in society at Holland House and elsewhere. And Fanny told her sister that, although she took care not to understand when he said anything to reopen the matter, she did begin to wonder if she had decided rashly. She considered herself too old to make it necessary to be desperately in love, but too young to take for her husband a man double her age, and saddled with a family of six children. Lord John probably felt that she was wavering, and took ​the wisest course in such circumstances. He kept out of her way for nearly two months. The result was that on 8th June 1841 they became engaged, and were married on 20th July in the drawing-room at Minto. The Duke of Buccleuch, who had married a first cousin of Lord John, lent them Bowhill for the honeymoon, and there the bride received from her mother a charming Border ballad giving the history of the wooing of the lover who
"Cam' na wi' horses, He cam' na wi' men, Like the bauld English knights lang syne; But he thought that he could fleech Wi' his bonny Southron speech And wile awa' this lassie o' mine,"
The lassie, however, told him to go home to his "ain countrie," but the poet continues with sly humour and memories of Duncan Gray in her mind:
"But sairly did she rue  When he thought that she spak' true,  And the tear-drop it blinded her e'e;  But he only loved her 'mair and mair,'  For her spirit it 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."
​An autumn session brought the honeymoon to a close by the middle of August; Lady John settled down in her husband's house in Wilton Crescent, and began married life in good earnest. She found absorbing occupation in the six children, and in looking after the comfort and welfare of a Cabinet Minister. But Lord Melbourne's Government was defeated on the address, and after the general election that followed the Tories were in the majority. Thus, although Lord John was leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, he was of course much more free than when in office. He and his wife and the children went to Endsleigh, near Tavistock in Devonshire, a place lent him by the Duke of Bedford. It was a beautiful spot, and Lady John, who had now leisure to realise all that the affection and sympathy and care of such a man as her husband meant, used to accompany him on his shooting expeditions, much as she hated sport that consisted in killing, and on botanizing expeditions, in which she could take her full share. There were happy visits to Bowood and Woburn, Brocket, the Grove, and Minto. But residence for some months of the year in London was still imperative. Lord John had built himself a house at 37 Chesham Place, ​and there, in 1842, Lady Fanny bore him a son. The claims of society, less pressing it is true than when her husband was in office, yet took up a good deal of her energy. The life was too much for her strength, and for some time her health seriously suffered. In the autumn of 1845 she was able to travel to Minto, but before the winter set in it was deemed advisable for her to go to Edinburgh in order to have competent medical advice and care. The illness turned out to be long and tedious, and it greatly irked her to be tied to her sofa while her husband was living through exciting times in London. He was summoned by the Queen on Peel's resignation to form a ministry, but as Lord Grey refused to serve with Lord Palmerston, and as Lord John felt he could not go on without both, Peel returned to office, Lord John undertaking to support him in a measure for the repeal of the Corn Laws. Lady John knew that the assumption of office would be a blow to the quiet domestic life she so loved, but her patriotism enabled her to encourage her husband during the days of suspense. She wrote to him: "My mind is made up. My ambition is that you should be the head of the most moral ​and religious Government the country has ever had." But she was not the less glad that for a short time at least Lord John should be free from the anxieties and heavy duties of the high office of Prime Minister.
In the beginning of 1846 Lady Russell was still too ill to leave Edinburgh, and she felt deeply the enforced absence from her husband's side. But they managed to keep up each other's spirits; many a rhymed nonsense letter passed between them, and Lord John would sometimes send his wife little notes in dog-Latin. Lady John was able to read and talk, and much enjoyed the visits of her Edinburgh friends, among them Lord Jeffrey. She found that conversation there had more calmness and fairness and depth than was the rule in London, where people were too much occupied with the present to trouble themselves much about the past or future. Holland House was the only place where good conversation might really be heard, and the death of Lady Holland in November 1845 had been a great blow.
As a general rule, Lady John agreed and sympathised wath her husband's views and acts. But there were exceptions when her instinct and her judgment caused her to differ. The ​Irish Coercion Bill of 1846 was one. She frankly wrote to him from Edinburgh on 12th March 1846 that she was convinced it would not do the slightest good, and would embitter the Irish against the English. She deplored the continual outrages and murders in Ireland, but saw a remedy only in a long course of mild and good government. Lord John replied that the best authorities thought the Bill would tend to stop the crime and murder, and that he was disinclined to throw out a Bill that might have that good effect. It was probably due to his wife's influence that he determined to move a resolution which should at the same time pledge the House to measures of remedy and conciliation. It will be remembered that the Government was defeated on the Bill, a circumstance which led to Lord John Russell's first period of office as Prime Minister from July 1846 to February 1852.
His wife was now sufficiently recovered to join him, and he leased a country house, Chorley Wood, near Chenies, so that she might have a quiet retreat in the neighbourhood of London. Early in the New Year she had another bad bout of illness. On 1st March 1847 the Queen offered Lord John Pembroke Lodge, in Richmond ​Park, for a residence for his life. The place had become vacant through the death of its occupant, the Earl of Erroll, the husband of a natural daughter of William iv. The offer was gladly accepted by the Prime Minister, and the house became their permanent abode. Strangely enough, a year or two before they had gone with some of the children for a few days' change of air to the Star and Garter at Richmond. While strolling in the park they sat down on a bench under a big oak, whence they could look into the grounds of Pembroke Lodge, and said that it would be just the place for them. Now the wish had come true. They always managed to be there, when the House was in session, from Wednesday to Thursday and from Saturday to Monday. Sometimes Lord John rode all the way, but often when returning from town he would drive to Hammersmith Bridge, where his horse would be brought to meet him, accompanied by all the children old enough to ride on their ponies. Lady John would watch for the return of the cavalcade from a hill in the garden.
Pembroke Lodge stood in a bit of the old forest that had been enclosed with its grand old oaks and bracken. The grounds were lovely at ​all seasons, but especially in May, with their wealth of white lilac, laburnum, hawthorn, and wild hyacinths, the blue of which under the tender green of the trees made an enchanting sight. The house stood on rising ground and commanded lovely views of the Thames valley. The flower-garden in its setting of greenery was a delight. The lawn under the spreading cedar was the scene of many enjoyable gatherings and memorable talks, for, as has well been said, Pembroke Lodge, while in the occupation of the Russells, was "a haunt of ancient peace as well as of modern fellowship." All who were distinguished in English politics or English literature, with eminent foreigners of every walk in life, would gather there on Sunday afternoons in summer, and from 1847 onwards a long stream of celebrities passed the portals of Pembroke Lodge, which, while it was the scene of an ideal family life, dispensed also much pleasant hospitality. Although Lady John loved a secluded life among her family, she fully realised that it would not do to go on long cut off from the world and its ways, and from the blessing of the society of real friends; she knew, too, that as things are ordered it was impossible to enjoy that blessing without some ​inter-mixture of wearisome acquaintance. But she was occasionally cast down by the weight of the tiresome conventions imposed on such hospitality. "Why," she asks, "cannot human nature find out and rejoice in blessings of civilisation and society without encumbering them with petty etiquettes and fashions and forms which deprive them of half their value? Human nature strives and struggles and gives life itself for political freedom, while it forges social chains and fetters for itself."
One day Baroness Bunsen would drive with the Russells from their London house in Chesham Place to Kew, make the tour of the gardens and hothouses, and then go to Pembroke Lodge to lunch, where the other guests included the Duke of Wellington, the Duc de Broglie, Lord and Lady Palmerston, and Lord Lansdowne. Indeed, the list of their guests at different times would fill several pages: Thiers and Garibaldi, Baron and Baroness Bunsen, Macaulay, Froude and Lecky, Thackeray and Dickens, Thomas Moore and Rogers, Tennyson and Browning, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, Longfellow and Lowell, Sir Richard Owen, John Tyndall and Herbert Spencer, Frederic Harrison and Justin McCarthy, Sydney Smith, Dean Stanley, and Mr. Stopford ​Brooke—every shade of opinion, every type of mind, was at one time or another represented.
It will be clear that Lady John was never at any period of her life a leader of political society in the sense in which Lady Palmerston was. Lady John had neither the temperament, the inclination, nor the health required for such a rôle in the world of politics. Some are of opinion that Lord John Russell's position as a statesman suffered, that he allowed himself to be too much absorbed by his domestic affairs, and that the illnesses of his wife and the care of his young family weighed too heavily upon him. This is as it may be, but the ideal domestic life of the Russells did not prevent a perfect sympathy and understanding between husband and wife in the larger affairs in which the great statesman was engaged. Lady John possessed his fullest confidence, and shared in all his hopes of progress and improvement. She could, on occasion, give him shrewd advice. As regards her own personal attitude to politics, she cared much more for the great questions of the day themselves than for the details and personalities belonging to them. She much disliked the conversation of those whom she dubbed the "regular hardened lady politicians," who were ​chiefly concerned with such details and personalities, and quickly lost sight of the great problems themselves. Lady John preferred the humdrum domestic talk of ordinary womenkind. But she was not wholly condemned to endure the weariness of political discussion by the wrong people in the wrong way, or to listen to domestic chatter. Opportunities of discussing pleasanter topics often occurred. Her sympathetic charm, her receptive mind, her intellectual equipment, enabled her to gather round her friends and acquaintances of a kind that almost realised the ideal of social intercourse. She did not, as is a common practice with hostesses occupying a prominent position in society, issue an invitation to a celebrated writer or artist or scholar only when a big entertainment was toward. Such men formed an integral part of the Pembroke Lodge circle. Rogers was a frequent guest, and used to declare that he would rather share a crust with the Russells in their paradise than sup with Lucullus. Thackeray read them his lectures on Sterne and Goldsmith, and Dickens often spent the day, going to luncheon and remaining to dinner.
During the session some evenings had to be ​spent in town, and some social functions had to be attended. All the more enjoyable, then, were the evenings spent quietly in the domestic circle. Reading aloud—they would each read in turn—was then their chief recreation. Among the books they read were Lamartine's History of the Girondins, Mackintosh's History of the Revolution, Prescott's History of Peru, Cowper's Task, Wordsworth's Excursion—reading that nowadays would scarcely come under the head of relaxation; so it is satisfactory to know that they cried over David Copperfield until they were ashamed.
Lord John's Premiership was not lacking in excitement. The Irish famine gave natural cause for anxiety throughout 1847. In February 1848 came the news of the deposition of Louis-Philippe, The Chartist movement was gaining ground in England, and fears of a serious outbreak were entertained. The Chartists were preparing a great demonstration for 10th April, when, after assembling on Kennington Common, they were to march to the House of Commons to present a petition. There was much discussion as to where the Prime Minister's wife would be safest on the fateful Monday (10th April 1848). It was finally decided that Downing Street would ​be best. But after all nothing happened, the monster Chartist meeting dispersed quietly at the persuasion of its promoters, and the services of the 150,000 special constables, among them Louis Napoleon (afterwards Napoleon iii.), were not called into requisition. Lord Palmerston, "writing next day to the English ambassador in Paris, reported that the Chartists made a poor figure, and their leaders were thoroughly frightened to find the streets swarming with men of all ranks and classes blended together to defend law and property. The Prime Minister and his wife spent the Tuesday in receiving congratulations "without end." Four days later their second son was born.
Irish affairs continued very disquieting through the session, and the repose for which Lady John was ever longing seemed very far off. At the end of August she accompanied her husband on a brief visit to Ireland. They were much interested in the newly completed tubular bridge over the Conway; they walked through it, proceeding by train to Bangor, where they spent the night. Next day they crossed the Menai Straits, driving over the Suspension Bridge, took train to Holyhead whence they reached Kingstown by steamer, and finally arrived at the Viceregal ​Lodge, Dublin. Thus, in 1848, a journey to Ireland was something of an adventure, and one not to be undertaken lightly. They returned by way of Scotland, landing at Greenock, visited Oban and the Trossachs, and of course Minto, and by October were back again at Pembroke Lodge. Next month they received a visit from the exiled Louis-Philippe, who, with his family, was spending some weeks at the Star and Garter, Richmond; he gave them an account of his "chute," apparently quite innocent of the unconscious humour of such a narrative in the house of the Minister he had been so proud of out-witting.
In July 1849 a third son was born, and in August Lady John was able to carry out a project she had long had at heart. Both she and her husband had from the first taken great interest in the affairs of the inhabitants of Petersham, the little village at their gates. They had been greatly concerned at the lack of means of education for the children, and now succeeded in actually founding there a little school. It had small beginnings; it was first held in a room in the village, but in 1852 a proper building was erected. The school remained a great interest to the Russells, and many a family ​birthday was celebrated with a tea to the school-children under the cedar on the lawn, followed by dancing.
At the opening of the new session Lady John was in London, greatly dissatisfied as she always was when she found her time filled with visiting and parties and general entertaining, yet recognising that her troubles, such as they were, were the result of many blessings. But compensation came in the shape of an autumn visit to Minto and a Christmas at Woburn, where her boy joined in the amateur theatricals, speaking, in the character of a page, the epilogue to the play performed.
The autumn session of 1851 was spent in Wales. The next year Lord John was out of office. From February to December 1852 the Tories were in power under Lord Derby. The Whigs came back again under Lord Aberdeen, and for a short time (Dec. 1852-Feb. 1853) Lord John was at the Foreign Office.
The year 1853 was marked by various domestic events. Lady John's daughter, Mary Agatha, was born in March. In May Lord John's stepson. Lord Ribblesdale, was married to Miss Mure of Caldwell; and in June his step-daughter, Isabel, married Mr. Warburton. In July ​occurred the death of Lady Minto, Lady John's mother. During these months the world of politics had been going its way. In April both husband and wife expressed their delight in Gladstone's budget, and it seemed that after the excursions and alarms of 1851 and 1852 there was a chance of things going quietly and prosperously. But by the autumn the circumstances that led to the Crimean War became acute, and a holiday in Scotland was suddenly broken up by the necessity for Lord John's presence in London, where his wife joined him in October.
In the session of 1854 Lord John Russell found himself obliged to withdraw his Reform Bill. Lady John's letters well show her feeling towards political life, and form indeed a comment on the dangers and difficulties of that career for sincere and disinterested persons. Official friends made it their business to go to see her and to lay before her all the arguments for dropping the Bill, so that she might repeat them to her husband. She was assured that her husband had such a quantity of spare character that it could bear a little damaging. Her notion was that many members were afraid of losing their seats by dissolution, and many others hated any ​sort of Reform Bill and were glad of an excuse to stifle it. She almost despaired of her country, and wondered how she could prevent her boys growing up cowardly and selfish. But she listened to all, and said nothing, "because there is not time to begin at the first rudiments of morality, and there would be no use in anything higher up." Another time she wrote: "Politics have never yet been what they ought to be: men who would do nothing mean themselves do not punish meanness in others when it can serve their party or their country, and excuse their connivance on that ground."
When Lord John resigned office in 1855, after his mission as British Plenipotentiary at the Vienna Conference, his wife disapproved his action of writing to Lord Aberdeen, instead of announcing his intention in the usual way at a meeting of the Cabinet. She did her best to persuade him, if he would not do that, at least to tell some of his colleagues before writing to Lord Aberdeen, but without avail.
For four years now Lord John was out of office, and his wife was therefore less burdened with anxieties and irksome duties. The autumn and winter of 1856-57 were spent on the Continent. A visit was paid to Lady John's sister, ​Lady Mary Abercromby, at The Hague, where her husband was British Minister. They went on to Switzerland, settling in a villa near Lausanne. At the end of September they crossed the Simplon, and after a few days' halt at Turin, where they made the personal acquaintance of Cavour, proceeded to Florence and took up their residence for the winter in the Villa Capponi outside the Porta San Gallo. It was Lady John's first visit to Florence, and it can readily be imagined that she quickly fell under its charm. Besides the natural beauty of the situation of the city of flowers and its wonderful buildings and art treasures, Lady John thoroughly enjoyed the society there, finding in it more cordiality and ease than in London. There were dancing and amateur theatricals for the young people, and for their parents intercourse with the men who were working for Italy's independence, men who would "greatly dare and greatlier persevere," and who became welcome guests at Pembroke Lodge when they visited England.
It is beyond the scope of this little sketch to describe the large part played by Lord John Russell in the making of Italy, but it is quite certain that his wife's enthusiasm in the cause ​infected him, and urged him to action. Although Lady John was not inspired to write a "Casa Guidi (or rather a Villa Capponi) Windows" her championship of the cause of Italian liberty was as warm as that of Mrs. Browning or of Swinburne, and it has been told before, how in 1859, when Lord John was Foreign Secretary under Palmerston, the finishing stroke that gave Italy her independence was really due to Lady John's agency. Lord John understood through Cavour that Garibaldi would only retard matters if he followed up his success in Sicily by landing in Naples. As a matter of fact this was not so, Cavour being anxious for matters to come to a head without delay. Lacaita, an Italian politician who had become naturalised in England in 1855, was asked by Cavour to tell Lord John the true state of affairs so that he might use his influence with France that Garibaldi's expedition should go forward. Lacaita immediately called on Lord John, and found him engaged with the French and Neapolitan ambassadors and unable to see him at the moment. He then insisted on seeing Lady John, who was ill in bed, told her his business, and she sent down a little pencilled note to her husband asking him to come to her ​at once. He arrived at her bedside immediately, in a great state of alarm, thinking she had suddenly become worse. And so England did nothing to hinder Garibaldi, and Victor Emmanuel was saluted as King of Italy in October 1860.
In 1861 Lord John accepted a peerage. He was sixty-nine years of age and had been forty-seven years in the House of Commons. He took the title of Earl Russell, as he desired to retain the name by which he had been so long known. In the spring of 1864 Garibaldi lunched at Pembroke Lodge. It was a lovely sunny day, Richmond was en fête, the Park full of people, and the approach to Pembroke Lodge was lined by the school-children waving flags and cheering. Lady Russell recorded in her diary that they had much interesting conversation with him, and that there was simple dignity in every word he uttered.
On Palmerston's death in 1865 Earl Russell once again became Prime Minister. In June 1866 the Ministry were defeated, Russell resigned and was never again in office. The autumn and winter (1866-67) were spent in Italy. While in Venice the Russells witnessed the entry of Victor Emmanuel by water as the King of all Italy, and felt the thrill that went ​through thousands and thousands of Italian hearts as the Sovereign passed before them in his gondola.
The next years passed calmly and pleasantly. From October 1869 to April 1870 the Russells took the Villa Garbarino at San Remo, enjoying the quiet life, the beautiful scenery, the delightful climate, and the pleasant society of English friends staying there or merely passing through, and of some of the Italian residents. Strangely enough their landlord, the Marchese Garbarino, was a great patriot, and had decorated his drawing-room ceiling with portraits of Cavour, Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Lord John Russell. Among their visitors were the Crown Princess of Prussia and Princess Louis of Hesse. Lady John was delighted with their informal ways; she found them as merry and as simple as if they had had no royalty about them, and she was especially struck with their wide liberal opinions on education.
On their way back Lord and Lady Russell halted at Paris and stayed ten days at the English Embassy. They dined at the Tuileries with the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Eugénie. At the dinner the Emperor told his guests of a riddle he had asked the Empress: ​"Quelle est la différence entre toi et un miroir?" She replied that she did not know. "Le miroir réfléchit; tu ne réfléchis pas," explained Napoleon with more wit than politeness. But his Consort retorted, "Et quelle est la différence entre toi et un miroir?" The Emperor could not tell. "Le miroir est poli, et tu ne l'es pas," was the witty answer to that riddle. In the course of their visit the Russells met many distinguished persons.
On her return to England and English society. Lady Russell was struck with the superiority of its best to that of other nations, but at the same time she found that there was in all classes in this country a larger proportion of vulgarity—ostentatious, aristocratic, and coarse. She was much disturbed by the Franco-German War; considered France was in the wrong at first, but that both France and Germany were in the wrong after Sedan, when peace ought to have been made. She hated war, and looked forward to a day, scarcely closer now than it was in 1870, when an arsenal would be an object of curiosity, and people would thank God that they did not live in an age "when sovereigns and rulers could command man to destroy his brother-man."
The autumn was spent in Switzerland and ​the winter at Cannes. Lord Russell was beginning to fail. He had no special complaint, no pain or chronic ailment, but old age was visibly weakening both body and mind. He was able (in 1872) to go down to the House of Lords for an important debate, and to give the Presidential address to the Historical Society, but writing, walking, reading, talking easily tired him. Until his death on 28th May 1878, Lady Russell's time was chiefly occupied in tending him. And these last years were filled with sorrows. Besides having to look on at the decay of her husband's mental and physical powers, she had to mourn in 1874 the death of her daughter-in-law, Lady Amberley, and her little daughter. The summer of that year was spent at Tennyson's house at Aldworth, near Haslemere, placed at their disposal by the poet. In January 1876 Lord Amberley died at the early age of thirty-three, and his two sons came to live permanently at Pembroke Lodge with their grandparents. On all these sad occasions Queen Victoria wrote touching letters of condolence to Lady Russell. On 28th May 1878, after thirty-seven years of happy married life. Lord Russell died. Burial in the Abbey was offered, but, in accordance with his wish, he was buried in the family vault at ​Chenies, where his first wife, his son, his daughter-in-law, and his granddaughter were already laid.
Lady Russell survived her husband for twenty years, but the "golden joys of perfect companionship which made the hours fly" when they were together were over. Yet in the children who remained to her she found consolation, and in the care of her grandchildren she had the occupation and interests that exactly suited her. The Queen permitted her to remain at Pembroke Lodge, the home that had seen her joys and sorrows and hopes, the chances and changes of her life, and that was bound up with innumerable memories, so that she was still able to look after the school at Petersham. Some verses written in February 1879, on the occasion of her stepdaughter Georgiana's birthday, from which I may quote a few lines, sufficiently indicate the state of her mind:
"Hushed now is the music! and hushed be my weeping For days that return not and light that hath fled. No more from their rest may I summon the sleeping, Or linger to gaze on the years that are dead.
Fadeth my dream—and my day is declining, But love lifts the gloamin' and smooths the rough way."
Many visits were paid at this time to her son Rollo, who had bought a house near Hindhead, ​in Surrey. The wild scenery and the heather-covered moors reminded Lady Russell of her native country. Her interest in politics was very keen, and she supported Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy with sympathy and approval. Her letters and journals are full of defence of Home Rule, and in 1893 she would have made short work of the House of Lords, for she writes in almost prophetic tones: "I would simply declare it, by Act of the House of Commons, injurious to the best interests of the nation and for ever dissolved. Then it may either show its attachment to the Constitution by giving its assent to its own annihilation, or oblige us to break through the worn-out Constitution and declare their assent unnecessary."
Lady Russell's health, never very robust, began to fail about 1892; in 1897 she had an illness from which she only partially recovered. Early in January 1898 she suffered from influenza; bronchitis supervened, and she died at the age of eighty-three on the 17th. She was buried on the 21st at Chenies, beside her husband.
A memorial to her, erected in the Free Church, Richmond, the place of worship she attended in her later years, by a few personal ​friends, was unveiled by Frederic Harrison on 14th July 1900.
A word may fitly be said here in regard to Lady John Russell's religion. Brought up in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, she became in the latter part of her life a Unitarian. She disapproved of any doctrine that ascribed to the clergy spiritual functions or privileges different from those of other men. She shared her husband's dislike of the Oxford movement. All her written and oral utterances on the subject of religion prove that for her it meant love both of God and man. Once in conversation Herbert Spencer assured her that the prospect of annihilation had no terrors for him, and Lady Russell confesses that she was thinking all the time that without immortality life was "all a cheat, and without a Father in heaven, right and wrong, love, conscience, joy, sorrow, are words without a meaning, and the Universe, if governed at all, is governed by a malignant spirit who gives us hopes and aspirations never to be fulfilled, affections to be wasted, a thirst for knowledge never to be quenched." In those thoughts we may read her Confession of Faith.
She was always for tolerance in religion, and even encouraged independence of mind in such ​matters in her children, for she recognised that the voice of God might not sound the same to the child as it did to the father and mother, and that a child should never be afraid to speak freely to its parents. The only book she ever published—though her letters and journals and the occasional verses written for family events show literary aptitude and something more—was Family Worship (1876), a small volume of selections from the Bible and prayers for everyday use.
Lady John Russell used her very considerable intellectual gifts not for herself but for others, for her husband, her children, her friends. Her mind was intensely receptive and ever eager for information. Thinking always more of others than of herself, she could throw herself into their thoughts and feelings. Although her lot had been thrown in the world's most crowded ways, she was unworldliness itself, and she seems to have had little belief in the value of experience. When her eldest son, Lord Amberley, became engaged to be married at the age of twenty-one, she owned that she might have wished him to wait till he was a little older, but she continued:
"On the other hand, there is something very ​delightful in his marrying while heart and mind are fresh and innocent and unworldly, and I even add inexperienced—for I am not overfond of experience. I think it just as often makes people less wise as more wise."
Scattered through her letters and diaries are many wise reflections, and many pointed observations on the great people she knew. Of Disraeli, when she met him in 1858, she said he was a sad flatterer, and less agreeable than so able a man of such varied pursuits ought to be. Speaking of Gladstone's visit to Scotland in November 1879, she said: "There is always something that makes me sad in such tremendous hospitality." Of a book by her sister-in-law, the Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot, First Earl of Minto, she wrote: "There are no lies in it, and therefore you must not expect a great sale."
She thought much of the position of women, and although as early as 1870 she earnestly wished for legal and social equality for them, she could not shut her eyes to what woman had already been, "the equal, if not the superior, of man in all that is highest and noblest and loveliest." She strongly disapproved of setting the sexes against one another, and considered ​that equal justice should be done to both without any spirit of antagonism.
Lady John Russell herself is an abiding example of the best type of woman, quick to sympathise, ready to counsel, who, while admiring her husband as a statesman and giving him every assistance in his public career, admired the man more than the politician. After the birth of their eldest son, she wrote:
"Millions thy patriot voice attend, Mine, only mine, thy gentler tone; With thee in blissful gaze to bend This flow'ret o'er is mine alone."
It was the quiet, retired life she loved and preferred. Sir Henry Taylor met her in 1852—she was approaching forty—for the first time since her girlhood, when he had known her very well indeed. Of their meeting he wrote: "I recollect some years ago, in going through the heart of the city, somewhere behind Cheapside, to have come upon the courtyard of an antique house, with grass and flowers and green trees growing as quietly as if it was the garden of a farmhouse in Northumberland. Lady John reminds me of it." The words fitly sum up Lady Russell's character.
* ↑ Louis-Philippe and Queen Amélie.
* ↑ In June 1831 Mrs, Bulwer Lytton heard a ragged newspaper boy cry: "Good news for the poor! Great and glorious speech of His Most Gracious Majesty William the Fourth! The Reform Bill will pass. Then you'll have your beef and mutton for a penny a pound. And then you'll be as fine as peacocks for a mere trifle. To say nothing of ale at a penny a quart."
* ↑ The Mintos belonged to the Scottish Presbyterian Church.
* ↑ Afterwards Lord Amberley.
* ↑ Lady Georgiana Peel.