page_title: Jane Gordon, Duchess of Gordon
section_title: Daughters' marriages
hierarchical_section_title: Jane Gordon, Duchess of Gordon / Daughters' marriages
caption_attribution_description: English: Study of Rachel Russell (1826-1898), daughter of Georgina, the second wife of John, sixth Duke of Bedford oil on panel 35.5 x 25.4 cm signed: EL/Rachel/July 1835
context_page_description: Jane Gordon, Duchess of Gordon was a Scottish Tory political hostess. Together with her husband Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon, and son George, Marquess of Huntly, she founded the Gordon Highlanders, a British Army infantry regiment which existed until 1994.
context_section_description: Having enjoyed life as a Duchess, Jane was determined to get her daughters well married, and she set out securing suitable husbands for them. In 1802, after the Peace of Amiens, she took her youngest daughter, Georgiana (1781–1853), to Paris with a view to marrying her to the son of the Empress Joséphine, Eugène de Beauharnais. This would not have been popular so soon after hostilities, but nothing came of it. A short time later, Georgiana was reputed to be friendly, if not engaged, to Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford, but he died before they could marry. Jane then arranged a meeting with the Duke’s younger brother John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford who had inherited the title and recently been widowed with several children. All went as planned, and he soon married his late brother’s fiancée on 23 June 1803 in London. Georgiana had ten children by the Duke, and she followed in her mother’s partying footsteps, entertaining frequently in her Bedford home, Woburn Abbey. The Duchess of Bedford was a great patroness of the arts, and had a long-standing relationship with the painter Sir Edwin Henry Landseer.
  Jane then turned to finding a husband for Charlotte (1768–1842), the eldest daughter. She plotted to have her marry William Pitt, the Prime Minister, but her plan failed when Pitt’s close friend, Lord Henry Dundas, took an interest in Charlotte. Neither potential husband worked out, and Charlotte later married on 9 September 1789 at Gordon Castle Colonel Charles Lennox, the future 4th Duke of Richmond.
  General Cornwallis had returned to England from his disastrous command of the British troops during the American Revolution to be, rather surprisingly, treated as a hero and created a Marquess. Having fought with Jane’s brother at Plessey in India as well as in the American war, he would have been a friend of Jane’s. So his eldest son, Lord Brome, was therefore considered suitable for Louisa (1776–1850), the fourth daughter. Cornwallis refused to approve the marriage, however, citing madness in the Gordon family. The duchess allayed his fears by swearing that there was “not one drop of Gordon blood” in this particular daughter. The marriage then proceeded on 17 April 1795 in London. History does not relate who Louisa’s natural father was, but it is thought to have been Captain Fraser, her early love from Edinburgh.
  Susan (1774–1828), the third daughter, was married on 7 October 1793 in Edinburgh to William Montagu, 5th Duke of Manchester, and Madeleine (1772–1847), the second daughter, married firstly on 2 April 1789 in London to Sir Robert Sinclair, 7th Baronet. On 25 November 1805 she married secondly at Kimbolton Castle to Charles Fysche Palmer.
caption: Lady Rachel Evelyn Russell (1826–1898), a granddaughter of Jane, portrayed by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1835). It was said that Rachel was the daughter of Jane's daughter Georgiana and Edwin Henry Landseer.
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