Life in the 19th century English aristocracy

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 38183, 24 March 1973, Page 10

Life in the 19th century English aristocracy

Lord William Russell and his Wife. By Georgiana Blakiston. John Murray. 544 pp. Sources, Bibliography, Refs. Index. Readers who are interested in eminent figures of a past age will be well rewarded for a steady perusal of this biography which covers not only two members of a ducal family in the early half of the nineteenth century, but illuminates through their correspondence their philosophy of life as well as giving some shrewd comment on their contemporary world. It is above all a very human story about a marriage fated by the temperaments of the two parties to break down. Lord William Russell was the second son of the second Duke of Bedford, and married Elizabeth Anne Rawdon, only child of John Rawdon, brother of Lord Moira, and his foolish, tiresome wife who, having been widowed when young spent the rest of her life in the almost constant company of her daughter and grandsons. Both women were celebrated beauties, and Elizabeth Rawdon remarkably clever, with a marked aptitude for languages of which she was reputed to speak no fewer than eight. She was also haughty, imperious, and fatally destructive to the self-esteem of those who loved her best. Of these, the chief sufferer was Lord William Russell, whose career, first as a soldier, and later as a diplomatist was bedevilled by his wife’s criticism and open scorn Except for his younger

brother — Lord John Russell — well known as one of the Whig Prime Ministers of the time — Bessie Russell, whose leanings were decidedly Tory, managed to quarrel incessantly with her husband’s family, more especially with her step-mother-in-law Georgiana, the Duke of Bedford’s second wife, though from the charges and countercharges brought by both ladies against each other it is difficult to sort out the reasons for their estrangment. At the time of the marriage Lord William Russell, who had been one of the Duke of Wellington’s A.D.C.s in the Peninsular, was in command of the Eighth Hussars whose morale and general reputation he greatly improved. He was also member of Parliament for Bedford, but it soon became apparent that his wife, with whom he was so besottedly in love, was determined to live as much as possible out of England, which she hated as the stronghold of his family. This necessitated his constant absences abroad from his military and political duties, and ended in his having to resign from the first and being told bluntly never to stand again for a constituency which had been practically a family sinecure for generations. It is easy to gather from the journal which Lord William kept throughout his life that his natural instincts were to stay in his country and play a significant part in running its economy, but with the arrival of his first son (Hastings) in 1819 — the only one of the three to be born in England — his domestic felicity put him more and more in thrall to his masterful wife, and in her restless wanderings about Europe he followed her until the beginnings of an estrangement between them some years later. In 1832, Lord William entered upon his diplomatic career which took him first to Portugal on a mission connected with a dynastic crisis there, after which he was appointed ambassador to the small German state of Wurtemburg. The family became resident in Stuttgart which caused bitter recriminations from Lady William who considered the post unworthy of a Russsell. At this time the marriage began to crack, and an open breach occurred when Lord W’illiam. stung at last to desperation, fell in love with a beautiful Jewess, Madame de Haber, and flaunted the affair, together with lesser ones, before the world. The Russells never again lived in amity, and both the younger sons, Arthur and Odo were brought up by their mother and grandmother in Vienna, where for 12 years Lady William made her home.

Lord William after ailing for some years, died in Genoa in July 1846, his wife and two younger sons arriving there, following numerous procrastinations, only a few days before his decease. The features of the family’s voluminous correspondence are so many and varied that we must be grateful to a generation which took care to preserve such chronicles. Few of the eminent people whose thoughts are here revealed seem to be worthy of our veneration, though many are both shrewd and witty, and some (particularly Hastings, who emerges as the “hero” of the piece) show evidence of generosity and goodness of heart. Lady William who pours out her woes and grievances at the time of Lord William’s defection to her old friend Princess de Lieven, writes to that lady only in French, but her normal correspondence is laced to an irritating degree with rather pointless phrases in the same language. Nearly all her letters record her sufferings from various ailments, whether “spasms,” “biliousness,” or disordered “nerves,” and it is pertinent to wonder how she managed to carry out the numerous social engagements which comprised her life. It seems to have been an age of recurring ill-health to most of the ruling class of the time, and the “grippe” and malaises not fully understood nowadays (except influenza) seemed constantly to necessitate recourse to healing “waters” at Carlsbad and other spas. The political content of many letters, Lord John Russell’s, Lord Palmerston’s and those of other prominent statesmen highlight the very real gap between Whig and Tory thinking though both were united in scorning “Radicals” (presumably left-wing reformers).

Mrs Blakiston, who is the great granddaughter of Lord and Lady William Russell has made the most of her voluminous material, and has given a narrative continuity to the fortunes of the Russell family which must have called for a monumental patience as well as great literary skill. The result is a brilliant evocation of 25 years of English history, and despite its considerable length there are few passages in the book that intelligent readers will want to skip.