William, Lord Russell, ed. 1820, ii. 78; Memoirs of Thomas, Earl of Aylesbury, p. 77).
After his son's execution he took very little part in public life, and left his nephew, Edward Russell, to represent the Russell family in the movement which produced the fall of James II. A curious account of Bedford's way of living during his later years is given by the Earl of Aylesbury (ib. p. 182). When the revolution took place Bedford was appointed a privy councillor (14 Feb. 1689), and bore the sceptre at the coronation of William and Mary (11 April 1689). He was made lord lieutenant of the counties of Bedford, Cambridge (10 May 1689), and Middlesex (3 Feb. 1693), and on 11 May 1694 was created Duke of Bedford and Marquis of Tavistock. According to Macaulay he had been repeatedly offered a dukedom before, and accepted it now somewhat reluctantly (Hist. of England, ii. 487, ed. 1871). On 13 June 1695 Bedford was further created Baron Howland of Streatham, Surrey (Collins, Peerage, ed. Brydges, i. 288, 294). He died on 7 Sept. 1700, and was buried at Chenies.
By his wife, Anne Carr (who died on 10 May 1684, aged 64), Bedford had seven sons and four daughters. Of the sons, William [q. v.] was executed in 1683, and Edward (d. 1714) represented Bedfordshire from 1689 to 1705. Of the daughters, Margaret, born in 1656, married her cousin, Edward Russell, earl of Orford.
There are portraits of Bedford at Woburn Abbey, both by Vandyck and Kneller. A picture by Vandyck represented him with his brother-in-law, George Digby (afterwards second Earl of Bristol); it belongs to Earl Spencer. Vandyck also painted the Countess of Bedford, whose portrait is one of the series engraved by Lombart. That of her husband was engraved by Houbraken.
[Wiffen's House of Russell; Doyle's Official Baronage; Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges; authorities cited.]
RUSSELL, WILLIAM (1741–1793), historical and miscellaneous writer, son of Alexander Russell, farmer, and his wife Christian Ballantyne, was born at the farm of Windydoors, Selkirkshire, in 1741. He was at school, first, at Innerleithen, Peeblesshire, and then for ten months in Edinburgh, where in 1756 he was apprenticed to a bookseller and printer. When a journeyman he joined in 1763 the Miscellaneous Society, composed of university and other students. His friends revised a translation by him of Crebillon's ‘Rhadamisthe and Zenobia,’ which he unsuccessfully submitted to Garrick for representation. He spent the autumn of 1765 with Lord Elibank at his seat in Midlothian, and presently forsook his trade, trusting to prosper under his lordship's patronage. After a short stay with his father, he proceeded to London in 1767 as a man of letters. For a time he was corrector of the press for Strahan, and in 1769 became printing overseer to Messrs. Brown & Adlard, but soon after 1770 appears to have lived exclusively by literary work. In 1780 he visited Jamaica to secure money as his brother's heir, and on his return prosecuted his literary calling in London with vigour and success.
In 1787 Russell married, and retired to Knottyholm, near Langholm, Dumfriesshire. In 1792 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from St. Andrews University. He died suddenly of paralysis on 25 Dec. 1793, and was buried in the churchyard of Westerkirk, Langholm. His widow, whose maiden name was Scott, and one daughter survived him.
Russell achieved his chief reputation as an historian. The first of his works to meet with any success was ‘The History of America, from the first Discovery by Columbus to the Conclusion of the late War,’ 1779. In the same year he issued, anonymously, the first two volumes of his ‘History of Modern Europe, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son.’ Three further volumes, with the author's name, appeared in 1784, and the whole work was published in five volumes in 1786. It deals with the rise of the modern kingdoms of Europe down to the peace of Westphalia (1763). Before his death Russell planned a continuation to 1783, and Dr. Charles Coote, Rev. William Jones, and others carried the compilation forward to various stages in the nineteenth century. An epitome appeared in 1857. Russell summarises dexterously, knows and names his authorities, and occasionally advances an original opinion. It was superseded by the ‘Modern Europe’ (1861–4) of Thomas Henry Dyer [q. v.] Russell's ‘History of Ancient Europe, with a View of the Revolutions in Asia and Africa’ (2 vols. 1793), was a fragment, and had indifferent success. Cadell arranged to pay him 750l. for a history of England from the accession of George III to the end of the American war, but this was not begun.
Russell's other works, all creditable to the taste and judgment of a self-educated man, were: 1. ‘Collection of Modern Poems,’ including pieces by Gray and Shenstone, 1756. 2. ‘Ode to Fortitude,’ 1769. 3. ‘Sentimental Tales,’ 1770. 4. ‘Fables Moral and Senti--
