cian abbey of Woburn, Bedfordshire; in 1552 he received Covent Garden with seven acres, ‘called Long Acre,’ forfeited by Protector Somerset. This estate was subsequently added to by Russell's descendants, who have given their name to many streets, squares, and places in Bloomsbury. Russell House, near the Savoy in the Strand, which was acquired by the first earl, formerly belonged to the bishops of Carlisle.
The first earl of Bedford must be distinguished from the John Russell who fought at Calais and Tournay, and took part in the intrigues to secure the person of Richard de la Pole [q. v.] in 1515 (see Letters and Papers, i. 4476, ii. i. 1163, 1514, 1907), and from another contemporary John Russell (d. 1556) of Strensham, Worcestershire (Nash, Worcestershire, ii. 390, &c.; Metcalfe, Knights, p. 61).
[Wiffen's Memoirs of the House of Russell, i. 179, &c.; Doyle's Official Baronage; G. E. C.'s Complete Peerage; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII; State Papers of Henry VIII; Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent; Cal. of State Papers, Venetian, Spanish, and Foreign Ser.; Troubles connected with the Prayer Book of 1549 (Camd. Soc.); Cavendish's Life of Wolsey; Diario di M. Sanuto, xliii. 704, 128, 729, 749; Dixon's Hist. of the Church of England, iv. 360; Scharf's Portraits at Woburn and at Eaton Square; Strype's Works, Index; Wood's Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, iii. 4, &c.; Strickland's Queens of Engl. iii. 7, &c., iv. 32, &c.; Wriothesley's Chron. (Camd. Soc.), i. 69, &c.; ii. 20, &c.; Machyn's Diary (Camd. Soc.), pp. 13, 19, 37, 79, 83, 343; Trevelyan Papers (Camd. Soc.), i. 150, 198, ii. 26; Services of Lord Gray (Camd. Soc.); Narratives of the Reformation (Camd. Soc.), p. 42, &c.; authorities quoted.]
RUSSELL, JOHN, fourth Duke of Bedford (1710–1771), born on 30 Sept. 1710, was second son of Wriothesley Russell, second duke (1680–1711), by his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heir of John Howland of Streatham, Surrey [see under Russell, William, Lord Russell, (1639–1683)]. After receiving education at home, Lord John Russell (as the fourth duke was known in youth) went, when nineteen, a tour on the continent in the charge of a tutor. As soon as he was of age, on 11 Oct. 1731, he married Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of Charles, third earl of Sunderland [q. v.], and sister of Charles, third duke of Marlborough [q. v.] Arrangements were made for him to enter the House of Commons when, on 23 Oct. 1732, he succeeded his elder brother Wriothesley, who died childless, as Duke of Bedford and in his other honours. He joined the opposition to Sir Robert Walpole headed by Carteret, was disliked by George II, and was held to be proud, violent, and over-assured (Hervey, Memoirs, i. 289–90). In opposition to the court he moved a resolution in 1734 against corrupt practices in the election of Scottish peers, and, being defeated, renewed his attempt in 1735, and signed three protests on the subject (ib. ii. 144; Correspondence, i. Introd. p. xviii; Parl. Hist. ix. 487, 776). He supported Carteret's motion of February 1737 that the Prince of Wales had a right to 100,000l. a year from the civil list, signed the protest against the vote (Hervey, iii. 48, 90), and joined in the attack on Walpole made in February 1741 (Parl. Hist. x. 1213). When Carteret was in power, Bedford acted with the party opposed to the minister's Hanoverian policy, and in February 1743 spoke strongly against taking sixteen thousand Hanoverian troops into British pay (ib. xii. 1019). In April 1744 he vigorously opposed the extension of the law of treason (ib. xiii. 1712). On Carteret's retirement he took office in Pelham's administration as first lord of the admiralty on 25 Dec., and was sworn a privy councillor. He was a lord justice of Great Britain in 1745, as also in 1748 and 1750 (Collins). During the rebellion of 1745 he raised a regiment of foot for the king, was appointed colonel, commanded it in person, was prevented by a bad attack of gout from marching northward with it, and on his recovery joined it at Edinburgh after the battle of Culloden (Correspondence, i. 51; Walpole, Letters, i. 402). In that year he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Bedfordshire, and was made an elder brother and the master of the Trinity House (Doyle). He was active and successful at the admiralty office, causing ships to be fitted out for service, and making reforms in the dockyards and in the promotion of officers. The capture of Louisbourg, the dismissal of Admiral Vernon, and Anson's victory of 3 May 1747 were the chief events of his administration, during the greater part of which the executive was wholly under the control of Anson [see Anson, George, Lord Anson] (Barrow, Life of Anson, pp. 121, 201). He was appointed warden of the New Forest in 1746.
On Lord Chesterfield's resignation of the seals in February 1748, Bedford became secretary for the southern department on the 12th, after the king had refused to appoint his friend, Lord Sandwich (Coxe, Pelham Administration, p. 391; Correspondence, i. 318–325). In 1749 he was made a knight of the Garter, and in 1751 lord-lieutenant of Devonshire. Newcastle was jealous of him, and
