Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 2.djvu/100

84 BEDFORD VIII. EARLDOM XI. OF Tavistock, s. and h. ap. by ist wife, b. and d. 6, was bur.(f) ii Nov. 1732, at Chenies afsd.] [Francis Russell, styled Marquess of Tavistock, 2nd, but ist surv. s. and h. ap. (being the only son) by 2nd wife, b. 27 Sep., and bap. 25 Oct. 1739, at St. George's, Bloomsbury. M.P. (Whig) for Armagh, in the Pari. [I.] 1759-60, and for Beds, 1761-67. He m., 8 June 1764, at Wo- burn Abbey, Beds, Elizabeth, 6th da. of William Anne (Keppel), 2nd Earl OF Albemarle.C') He d., in consequence of a fall from his horse, v.p., 22, and was bur. 29 Mar. 1767, at Chenies, aged 27. Admon. 2 May 1767, 10 Apr. 1770, 19 Mar. i77i,and Aug. 1842. His widow, who was b. i^ Nov. 1739, d. of consumption, at Lisbon, 2 Nov., and was ^«r. 13 Dec. 1768, at Chenies, aged 28. Admon. 10 Apr. 1770.] DUKEDOM. 1 5 and 9. Francis (Russell), Duke of Bed- ford, ^fc, grandson and h., being s. and h. of Francis Russell, styled Marquess of Tavistock, ' ' ' and Elizabeth, his wife, abovenamed. He was b. 23 July, and bap. 20 Aug. 1765, at St. Giles's- in-the-Fields, Midx. Ed. at Westm. school.('=) On 5 Dec. 1787 he took his seat in the House of Lords. The career of this nobleman, as a Whig politician, is well known, as well as the eulogium of Fox thereon. ('^) He d. unm., at Woburn Abbey (after a fortnight's illness), from a too long delayed operation for hernia, 2, and was bur. 10 Mar. 1802, at Chenies, aged 36. (^) Will dat. 27 Feb., pr. 5 Mar. 1802, by his br., John, the universal legatee. (") His burial is entered as "John, son of John, Lord Russell" {i.e. son of Lord John Russell) which last John was then (though the news of the death of the former Duke, at Corunna, had not yet reached England) Duke of Bedford. (*>) In 1758 " A modest, but plain lad." (Horace Walpoie, George III). V.G. C^) " The Duke of Bedford I must own surprised me by his figure beyond measure; his long, lank black hair, covering his face, shoulders, back, neck, and everything disguised so that I have yet to know his figure; I can but guess at his person. Why this singularity at i 7 years of age ? . . . Sa figure n'est pas laide." (George Selwyn to Lord Carlisle). V.G. {^) See Collins, vol. i, p. 298. The Duke is mentioned several times in The Anti-Jacobin, e.g. in the " New Morality " he is the " Leviathan " — "Thou in whose nose by Burke's gigantic hand The hook was fixed to drag thee to the land," alluding to Burke's famous "Letter to a Noble Lord, 1796" written in a strain of eloquent but bitter invective, seldom, if ever, surpassed. See also (in Edmonds' edit., 1854) Gillray's clever engraving of " The Republican Rattlesnake [Fox] fascinating the Bedford Squirrel." Another poem in The Anti-Jacobin (p. 41) styled "The Duke and the Taxing Man " narrates how this Duke tried, without success, to escape the assessed tax on his servants on the plea that — " These varlets twenty-five were ne'er Liveried in white and red." (') In Modern Society, 7 Dec. 1 889, appeared a letter signed A.H.G., positively alleging that this Duke m., about 1750 ["V] in Switzerland, under the name of John