Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 2.djvu/99

BEDFORD 83 by Anne, 2nd da. and coh. of John (Churchill), the famous Duk.e of Marl- borough. She d. s.p.s., of consumption, at Southampton House, 27 Sep., and was bto: 9 Oct. 1735, ^^ Chenies afsd., aged 25. Admon. 28 June 1750 (penalty of ^^500). He m., 2ndly, 2 Apr. 1737, Gertrude, ist da. of John (Leveson-Gower), ist Earl Gower, by his ist wife, Evelyn, yst. da. of Evelyn (Pierrepont), Duke of Kingston. He d. at Bedford House, Bloomsbury, 14, and was bur. 30 Jan. 1771, at Chenies afsd., aged 6o.(^) Will pr. Feb. 1771. His widow d. i, and was bur. 7 July 1794, at Chenies, aged 75. Will pr. July i794.() [John Russell, who, apparently, was entitled to be styled Marquess (^) He entered political life as an anti-Walpole Whig, and later led that section of the party known as the " Bedford Whigs " or " Bloomsbury gang " who were in favour of the Stamp Act and the prosecution of Wilkes. He was one of the 5 peers who protested (27 Feb. 1 769) against the Lords' reversal of the decision of the Scottish Court in the famous Douglas cause (see note sub Archibald, Baron Douglas of Douglas [i 790]), and the Editor is inclined to join in the protest of this small minority. Horace Walpole's account of him is favourable, — " He was a man of inflexible honesty and goodwill to his country: his great ceconomy was called avarice; if it was so, it was blended with more generosity and goodness than that passion will commonly unite with. His parts were certainly far from shining, and yet he spoke readily, and, upon trade, well: his foible was speaking upon every subject, and imagining he understood it, as he must have done, by inspiration. He was always governed; generally by the duchess, though unmeasurably obstinate, when once he had formed or had an opinion instilled into him. ... If he could have thought less well of himself, the world would probably have thought better of him." {^Memoirs of George the Second, edit. 1822, vol. i, p. 162). Another contemporary calls him "violent, harsh and fearless." A note to a Letter of Junius, 23 Sep. 1769, runs as follows: — "Mr. Heston Humphrey, a country attorney, horse-whipped the Duke with equal justice, severity and perseverance on the Course at Litchfield. This gave rise to the following story. When the late King heard that Sir Edward Hawke had given the French a drubbing, he was pleased to ask Lord Chesterfield the meaning of the word. ' Sir,' says Lord C, 'here comes the Duke of Bedford, who is better able to explain it to your Majesty than I am.'" Lord Charlemont, in his Memoirs, says, "he was a man of excellent parts, though deficient in common sense, in the highest degree passionate, but perfectly goodnatured." Of his 2nd wife, " the most artful and dangerous of women," Lord C. is "almost afraid to speak." Mrs. Delany writes of her in Nov. 1759, when at Dublin Castle, as looking " as yellow as a kite's foot, and very stately in her drawing room, though at other times very condescending, and will go to anybody that will give her cards or supper." In the Royal Register, vol. ii, pp. 85-99, '^*^ '^ described as " haughty, imperious and insolent in his general demeanour, hasty in forming his resolutions, and generally injudicious in the execution of them. He possessed very exalted ideas of his rank, and no very humble ones of his abilities. . . . The great object of his life was popularity; and he never obtained it for an hour. . . . He ever acted upon some principles which he thought right at -the time, and so far at least he was an honest man in not sacrificing his opinions to gratify his wishes." V.G. C') She is described as extremely stingy and avaricious, in a scandalous book, The Whig Club, 1794, pp. 63-67. In the same work the same disposition is ascribed to the Duke, her grandson, who is further said to be one of the best whist players in England and devoted to the turf. V.G.