Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 1 - Appendix 3
III.
LADY RUSSELL’S FIRST ALLUSION TO YOUNG RUVIGNY (AFTERWARDS EARL OF GALWAY).
[Extracted from Selwood’s Edition of her Letters, and Annotated.]
No. 83. — Lady Russell to Rev. Dr Fitzwilliam (for some time Chaplain to Lord Russell).
“You have, since I saw you, good doctor, so shifted places, that my letters cannot find you. I writ to Windsor when you were gone to Cottenham, and yesterday I directed to Cottenham; at night I heard upon what melancholy account[1] you were gone to poor Lady Gainsborough’s.[2] I imagine your compassionate temper and true Christian disposition to mourn with them that mourn (which I have had full proof of) will not let you quit that distressed family. So soon as this will reach you, be so kind to me as to say something to my Lady. I will own all you can say that is kind and respectful and suitable to her present circumstances. I consider her as one [that] has been a blessing to the family. She must have known much sorrow and care in it, but she cannot miss a reward for her good works; as to herself, I have ever esteemed her person.
“I pity poor Lady Betty,[3] though I believe Lady Julian[4] may have the greater loss; the first, I fancy, may have the greater sense of what the want of parents is; but I have good hope their mother’s[5] children shall feel the mercies of God. I should be glad to hear the father has done his part towards their provision.
“Parliament news can be nothing before Monday; then the House of Commons are to take the state of the nation into consideration, and the Lords do so on Tuesday.
“I must repeat a question to you I made in my letter yesterday. It was to ask you if I am right that you ordered me to lay down four guineas for you towards the redemption of some French Protestants, taken going into Holland, and made slaves in Algiers. They are now redeemed, four ministers or five, and the rest proposers. [6] My cousin Ruvigny has paid the money, and I am to gather to reimburse him the greatest part if I can. I have some time since writ to Lord Campden[7] for his contribution, and he bid me lay down for him; but the time was not come till now, so I will remind him again in a few days, but I think it not fit yet in the present circumstances. I will add no more at this time from — Your true friend and servant,
“26 January 1688-9.”
- ↑ The death of Edward, first Earl of Gainsborough.
- ↑ This was the deceased Earl’s second wife, Mary, daughter of the Hon. James Herbert of Kingsey, and widow of Sir Robert Worseley of Appledercomb [or Appuldurcombe], Bart. She died 6th April 1693, in her 45th year.
- ↑ Lady Elizabeth, who married Richard Norton, Esq., M.P. for Hampshire, perhaps a relative of Colonel Norton, who received into his house the admirable Rector of Tichfield, ejected in 1662.
- ↑ She is called in the peerages Lady Juliana. She died unmarried.
- ↑ This alludes to Lady Russell’s deceased sister, Lady Elizabeth Noel. She did not live to be styled a countess. During her lifetime, her husband, being simply a viscount’s eldest son, was styled the Honourable Edward Noel; and she, of course, was “Lady Elizabeth,” as a daughter of the Earl of Southampton.
- ↑ Students of Divinity (whom the French Church styled proposants).
- ↑ Viscount Campden (Wriothesley Baptist Noel); — his father being dead, he, after the funeral, would be addressed as Earl of Gainsborough. He was the only Noel-grandson of Rachel de Ruvigny, Countess of Southampton, and the last male representative of the Ruvigny-Noel stock; his children were Elizabeth, Duchess of Portland, and Rachel, Duchess of Beaufort.