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EARLY YEARS, EDUCATION, AND TRAVEL

IN PARLIAMENT AND FOR THE PEOPLE

The political outlook when Lord John entered the House of Commons--The 'Condition of England' question--The struggle for Parliamentary Reform--Side-lights on Napoleon Bonaparte--The Liverpool Administration in a panic--Lord John comes to the aid of Sir Francis Burdett--Foreign travel--First motion in favour of Reform--Making headway 21

WINNING HIS SPURS

Defeated and out of harness--Journey to Italy--Back in Parliament--Canning's accession to power--Bribery and corruption--The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts--The struggle between the Court and the Cabinet over Catholic Emancipation--Defeat of Wellington at the polls--Lord John appointed Paymaster-General 47

A FIGHT FOR LIBERTY

Lord Grey and the cause of Reform--Lord Durham's share in the Reform Bill--The voice of the people--Lord John introduces the bill and explains its provisions--The surprise of the Tories--Reform, 'Aye' or 'No'--Lord John in the Cabinet--The bill thrown out--The indignation of the country--Proposed creation of Peers--Wellington and Sidmouth in despair--The bill carried--Lord John's tribute to Althorp 63

THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA

The turn of the tide with the Whigs--The two voices in the Cabinet--Lord John and Ireland--Althorp and the Poor Law--The Melbourne Administration on the rocks--Peel in power--The question of Irish tithes--Marriage of Lord John--Grievances of Nonconformists--Lord Melbourne's influence over the Queen--Lord Durham's mission to Canada--Personal sorrow 88

THE TWO FRONT BENCHES

Lord John's position in the Cabinet and in the Commons--His services to Education--Joseph Lancaster--Lord John's Colonial Policy--Mr. Gladstone's opinion--Lord Stanmore's recollections--The mistakes of the Melbourne Cabinet--The Duke of Wellington's opinion of Lord John--The agitation against the Corn Laws--Lord John's view of Sir Robert Peel--The Edinburgh letter--Peel's dilemma--Lord John's comment on the situation 113

FACTION AND FAMINE

Peel and Free Trade--Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck lead the attack--Russell to the rescue--Fall of Peel--Lord John summoned to power--Lord John's position in the Commons and in the country--The Condition of Ireland question--Famine and its deadly work--The Russell Government and measures of relief--Crime and coercion--The Whigs and Education--Factory Bill--The case of Dr. Hampden 136

IN ROUGH WATERS

The People's Charter--Feargus O'Connor and the crowd--Lord Palmerston strikes from his own bat--Lord John's view of the political situation--Death of Peel--Palmerston and the Court--'No Popery'--The Durham Letter--The invasion scare--Lord John's remark about Palmerston--Fall of the Russell Administration 163

COALITION BUT NOT UNION

The Aberdeen Ministry--Warring elements--Mr. Gladstone's position--Lord John at the Foreign Office and Leader of the House--Lady Russell's criticisms of Lord Macaulay's statement--A small cloud in the East--Lord Shaftesbury has his doubts 199

DOWNING STREET AND CONSTANTINOPLE

Causes of the Crimean War--Nicholas seizes his opportunity--The Secret Memorandum--Napoleon and the susceptibilities of the Vatican--Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and the Porte--Prince Menschikoff shows his hand--Lord Aberdeen hopes against hope--Lord Palmerston's opinion of the crisis--The Vienna Note--Lord John grows restive--Sinope arouses England--The deadlock in the Cabinet 213

WAR HINDERS REFORM

A Scheme of Reform--Palmerston's attitude--Lord John sore let and hindered--Lord Stratford's diplomatic triumph--The Duke of Newcastle and the War Office--The dash for Sebastopol--Procrastination and its deadly work--The Alma--Inkerman--The Duke's blunder--Famine and frost in the trenches 236

THE VIENNA DIFFICULTY

Blunders at home and abroad--Roebuck's motion--'General F?vrier' turns traitor--France and the Crimea--Lord John at Vienna--The pride of the nation is touched--Napoleon's visit to Windsor--Lord John's retirement--The fall of Sebastopol--The treaty of Paris 254

LITERATURE AND EDUCATION

Lord John's position in 1855--His constituency in the City--Survey of his work in literature--As man of letters--His historical writings--Hero-worship of Fox--Friendship with Moore--Writes the biography of the poet--'Don Carlos'--A book wrongly attributed to him--Publishes his 'Recollections and Suggestions'--An opinion of Kinglake's--Lord John on his own career--Lord John and National Schools--Joseph Lancaster's tentative efforts--The formation of the Council of Education--Prejudice blocks the way--Mr. Forster's tribute 270

COMING BACK TO POWER

Lord John as an Independent Member--His chance in the City--The Indian Mutiny--Orsini's attempt on the life of Napoleon--The Conspiracy Bill--Lord John and the Jewish Relief Act--Palmerston in power--Lord John at the Foreign Office--Cobden and Bright--Quits the Commons with a Peerage 286

UNITED ITALY AND THE DIS-UNITED STATES

SECOND PREMIERSHIP

The Polish Revolt--Bismarck's bid for power--The Schleswig-Holstein difficulty--Death of Lord Palmerston--The Queen summons Lord John--The second Russell Administration--Lord John's tribute to Palmerston--Mr. Gladstone introduces Reform--The 'Cave of Adullam'--Defeat of the Russell Government--The people accept Lowe's challenge--The feeling in the country 320

OUT OF HARNESS

Speeches in the House of Lords--Leisured years--Mr. Lecky's reminiscences--The question of the Irish Church--The Independence of Belgium--Lord John on the claims of the Vatican--Letters to Mr. Chichester Fortescue--His scheme for the better government of Ireland--Lord Selborne's estimate of Lord John's public career--Frank admissions--As his private secretaries saw him 334

PEMBROKE LODGE

Looking back--Society at Pembroke Lodge--Home life--The house and its memories--Charles Dickens's speech at Liverpool--Literary friendships--Lady Russell's description of her husband--A packet of letters--His children's recollections--A glimpse of Carlyle--A witty impromptu--Closing days--Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone--The jubilee of the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts--'Punch' on the 'Golden Wedding'--Death--The Queen's letter--Lord Shaftesbury's estimate of Lord John's career--His great qualities 349

INDEX 371

LORD JOHN RUSSELL

EARLY YEARS, EDUCATION, AND TRAVEL

Rise of the Russells under the Tudors--Childhood and early surroundings of Lord John--Schooldays at Westminster--First journey abroad with Lord Holland--Wellington and the Peninsular campaign--Student days in Edinburgh and speeches at the Speculative Society--Early leanings in Politics and Literature--Enters the House of Commons as member for Tavistock.

Lord John Russell was born on August 18, 1792, at Hertford Street, Mayfair. His father, who was second son of Lord Tavistock, and grandson of the fourth Duke of Bedford, succeeded his brother Francis, as sixth Duke, in 1802, at the age of thirty-six, when his youngest and most famous son was ten years old. Long before his accession to the title, which was, indeed, quite unexpected, the sixth Duke had married the Hon. Georgiana Byng, daughter of Viscount Torrington, and the statesman with whose career these pages are concerned was the third son of this union. He spent his early childhood at Stratton Park, Hampshire. When he was a child of eight, Stratton Park was sold by the Duke of Bedford, and Oakley House, which he never liked so well, became the residence of his father. Although a shy, delicate child, he was sent in the spring of 1800, when only eight, to a private school at Sunbury--only a mile or two away from Richmond, where nearly eighty years later he died. In the autumn of 1801 he lost his mother, to whom he was deeply attached, and almost before the bewildered child had time to realise his loss, his uncle Francis also died, and his father, in consequence, became Duke of Bedford.

From Sunbury the motherless boy was sent with his elder brother to Westminster, in 1803, and the same year the Duke married Lady Georgiana Gordon, a daughter of the fourth Duke of Gordon, and her kindness to her stepchildren was marked and constant. Westminster School at the beginning of the century was an ill-disciplined place, in which fighting and fagging prevailed, and its rough and boisterous life taxed to the utmost the mettle of the plucky little fellow. He seems to have made no complaint, but to have taken his full share in the rough-and-tumble sports of his comrades in a school which has given many distinguished men to the literature and public life of England: as, for instance, the younger Vane--whom Milton extolled--Ben Jonson and Dryden, Prior and Locke, Cowper and Southey, Gibbon and Warren Hastings.

His 'broken and disturbed' education was next resumed at Woburn Abbey under Dr. Cartwright; the Duke's domestic chaplain, and brother to Major Cartwright, the well-known political reformer. The chaplain at Woburn was a many-sided man. He was not only a scholar and a poet, but also possessed distinct mechanical skill, and afterwards won fame as the inventor of the power-loom. He was quick-witted and accomplished, and it was a happy circumstance that the high-spirited, impressionable lad, who by this time was full of dreams of literary distinction, came under his influence. 'I acquired from Dr. Cartwright,' declared Lord John, 'a taste for Latin poetry which has never left me.' Not merely at work but at play, his new friend came to his rescue. 'He invented the model of a boat which was moved by clockwork and acted upon the water by a paddle underneath. He gave me the model, and I used to make it go across the ponds in the park.' Meanwhile literature was not forgotten, and before long the boy's juvenile effusions filled a manuscript book, which with an amusing flourish of trumpets was dedicated to 'the Right Hon. William Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer.' A couple of sentences will reveal its character, and the dawning humour of the youthful scribe:--'This little volume, being graced with your name, will prosper; without it my labour would be all in vain. May you remain at the Helm of State long enough to bestow a pension on your very humble and obedient servant, John Russell.'

Between the years 1805 and 1808 Lord John pursued his education under a country parson in Kent. He was placed under the care of Mr. Smith, Vicar of Woodnesborough, near Sandwich, an ardent Whig, who taught a select number of pupils, amongst whom were several cadets of the aristocracy; and to this seminary Lord John now followed his brothers, Lord Tavistock and Lord William Russell. Amongst his schoolfellows at Woodnesborough was the Lord Hartington of that generation, Lord Clare, Lord William Fitzgerald, and a future Duke of Leinster. The vicar in question, worthy Mr. Smith, was nicknamed 'Dean Smigo' by his pupils, but Lord John, looking back in after-years, declared that he was an excellent man, well acquainted with classical authors, both Greek and Latin, though 'without any remarkable qualities either of character or understanding.' He evidently won popularity amongst the boys by joining in their indoor amusements and granting frequent holidays, particularly on occasions when the Whig cause was triumphant in the locality or in Parliament.

Rambles inland and on the seashore, pony riding, shooting small birds, cricket, and other sports, as well as winter evening games, filled up the ample leisure from the duties of the schoolroom. One or two extracts from his journal are sufficient to show that, although still weakly, he was not lacking in boyish vivacity and in a healthy desire to emulate his elders. When Grenville and Fox joined their forces and so brought about the Ministry of 'All the Talents' the lads obtained a holiday--a fact which is thus recorded in sprawling schoolboy hand by Lord John in his diary. 'Saturday, February 8, 1806.--... We did no business on Mr. Fox's coming into the Ministry. I shot a couple of larks beyond Southerden.... I went out shooting for the first time with Mr. Smith's gun. I got eight shots at little birds and killed four of them.' On November 5 in the same year we find him writing:--'Eliza's birthday. No business. I went out shooting, but only killed some little birds. I used to shoot much better than I do at present. Always miss now; have not killed a partridge yet.' Poor boy! But he lived to kill two deer and a wild boar. 'Similarity of age led me,' states Lord John, in one of his unpublished notes, 'to form a more intimate friendship with Clare than with any of the others, and our mutual liking grew into a strong attachment on both sides. I only remark this fact as Lord Byron, who had been a friend of Clare's at Harrow, appears to have shown some boyish jealousy when the latter expressed his sorrow at my departure for Spain.'

Now and then he turned his gift for composing verses in the direction of a satire on some political celebrity. He also wrote and spoke the prologue at private dramatic performances at Woburn during the holiday season, and took the part of 'Lucy' in 'The Rivals.' A little later, in the brief period of his father's viceroyalty, he wrote another prologue, and on this occasion amused an Irish audience by his assumption of the part of an old woman.

The political atmosphere of Woburn and Woodnesborough as well as his father's official position, led the boy of fourteen to take a keen interest in public affairs. His satirical verses on Melville, Pitt, Hawkesbury, and others, together with many passages in his journal, showed that his attention was frequently diverted from grammar and lexicon, field sports and footlights, to politics and Parliament, and the struggle amongst statesmen for place and power. Although little is known of the actual incidents of Lord John's boyhood, such straws at least show the direction in which the current of his life was setting.

Whilst Lord John was the guest of Mr. Fox at Stable Yard, the subject of Lord Melville's acquittal by the Peers came up for discussion. Next day the shrewd young critic wrote the following characteristic remark in his journal: 'What a pity that he who steals a penny loaf should be hung, whilst he who steals thousands of the public money should be acquitted!' The brilliant qualities of Fox made a great impression on the lad, and there can be little doubt that his intercourse with the great statesman, slight and passing though it was, did much to awaken political ambition. He also crossed the path of other men of light and leading in the political world, and in this way, boy though he was, he grew familiar with the strife of parties and the great questions of the hour. Holland House opened its hospitable gates to him, and there he met a young clergyman of an unconventional type--the Rev. Sydney Smith--with whom he struck up a friendship that was destined to endure. The young schoolboy has left it on record in that inevitable 'journal' that he found his odd clerical acquaintance 'very amusing.'

In the summer of 1807 we learn from his journal that he passed three months with his father and stepmother at the English lakes and in the West of Scotland. With boyish glee he recounts the incidents of the journey, and his delight in visiting Inverary, Edinburgh, and Melrose. Yet it was his rambles and talks with Sir Walter Scott, whom he afterwards described as one of the wonders of the age, that left the most abiding impression upon him. On his way back to Woodnesborough he paid his first visit to the House of Lords, and heard a debate on the Copenhagen expedition, an affair in which, he considered, 'Ministers cut a most despicable figure.' On quitting school life at Woodnesborough, an experience was in store for him which enlarged his mental horizon, and drew out his sympathies for the weak and oppressed. Lord and Lady Holland had taken a fancy to the lad, and the Duke of Bedford consented to their proposal that he should accompany them on their visit to the Peninsula, then the scene of hostilities between the French and the allied armies of England and Spain. The account of this journey is best told in Lord John's own words:--

'In the autumn of 1808, when only sixteen years of age, I accompanied Lord and Lady Holland to Corunna, and afterwards to Lisbon, Seville, and Cadiz, returning by Lisbon to England in the summer of 1809. They were eager for the success of the Spanish cause, and I joined to sympathy for Spain a boyish hatred of Napoleon, who had treacherously obtained possession of an independent country by force and fraud--force of immense armies, fraud of the lowest kind.' There is in existence at Pembroke Lodge a small parchment-bound volume marked 'Diary, 1808,' which records in his own handwriting Lord John's first impressions of foreign travel. The notes are brief, but they show that the writer even then was keenly alive to the picturesque. The journal ends somewhat abruptly, and Lord John confesses in so many words that he gave up this journal in despair, a statement which is followed by the assertion that the record at least possesses the 'merit of brevity.'

Spain was in such a disturbed condition that the tour was full of excitement. War and rumours of war filled the air, and sudden changes of route were often necessary in order to avoid perilous encounters with the French. The travellers were sometimes accompanied by a military escort, but were more frequently left to their devices, and evil tidings of disaster to the Allies--often groundless, but not less alarming--kept the whole party on the alert, and proved, naturally, very exciting to the lad, who under such strange and dramatic circumstances gained his first experience of life abroad. Lord John had, however, taken with him his Virgil, Tacitus, and Cicero, and now and then, forgetful of the turmoil around him, he improved his acquaintance with the classics. He also studied the Spanish language, with the result that he acquired an excellent conversational knowledge of it. The lad had opinions and the courage of them, and when he saw the cause of the Spanish beginning to fail he was exasperated by the apathy of the Whigs at home, and accordingly, with the audacity of youth, wrote to his father:--

'I take the liberty of informing you and your Opposition friends that the French have not conquered the whole of Spain.... Lord Grey's speech appears to me either a mere attempt to plague Ministers for a few hours or a declaration against the principle of the people's right to depose an infamous despot.... It seems to be the object of the Opposition to prove that Spain is conquered, and that the Spaniards like being robbed and murdered.' It seems, therefore, that Lord John, even in his teens, was inclined to be dogmatic and oracular, but the soundness of his judgment, in this particular instance at least, is not less remarkable than his sturdy mental independence. Like his friend Sydney Smith, he was already becoming a lover of justice and of sympathy towards the oppressed.

In the summer of 1809, after a short journey to Cadiz, Lord Holland and his party crossed the plains of Estremadura on mules to Lisbon and embarked for England, though not without an unexpected delay caused by a slight attack of fever on the part of Lord John. On the voyage back Lord Holland and his secretary, Mr. Allen, pointed out to him the advantages of going to Edinburgh for the next winter, and in a letter to his father, dated Spithead, August 10, 1809, he adds: 'They say that I am yet too young to go to an English university; that I should learn more there in the meantime than I should anywhere else.'

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