Russell William

Russell, WILLIAM LORD (1639-83), son of the first Duke of Bedford, was a member of Charles II.'s Privy Council, and resigned owing to the recall of the Duke of York and what he conceived to be the consequent probable re-establishment of Popery. He brought the matter before the House of Commons, and its action caused the king to dissolve it and to act arbitrarily in other ways. A serious conspiracy followed, and Lord Russell was certainly one of its promoters, but he was tried for complicity in the Rye House Plot to assassinate the king, and was executed on July 21st, 1683. His courage and intense love of liberty endeared him to the,people. After the Revolution the attainder against him was annulled. His wife, RACHEL, who lived till 1723, was a,noble woman, whose beautiful character is clearly exhibited in her Letters.