Barclays Bank History Series VI

A Genealogical Study of the Families Who Created the Bank 

 

PART VI--THE RUSSELL FAMILY

 

CONTINUED from Part I, Part II, Part III, Part III-A, Part III-B, Part IV, Part V

 

The Tudor Connection

 

1st Earl of Bedford

Sir John Russell, born in the West Dorset District of England in 1485, was the first of the the Russell family to become attached to the Tudor King Henry VII, in an era of change in the European continent.  

What we now know as Spain was then fragmented into numerous nation-states, two of which had recently been united by a marriage between King Ferdinand II and Isabella I--of Castile and Aragon, respectively. This was the same Queen Isabella Americans recall from childhood geography lessons as the queen who sent Christopher Columbus on a mission of exploration in 1492, seven years after our Sir John Russell was born.

Four years after "Columbus discovered America," two children of Ferdinand and Isabella--a son and a daughter--had a double wedding in which they were married to offspring of Maximilian I, the Habsburg king of the fragmented territory we now call Germany. 

Joanna, the daughter traveled to Flanders--then part of the empire comprised of part of France, Belgium and Luxembourg--where she was wed to Philip of Flanders, son of the future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I.

Ferdinand and Isabella also arranged for a future marriage for their daughter Catharine of Aragon to Arthur, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of King Henry VII and his wife, Elizabeth of York, in 1501. This marriage many years later becomes an important start of our story.

Catharine traveled to England and lived with Arthur, who unfortunately died six months later. After his death, Catharine became betrothed to Arthur's younger brother Henry, who in 1509 became King Henry VIII. It was the era of Shakespeare, many of the characters involved are familiar because of the plays he wrote about them.

Philip and Joanna 

In 1504 Queen Isabella died, and Joanna, all her older siblings having died, became Queen of Spain. It was necessary for her and her husband, then Archduke Philip of Austria, to return from Flanders to Spain to be crowned as King and Queen. 

 

However, en route to Spain in January 1506, the ship in which Philip and Joanna sailed was caught in a storm and shipwrecked off the Dorset coast near Weymouth. Who should appear on the scene to assist the new King Philip I in traveling by land to London to see Joanna's sister, Catharine, except the subject of this tale, John Russell?

Philip sang the praises of John Russell to the first Tudor King, Henry VII, who immediately placed him in service to the House of Tudor. Sir John was named a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber in 1507 and continued once Henry VIII was king. Sir John Russell was knighted after participating in a number of battles in France in 1513 attempting to save Calais for England. In 1526 he married the twice-widowed Anne Sapcote, who gave birth a year later to Francis Russell. His rise to higher positions among the court was fast and swift, becoming High Sheriff, Baron Russell, Lord High Admiral, Knight of the Garter and High Steward by 1539. Ten years later "Russell was rewarded with the Earldom of Bedford and more lands in the south-west and the east midlands, including a reversionary grant of Woburn abbey."

 

Earls of Bedford

The 1st Earl of Bedford was one of 26 peers who signed the decision to crown Lady Jane Grey as the successor of Edward VI in July 1553, but most of Lady Jane Grey's support came from her husband, Guilford Dudley, the brother of Ambrose Dudley, husband of Anne Russell. 

Jane Grey was queen an entire nine days before her execution brought Henry VIII's next child, Mary, to the throne. Sir John Russell's son, Francis would succeed his father as 2nd Earl of Bedford in 1555. He was named Privy Councillor for Queen Elizabeth and entertained her at Chenies in 1570, and at Woburn Abbey two years later. 

 

In 1563 Ambrose Dudley was made a Knight of the Garter, and Baron de L'Isle and Earl of Warwick 1564. In 1569 he was nominated the queen's lieutenant in the north for the purpose of crushing the rebellion there. In May 1571 he was made chief butler of England and was admitted to the privy council in September 1573. 

 

Significance of 1st Earl of Bedford, 1549

Ambrose married three times, but had only one son who died in infancy. In February 1590 he died at his wife's family home, Bedford House in London. Each of the Earls of Bedford was loyal to the succession of Tudor monarchs who ruled England for 118 years, or so it seemed, even though their in-laws, the Dudleys sometimes were less than loyal.

Anne Russell Dudley (Contess of Warwick) was following the wishes of her brother, Francis Thomas Russell, who requested that she look after his only son, Edward Russell. In 1585 both Francis Thomas and their father, the 2nd Earl of Bedford, died, leaving Edward to be named the 3rd Earl at a young age for his aunt to educate and find a wife for. 

 

Anne found him a wife among the most loyal supporters of Queen Elizabeth--the daughter of John Harington of Rutland--Lucy Harington. 

 

By the time Elizabeth I died, England had enjoyed great stability for almost half a century, but because she left no descendants, squabbles among the most likely replacements for her were common in the final years of her reign. 

 

The Russell family were among the most important peers involved in deciding that Elizabeth's successor would be James I, who was known in Scotland as King James VI. He descended from two royal families--the English Tudor King Henry VII and his Scottish bride, Elizabeth of York, a Stuart. James was married to a member of the House of Orange--Anne of Denmark.

 

The choice of a new king with roots in Scotland had the effect of empowering brutally ambitious Scottish peers to enter the fray of competition for court favors, not to imply the Scots had ever been less than aggressive in their fight for power. Among those peers were members of the Gordon family, who had a history of supporting Stuart kings and queens for centuries. 

 

 

Uniting Behind King James I (VI)  

Elizabeth, age 7

As King James returned from exile in France to make his way to London to be crowned, he stopped off briefly at Rutland (in the East Midlands) to speak to his friend and long supporter, John Harington, whose wife had inherited another property at Coventry, as we will soon see. 

 

From the time of the coronation of James I (VI) in 1604 until his death in 1625, the king foiled one plot after another to get rid of him. Such plots had begun even earlier in 1583 with a coup planned by Catholics to replace Queen Elizabeth I with her half-sister Mary. The plots never seemed to diminish. In 1602, shortly before Elizabeth's death, before it was even decided for certain who would succeed her, conspiracy was rampant. That seems to be the nature of greed. 

James' marriage to Anne of Denmark had produced three children, whom he sought to protect and educate with the help of "loyal protectors" of the royal Stuart family. James chose the Haringtons because of their past loyalties. As we will see, loyalty is not always easy to predict.

 

The eldest child, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, grew up alongside John Harington (junior), at Coombe Abbey, a former Catholic monastery about five miles east of Coventry in Warwickshire, northwest of London. Mrs. Harington inherited the abbey from her father, Robert Keilway. Nine years earlier (in 1594) the Haringtons' daughter Louisa (Lucy) Harington had married Edward Russell, 3rd Earl of Bedford, the arrangement having been made by Edward's aunt, Anne Russell Dudley, Countess of Warwick, as mentioned earlier. 

 

Coombe Abbey

Lucy Harringon thus became the Countess of Bedford--the subject of a a well-researched book called Out of the Shadows, written by Lesley Lawson (2007), which delves into every detail of Lucy's life in the context of that time. 

 

Dr. John Gordon, a Protestant Bishop, and his French wife, Geneviève Petau, were invited to Coombe Abbey, the home of John Harington as tutors to Princess Elizabeth. Genevieve, his second wife, was, according to A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland from Its Origin to the Year 1630 by Sir Robert Gordon:

...placed with their majestie's daughter. Lady Elizabeth, afterward Queen of Boheme (who still favored her dearly), to attend her grace in her bed-chamber, together with the Lady Harington, and to instruct her grace in the French toung, which she taught her to write and to speak perfectly.

Four years after Princess Elizabeth was married off to Frederick V in 1613, Genevieve Gordon, her former tutor, gave birth to a daughter, named Elizabeth in her honor. Lucy Harrngton Russell (known as the Countess of Bedford) became the young Elizabeth Gordon's godmother. The Gordons, Russells and Harrngtons were united in their support for the new Stuart king with connections to the vestiges of Tudor royalty. 

 

Plots and Subplots 

 

Ambrose Dudley of Warwick

Anne Russell, born in 1548, was married, as mentioned earlier, to Ambrose Dudley, who in 1553 "alongside three of his other brothers, was thrown into the Tower, accused, tried and convicted of High Treason following the failed coup led by his father, John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, the aim of which had been to place the Protestant Lady Jane Grey[--wife of Guilford Dudley--] on the throne of England following the death of Edward VI," according to the Tudor Travel Guide. Ambrose and two of his brothers were not executed, and Ambrose lived to fight against France with Spanish forces. 

 

Anne Russell Dudley

Mary was queen by then and gratefully rewarded Ambrose, who in 1562 "received a large portion of the lands previously confiscated from his father, the Duke of Northumberland. Warwick Castle became the new Earl’s principal residence." 

 

As it happens, Warwick Castle was a mere 15 miles or so from Coombe Abbey, where James' children were being protected in the early 1600s.

 

While Ambrose had been away fighting the Spanish Armada, his second wife died around 1564, and he returned to grieve briefly, but then he quickly was married again to Anne Russell, daughter of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, with the ceremony taking place on 11 November 1565 in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall. Much older than Anne, he had no children from his previous marriages, and the Earl of Warwick died in 1590 at a Russell-owned property, Bedford House in the Strand, London. 

 

Anne Russell Dudley's Extended Family

Francis Russell, the 2nd Earl of Bedford (1527-1585), had married the former Margaret St. John, who had died in 1562 leaving him with seven children:

1. Anne was the third wife of Ambrose Dudley, the 3rd Earl of Warwick, who was a great favorite of Queen Elizabeth. One of his three brothers married Lady Jane Grey and was beheaded with her in 1554. He died in 1589 without a surviving child.
2. Elizabeth, married William Bourchier and was styled "Countess of Bath."  
3. Edward died at the age of 21 unmarried.
4. Margaret, married George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland. 

5. 

   Francis Russell, 2nd Earl Bedford

   Francis married Eleanor "Juliana" Forster, who gave birth in 1572 to Edward Russell, named 3rd Earl of Bedford in 1585 when he was 13. Francis, about to leave for battles along the Scottish border in 1585, was concerned about who would succeed him should he be killed. He sought help from his sister, Anne to find a wife for his young son, Edward, in that event. He was killed in battle, and his father also died a few days later. Edward's marriage to Luce (Lucy) Harington  at Saint Dunstan and All Saints Church in Stepney, Middlesex will be discussed below. 
   
6. John married a much older widow, Elizabeth Cooke at Bisham, Berkshire on 23 Dec 1574, who already had several children by Thomas Hoby, who died in Paris in 1566. It is said she and John Russell had several children of their own, even though she would have been 47 years old when they married. According to Findagrave, "John was summoned to Parliament Jan 1581, during his father's lifetime, as Lord Russell. John was buried at Westminster, his wife was buried at Bisham, Berkshire". 
7. William was born in 1553, the same year as John, and he married Elizabeth Long. Named 1st Baron Russell of Thornhaugh, as the fourth son of the 2nd Earl of Bedford. He was raised to become 4th Earl of Bedford in May 1627 upon the death of his nephew Edward at Moor Park in Hertfordshire. 

 

Edward's Fellow Plotters

 

Edward Russell, 3rd Earl of Bedford

Edward Russell (1551-1572) became the 3rd Earl in 1585 and was married on 12 Dec 1594 at Saint Dunstan and All Saints Church in Stepney, Middlesex to 13-year-old Lucy Harington. Stepney in far east London was the ancestral home of both Mrs. Harington as well as her husband's uncle, Sir John Harington of Stepney, who "spent part of James’s reign in prison as surety for the debts of his cousin Sir Griffith Markham, who was attainted for his involvement in the Bye Plot of 1603."

 

Edward was 22 years old at the time of his marriage, and up until 1603 was kept busy with his friend, Robert Devereux, whose stepfather, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, was plotting with Lucy's father (Edward's father-in-law) in a confusing series of circular plots designed to place on the throne the royal member deemed mostly likely to reward them with power. 

 

Robert Dudley had long been Queen Elizabeth's favorite and, as rumors have it, her secret lover. But she refused to marry him years after his first wife died in a suspicious fall down a set of stairs. In 1578, however, he secretly married Lettice, the widow of Sir Walter Devereux. That made Lettice's son Robert Devereux the Earl of Essex, Robert Dudley's stepson. When the Queen learned of the marriage, she was furious both at Dudley and his wife, who was her cousin and former lady-in-waiting.

 

The Dudleys were no strangers to being in powerful roles at court. Robert's father, John Dudley, had been Duke of Northumberland before his death in 1553--"an English politician and soldier who was the virtual ruler of England from 1549 to 1553, during the minority of King Edward VI." Without power, they were willing to commit  treason to gain it. In fact, the most common cause of death for the Dudleys seems to have been execution for treason. John's father, Edmund, met his death that way in 1510. Then John died similarly in 1553, followed shortly by his son Guildford Dudley, who had married the nine-day queen Lady Jane Grey. 

 

Yet, here was Northumberland's son Robert Dudley, the "virgin queen's lover," engaging in acts with his stepson in 1601, which seemed guaranteed to get them all executed. Would they never learn? 

 

Robert Devereux executed

In 1601 Edward Russell joined with Robert Devereux in what was called the "Essex Coup" or the "Bye Coup," which a part of the "Main Coup"  in an attempt to replace Queen Elizabeth with James VI of Scotland. Little did they know all they would have had to do was wait two years for Elizabeth's death. But they took hasty action, unsuccessfully. As a result, Robert Devereux literally "lost his head." 

 

When the Haringtons had received King James VI of Scotland at their home in Rutland both before and after James' exile in France, the latter visit as James made his way to London to be crowned as James I of England in 1603, it should be noted that daughter Lucy had by then been the Countess of Bedford for ten years and also had an 11-year-old brother at the time named John Harington, born in 1592, about whom Simon Healy in the History of Parliament wrote:

Harington’s father, negotiating for the release of another of Essex’s accomplices, his son-in-law the 3rd earl of Bedford, assured Sir Robert Cecil† that unlike Bedford, he and his son were ‘obsequious of the love of you’. Harington’s parents made a further effort to insinuate their son into Cecil’s favour in October 1602, when they asked that he ‘might wholly remain under your protection’ in the event of his father’s demise, ‘which they will hold a very special happiness to them and their son’.

The younger John Harington, who grew up alongside Prince Henry, was very close to the Prince, who died of typhoid in 1612. He would also have known the children of Dr. John Gordon, whose wife Genevieve was French tutor for Henry's sister, Elizabeth. Lucy Harington Russell (Countess of Bedford) would be named godmother of Genevieve's daughter, Lucy Gordon. All these families also seemed united in their support for King James and, later, for his successor--King Charles I, whose beheading gave rise to Cromwell's Commonwealth, and the subsequent Restoration of Stuart rule under King Charles II.

 

The Bedford loyalties to the royal succession were so assured that in 1694 William Russell, the 5th Earl was created as the 1st Duke of Bedford by Charles I, and the following year the Duke married off his grandson, Wriosthesley Russell, to the daughter of John Howland at Streatham, as we wrote about at length earlier.

 

We will pick up again in Part VIII with the Dukes of Bedford. 

 

But first, however, Part VII will describe what had been happening in Scotland that led to the union of England, Scotland and Wales under a single Crown. At that point also--just as James VI of Scotland was being crowned in England as James I, the ancient Scottish family of Gordon will re-enter our saga as we go back to the Kings of Scotland, in particular James IV, who ruled Scotland from 1488 until his death in 1513.