RUSSELL, Francis (c.1616-64), of Chippenham, Cambs.

The Russells were newcomers to Cambridgeshire. The family, which was unrelated to the Russells of Woburn, was first recorded in the Isle of Wight in the fifteenth century, when this MP’s great-great-grandfather had held Carisbrooke Castle from the crown.29Noble, Mems. of House of Cromwell, ii. 381. Their fortune was almost entirely the achievement of Francis’s father, Sir William Russell†, built up through trading ventures with Russia and the East Indies. Appointment as treasurer of the navy in 1618 brought him further wealth and a knighthood and, having married in to a Cambridgeshire family, the Gerards, he consolidated his new position by acquiring a country seat at Chippenham. Accused of making irregular payments to the 1st duke of Buckingham, Sir William was removed from office in 1627, but nevertheless managed to flourish at court even after his patron’s assassination. The grant of a baronetcy in 1629 was followed by his reappointment as treasurer of the navy in 1630.

His fortunes once more secure, Sir William proceeded to give his eldest son the sort of education he had never received. At Wadham the fellow assigned to tutor the young Francis was John Gauden (the putative author of Eikon Basilike), whom he later appointed to the living at Chippenham and who married his sister, Elizabeth. Francis’s time at Oxford was interrupted by his very youthful marriage, and he soon proceeded to the inns of court to complete his education.30Reg. of Wadham Coll. i. 103-4; Noble, Mems. of House of Cromwell, ii. 389; G. Inn Admiss. 201; I. Temple database. For reasons which remain obscure, his father decided in 1639 to assign his estates to trustees, including Francis himself, John Bodville* (who was his brother-in-law), John Godbold*, and Thomas Chicheley*.31Cambs. RO, R.55.7.7.5.

Some later sources claimed that in August 1642 Russell assisted Oliver Cromwell* and Valentine Wauton* when they took the unauthorised but decisive step of intercepting the convoy carrying the colleges’ plate from Cambridge to the king.32Noble, Mems. of House of Cromwell, ii. 387; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 188-9; S.L. Sadler, ‘From civilian to soldier: recalling Cromwell in Cambridge, 1642’, Cromwelliana, ser. iii, i. 46. For Russell, assuming he was involved at all, this was proof of his commitment to the parliamentarian cause, and a reason why Parliament then appointed him as one of the deputy lieutenants for Cambridgeshire.33CJ ii. 729a; LJ v. 307a. The later claim that he originally supported the king appears to be unfounded.34A Second Narrative of the late Parliament (1658), 27. Indeed, having raised a force of 12 men, who were ‘well horsed and armed, and all in scarlet cloaks’, he joined up with William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Lord Saye and Sele, and others to take control of Oxford.35Whitelocke, Diary, 135-6. At Edgehill two months later he ‘rode in the lifeguard’.36Ludlow, Mems. i. 44. He was probably present at the meeting held at Mildenhall in late January 1643 to discuss military preparations in East Anglia, for, as a member of the newly-formed committee of the Eastern Association*, he signed the letters summoning the local deputy lieutenants.37Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 211.

What had begun as an individual initiative was soon formalised when Russell was appointed a colonel in the army of the Eastern Association with his own regiment.38SP28/10, f. 189; SP28/11, f. 411; SP28/12, f. 93; SP28/14, ff. 179, 270; SP28/18, f. 215; SP28/21, ff. 70, 108; SP28/25, ff. 214-23, 318-19, 391, 393, 395-6, 401-2, 404-6, 407, 413, 427, 429, 430, 496; SP28/26, ff. 20, 430. Its banner carried the motto from Psalm 60, ‘Through God we shall do valiantly’.39A.R. Young, The English Emblem Tradition 3 (Toronto, 1995), 239. During the campaigning season of 1643 this regiment served in the midlands and in Lincolnshire. In April 1643 Russell helped negotiate the surrender of the royalist garrison at Reading.40Davies, ‘Eastern Assoc.’, 93; LJ vi. 144b; HMC 7th Rep. 565; Harl. 163, f. 380v. Among the captains who served with him was the Sudbury apothecary, John Fothergill*. In December 1643 Russell was temporarily seconded by the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†) to become governor of the much-expanded garrison at Great Yarmouth. The town’s corporation immediately objected, as they thought the powers granted to Russell were too sweeping. A visit by Russell in early January 1644 failed to reassure them and in February Manchester agreed to remove him.41Norf. RO, Y/C 19/7, ff. 28, 30, 31, 32; HMC 9th Rep. 313, 320; Holmes, Eastern Assoc. 188-9. That summer Russell’s regiment fought at Marston Moor (2 July), and in the midst of the battle Russell and Cromwell comforted Wauton’s son as he lay dying.42Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 288; CSP Dom. Add. 1625-49, p. 664; Holmes, Eastern Assoc. 236, 238. When he reported the outcome of the battle to the Commons on 10 July, the Speaker informed Russell that ‘the House took notice of his particular good service in this late great action; and do return him thanks, in testimony of his service’.43CJ iii. 556a; Harl. 166, f. 80v. Later that year his men fought in the second battle of Newbury (27 Oct.).44C.L. Scott, The Battles of Newbury (Barnsley, 2008), 123. At the beginning of 1645 they were stationed in the Thames valley.45CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 320. With the creation of the New Model army, the regiment was disbanded, with some of the men then joining the regiment of Thomas Rainborowe*.46Harl. 166, f. 193v; BHO, Cromwell Assoc. database, ‘Francis Russell’.

By this stage Russell was already associated with the Independents: one hostile observer claimed that his regiment was one of those filled with ‘professed Independents’.47The Quarrel between the Earl of Manchester and Oliver Cromwell ed. D. Masson (Cam. Soc. n.s. xii), 72-3. Not everyone took Russell’s own religious views seriously. According to one anecdote recorded by Sir Nicholas L’Estrange, once when Russell used a racing metaphor in a discussion about the differences between Presbyterians and Independents, Sir John Potts joked that this was apt as Russell was no more religious than his horse.48Anecdotes and Traditions ed. W.J. Thoms (Cam. Soc. v), 78.

Russell’s links with the Independents ensured that the attempt by the Committee of Both Kingdoms in May 1645 to get Russell appointed as governor of the Isle of Ely became the occasion for a clash in Parliament between the Independents and the Presbyterians. Control of the Isle of Ely, where the midlands met East Anglia, was a sensitive subject and the Committee of Both Kingdoms hoped to make the appointment of the inexperienced Russell more acceptable by proposing that he should be answerable to a committee nominated by Parliament. These proposals were approved by the Commons on 7 May and sent up to the Lords the following day.49CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 461; CJ iv. 134a, 135a; HMC 6th Rep. 57; LJ vii. 359a. According to Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, some in the Commons had directly accused Russell of being ‘an Independent’ when they debated this.50Harl. 166, f. 206v. The proposed appointment split the Lords, with the name of William Davies*, the former lieutenant-colonel in the 3rd earl of Essex’s own company, being put forward by the Presbyterian peers as an alternative. The use by Lord Saye of the earl of Mulgrave’s proxy in Russell’s favour produced stalemate. When the Lords returned to the question on 9 May, the balance of forces had shifted slightly in the Presbyterians’ favour, thus allowing them to substitute Davies. A committee chaired by Essex then met to prepare a statement of the reason why this decision had been taken.51LJ vii. 359b-360a, 361a. The resulting paper did not mince its words when it declared that the governor should be

a soldier of known abilities, fidelity, and experience, in a command of such importance, as may carry with it the preservation even of the Parliament and the cause, rather than a gentleman of the country, who is young in years, and hath not had that experience in military affairs, which may make him fit to be intrusted with the keeping of a place of so high consequence in a time of so great danger.52LJ vii. 373a; CJ iv. 144a.

As a further argument against Russell, peers pointed out that, because the Parliamentarian supporters in the Isle of Ely were badly split ‘in opinions in point of church government which make them differ amongst themselves in affection, and thereby hinder the progress of public affairs’, it made sense to bring in an outsider who could rise above these local factions.53LJ vii. 373a-b; CJ iv. 144a; Harl. 166, f. 209v. Rather than press the issue, the Commons let the matter drop and two weeks later sent Oliver Cromwell to take charge of the Isle of Ely as a stop-gap measure.54CJ iv. 142a, 143b-144b, 155a; Harl. 166, f. 212v. The Commons waited three months before trying again. At a joint conference in August 1645 they agreed to the other amendments by the Lords to their proposals, but insisted on appointing Russell, ‘because he is a gentleman of good estate in that county, and they have found him very faithful’.55CJ iv. 232b, 233a; LJ vii. 529a, 532b. This time the Lords deferred to the Commons and an ordinance was issued both naming Russell as governor and setting up the committee to oversee his work.56LJ vii. 535b-536a; A. and O. Russell thus retained a major command outside the formal structure of the New Model army. One person who approved of this appointment was almost certainly Cromwell, for in October 1645 he made himself unpopular in some quarters by allowing Russell’s brother-in-law Thomas Chicheley*, a passionate royalist, to visit his wife. As Cromwell subsequently explained to Speaker William Lenthall, he had given permission not only because Sarah Chicheley was ‘a virtuous woman’, but also because her brother was ‘a true servant’ to Lenthall and (by implication) to Parliament.57Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 382. None of this fits with the later scurrilous claim that Russell was ‘high flown, but not serious or substantial in his principles’ and that ‘he continued in his command till the new Model, then took offence, and fell off, or laid aside by them’.58A Second Narrative of the late Parliament (1658), 27.

Some of the tensions evident here also surfaced in November 1645 when Russell stood in the recruiter election for the vacant Cambridgeshire seat. His opponent, Sir John Cutts*, who had been MP for the county seven times between 1604 and 1640, was one of the most active local supporters of Parliament. Although the election was said to be hard-fought and turbulent, the result was apparently a convincing win for Russell. The author of The Scottish Dove hailed the success of ‘a man of able parts, and known fidelity’.59The Scotish Dove no. 112 (3-10 Dec. 1645), 884 (E.311.19).

Once elected, Russell’s attendance in the Long Parliament was very patchy. Having taken his seat, he subscribed to the Covenant on 31 December 1645 and in March 1646 carried the bill providing pay for his men in the garrison at Ely up to the Lords.60CJ iv. 393a, 461b, 525a. Sent by the Commons to oversee the defences of the Isle of Ely in May, he may well have spent much of the rest of that year in Cambridgeshire. His presence in the House that December is evidence of what was probably a rare visit by him to Westminster.61CJ iv. 535a-b; v. 8b, 10b. These absences did not mean that Russell was uninterested in politics. The removal of the king to Newmarket in June 1647 brought Russell in to regular contact with him and, on at least one occasion, Charles travelled the short distance to Chippenham for a game of bowls at the Russells’ house.62LJ ix. 273a. If Edmund Ludlowe II* is to be believed, Russell was among those army officers who were then ‘converted by the splendour of his majesty’ and thus probably one of those Independents in the army who now began to explore the possibility of a settlement with the king.63Ludlow, Mems. i. 151. Russell may not have been among the Independent minority who withdrew from Westminster in late July 1647; it is more probable that he was already with the army on the outskirts of London. His name appears on the list by Sir Philip Percivalle* of MPs who then agreed to the engagement with the army.64HMC Egmont, i. 440. All this fits with other evidence that he was still part of Cromwell’s circle of army friends. In March 1648 (when Russell was absent in Cambridgeshire, where he then signed some of the warrants sent out by the local standing committee), Cromwell complained to the Hampshire MP Richard Norton* that he and Russell were neglecting their parliamentary duties.65SP28/233; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 590. Six months later, Cromwell sent his regards to Russell via Oliver St John*.66Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 645. The decision in November 1648 to order that Russell, along with John Lowry*, speed up assessment collection in Cambridgeshire was a shrewd move by the Commons, given that Russell would have been especially keen to see as much money as possible collected to pay the wages of his army colleagues. He could also hardly be omitted from the new militia commissions approved on 2 December 1648.67CJ vi. 87b; A. and O.

Russell’s response to the purge of the House of Commons in December 1648 was to absent himself from Westminster. It was not until six months later, on 4 June 1649, that he was permitted to resume his place in Parliament.68CJ vi. 224a; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 384. He had in the meantime been continued as an assessment commissioner and had been appointed as one of the commissioners for the fens.69A. and O. Once readmitted, he may well have attended meetings of the Rump only in the summer and autumn of 1649, for it was only during that period that he was named to any of its committees.70CJ vi. 247b, 296b, 312b. He was still serving as an army officer and, as such, he was appointed to the court martial commission convened by the council of state in October 1651.71CSP Dom. 1651, p. 479. He was also active as a militia commissioner in Cambridgeshire at this time.72SP28/233.

The key event in Russell’s life took place in May 1653 when his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, married Oliver Cromwell’s second son, Henry Cromwell*. This formalised the existing friendship between the two families and joined the Russells to what by the end of that year had become the protectoral dynasty. The marriage portion Russell raised for his daughter amounted to £4,000 and later that year he was closely involved in the rearrangement of Cromwell’s personal finances to provide for jointures for his wife and new daughter-in-law.73Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/29A-B. Over the next six years Russell tried his best to be a loyal supporter of the Cromwells.

In the parliamentary elections for 1654 the Cambridgeshire electorate favoured those closely associated with the new lord protector. John Disbrowe* and Russell shared the advantage of being local men, senior army officers and close relatives of Cromwell, and so gained two of the county seats with ease. For Russell personally, this was a uneventful Parliament. He was named to only one committee – that on ejecting scandalous ministers and schoolmasters – in part, because a bout of ill health in October 1654 forced him to retire to the country.74CJ vii. 370a, 372b. In the spring of 1655 he helped secure Cambridgeshire from the threat of rebellion and later that year served as a decimation commissioner.75CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 78, 94; Bodl. Rawl. C.948, p. 24.

After Henry Cromwell travelled to Ireland in July 1655, his father-in-law was one of those who kept him regularly informed about events on the mainland. One feature of these letters which emerges strongly is Russell’s hypochondria. According to his own analysis of his humours, he was ‘as much phlegmatic as sanguine, and I find it a hard match between them, yet I am so wise as I care not much which hath the better, for when I am too wise then I am so phlegmatic, when too foolish, then I am as much too sanguine’.76Henry Cromwell Corresp. 272-3. He would hear nothing of the view that his gloominess was excessive or unhealthy.77Henry Cromwell Corresp. 60. As part of this melancholy, Russell often spoke to his son-in-law of his wish to retire from public life. Although he frequently expressed a desire to join him in Ireland and always stressed his willingness to serve there, it was a matter of considerable relief to him that he was ‘out of all employment but country ones’.78Henry Cromwell Corresp. 128. One reason why Russell so often returned to the theme of public office as an unprofitable burden was that his constant preoccupation was to obtain the recall of Henry Cromwell to England. By stressing that, whatever benefits it brought to the community, public service was always unrewarding, he was both praising Henry Cromwell’s selflessness and reminding him of why he should lay down his office. His suggestion in May 1656 that they ‘turn monks together’ was, for Russell, no mere fantasy, for the following month he began to think about handing over all his affairs to his eldest son and ‘leave him the trouble and business of this world, which I am weary of more than the men of this world are weary of me’.79Henry Cromwell Corresp. 128, 145.

With remarkable honesty, Russell went on to describe how the lord protector had recently advised him (with similar candour) ‘that the spirits of some men could not bear me, which I took to be somewhat of his own mind likewise, and that which I long suspected’.80Henry Cromwell Corresp. 145. By thinking of himself as a ‘heretic’, out of step with this age of hypocrisy, he could convince himself that he and the Cromwells were isolated upholders of the true godly values.81Henry Cromwell Corresp. 128, 159. There were few others equally prepared to attend to what he consider the ‘one great business in this world’: the need to ‘serve and serve the Lord’.82Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/57/11. In August 1656 Russell seems to have expected that he would not himself be elected to the new Parliament because his enemies had for too long been ‘as a kind of bad rotten pieces of government’ to him, and so he had sought consolation by canvassing the idea that his prospective son-in-law Sir John Reynolds*, a native of the county who now held a senior army command in Ireland, should stand for one of the county places. The recall of Reynolds to his regiment in Ireland put paid to that plan (he was in any case elected as MP for Tipperary and Waterford), and so resurrected Russell’s own prospects.83Henry Cromwell Corresp. 173. In the event, the Cambridgeshire result was essentially a re-run of 1654 and Russell was once again elected. He judged that ‘no man knows what this new Parliament will bring forth, but questionless, something very remarkable’.84Henry Cromwell Corresp. 173.

During the opening months of this Parliament, Russell was largely inconspicuous. Indeed, at the beginning of the session, the council of state evidently thought that he would be of more use if he was sent to release some Quakers at Colchester, Bury St. Edmunds and Ipswich than if he was present in the House.85CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 133. Russell in fact sent one of his servants to implement this order, but one of those released, George Whitehead, nevertheless felt indebted to him. Visiting him in 1659 to thank him, Whitehead found Russell to be ‘a considerate and tender spirited man, and showed compassion towards us and our friends, who were sufferers for conscience-sake toward God; he appeared clearly against persecution’.86G. Whitehead, The Christian Progress (1725), 95-6. Russell told Whitehead that he had opposed this Parliament’s attack on James Naylor, and indeed the committee on Naylor’s condition (28 Feb. 1657) was one of only three committees to which Russell was named during the first six months of the session.87Whitehead, Christian Progress, 96; CJ vii. 457a, 457b, 497b. The death of Russell’s eldest son, John, in late November or early December 1656 was no doubt one reason why he had not been more visible at Westminster.88Bodl. Carte 73, ff. 56-57.

However, Russell’s family ties gave him an immediate interest in the kingship question which soon came to preoccupy this Parliament. He was teller with Sir Thomas Rous* for those who succeeded in suppressing the first section of the clause confirming the sale of bishops’ lands in the draft Humble Petition and Advice.89CJ vii. 508a. Whether Russell was opposed to this in principle remains unclear. As the kingship proposal gathered momentum, he concluded that a major constitutional change was about to be approved.90Henry Cromwell Corresp. 253. This was a change of which he approved and for which he was willing to vote.91Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5). It was only half in jest that he told Henry Cromwell on 27 April 1657 that his next letter to him would have to be addressed to the duke of York.92Henry Cromwell Corresp. 264. In a rare first-hand account of the protector’s own feelings at this vital moment, Russell went on to explain that

your father begins to come out of the clouds, and it appears to us that he will take the kingly power upon him. That great noise which was made about this business not long since is almost over, and I cannot think there will be the least combustion about it. This day I have some discourse with your father about this great business; he is very cheerful, and his troubled thoughts seem to be over.93Henry Cromwell Corresp. 264.

Thomas Pride’s jibe that Russell supported the offer of the crown because he hoped that Henry Cromwell would succeed his father as king was perhaps unfair.94Henry Cromwell Corresp. 264. But it does seem that Russell was much more enthusiastic about the proposal than Henry Cromwell or, as it turned out, the lord protector himself.

That enthusiasm was based on an admiration for Cromwell that went beyond family loyalties. Indeed, the praise of Cromwell which he frequently included in his letters to Henry Cromwell could give the impression that Russell was little more than a toady. This would be to miss Russell’s constant desire to offer reassurance to his son-in-law, for, by stressing Cromwell’s virtue, he was emphasising that there was one fixed point in their troubled and unfaithful world. Convinced that he was living in a nation of sinners, Russell needed to believe that there was one man who could save them. It was thus with approval that he observed on 25 May 1657 – the day on which Cromwell accepted the Humble Petition without the kingship clause – that the lord protector ‘often knows not his own mind, twere but to affirm he is but a man, and like unto many of his friends and servants who truly love him’. This was in contrast to those in the army and in the sects whom Russell believed now held the political initiative and whom he feared would not ‘play it wisely and with modesty’ but would prove to be ‘heady rash gamesters’.95Henry Cromwell Corresp. 273. In the week before Cromwell’s second installation he praised the ‘very soberly cheerful’ Cromwell for his modesty, now combined with his confidence in continuing to bear the burdens of office, and declared that

God I think and hope is purging us all by fire and His spirit. I wish we may be vessels fitly prepared for His use in a true humility of mind, for I cannot distrust the goodness of God if we can but lie low enough.96Henry Cromwell Corresp. 288.

Russell’s support for the moves to make Cromwell king had given way to the conviction that Cromwell’s refusal of the crown was an inspiring model of modesty. The tensions of the previous months had been lifted and he now longed from ‘country air and a little retirement from sitting in the Parliament house’.97Henry Cromwell Corresp. 288. The end of that session came as a welcomed relief.

In the spring of 1657 Russell was much in the company of Sir John Reynolds, who soon after his marriage to Sarah Russell took up his post as commander of the English forces in Flanders.98Henry Cromwell Corresp. 253, 264; Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/57/16. The following November Russell made a special trip to London to convince the lord protector and his ministers to permit Reynold’s return.99TSP vi. 630. This proved fatal, for Reynolds was drowned during the Channel crossing, and obliged Russell to defend his daughter’s interests in the bitter dispute which broke out over Reynolds’s will.100TSP vi. 761; Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/57/16-17.

By that autumn it was public knowledge that Russell had expressed disapproval of the appointment of the major-generals two years before. Alluding to Cromwell’s own disavowal of them, some accused Russell of being ‘a kind of courtier and cavalier’.101Lansd. 822, f. 234. In fact, although he claimed that relations with his in-laws were cordial, Russell evidently felt out of place at Whitehall. Henry’s sister, Elizabeth Cleypole, struck a raw nerve that September with her accusation to Russell’s face that he must be ‘angry with Whitehall’ because he visited it so infrequently.102Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/57/14. His discomfiture is evident in a comment to Henry Cromwell.

Your father never will give me the opportunity of speaking my mind unto him, he seems to me to avoid it, as if he were afraid of a fool; the wise and crafty he knoweth how to deal with, but the bluntness of folly is too sharp for him103Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/57/14.

He was aware that his return to Chippenham ‘puzzles many, who know not what to make of me’, while his comment that Cambridgeshire was ‘in a kind of odd condition, jealousies on all sides are great, no man knoweth well each other’ hints that he was out of place there as well.104Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/57/14; Lansd. 822, f. 234. What the plain-spoken Russell lacked was any sense that he needed to win friends and influence people.

Russell’s nomination to the new second chamber, the Other House, summoned for the first time in December 1657, did little to alter these perceptions.105TSP vi. 668. From the point of view of the government, there can have been little to recommend him for this honour beyond his kinship with the Cromwells and his personal loyalty to the protector; to his neighbours, it probably seemed an example of shameless favouritism. The new Lord Russell, no longer a Cambridge knight of the shire, attended on at least 11 of the 14 days on which the Other House sat during this Parliament.106HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 503-24. His one committee appointment was that on the bill imposing penalties against the profanation of the Sabbath, to which he was added on 29 January.107HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 520.

In the summer of 1658 Russell visited his daughter and son-in-law in Ireland, and was in Dublin when the news arrived of Cromwell’s death. He signed the Irish proclamation on 10 September announcing the succession of Richard Cromwell* as lord protector.108TSP vii. 383-4. Almost immediately Russell set off for home, taking with him Henry Cromwell’s request to return also to whoever was in control at Whitehall. By 16 September Russell had safely completed the sea crossing and, having stopped off at Chippenham to recover from a bout of ill-health, he reached London on 4 October.109Henry Cromwell Corresp. 404; TSP vii. 402-3, 539. Delivering Henry’s request in his usual blunt manner helped convince Richard Cromwell that his brother should be recalled, but he alone could not make the decision.110Henry Cromwell Corresp. 413-14. Russell also lobbied others including Cromwell’s widow (who wanted her younger son to return), John Thurloe* (who seems to have given a noncommittal reply), and William Pierrepont* (who argued that Henry could not be spared from Ireland).111TSP vii. 438-9, 491; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 416-17. Charles Fleetwood*, Henry Cromwell’s predecessor in Ireland, appeared surprisingly amenable, for, although he admitted to Russell that he saw himself and Henry Cromwell as rivals, he agreed to support the proposal.112Henry Cromwell Corresp. 413-14. Fleetwood’s allies may have been less supportive. Russell had already said that, if his son-in-law was not allowed to travel to England, he would ‘have thoughts of leaving both court and city’ and he would be ‘a lord no longer but a country man, [and] follow the plough’.113Henry Cromwell Corresp. 414. At the beginning of November he complained to Henry Cromwell that he had received

not only scratches but wounds, but being they were honourably got in your service I shall look upon them as only marks of honour; I am going home to dress them, not knowing when I shall return hither again unless it be to meet and wait on your lordship, for I cannot but hope but that some of [these] endeavours will work a great effect in time. Indeed I have great need to retire myself, having had some unpleasant hours here.114Henry Cromwell Corresp. 416.

He then implicitly compared himself to St Peter, chief of the disciples, for he expressed the hope that ‘in this trial I shall never deny you or say I knew you not’.115Henry Cromwell Corresp. 417. A fortnight later the decision was taken that Henry Cromwell should stay in Ireland, something disavowed by Fleetwood.116Henry Cromwell Corresp. 424-5; TSP vii. 531.

Disillusioned with what he saw as indifference of others, Russell did not welcome his summons to Richard Cromwell’s only Parliament.117Henry Cromwell Corresp. 427. His desire for tranquillity at Chippenham did not, however, prevent his intervention in the contests for the local seats on behalf of pro-government candidates. In mid-December 1658 the provost of King’s College, Benjamin Whichcot, heard that Russell planned to visit Cambridge to inform the dons of Henry Cromwell’s wish to nominate Anthony Morgan* as one of their MPs.118TSP vii. 559. At about the same time Russell organised a meeting of his friends and neighbours at Newmarket to canvass support for Secretary Thurloe as a candidate for Cambridgeshire. Among those he also approached were Chicheley and Castell. However, Russell’s schemes were overtaken when it was revealed that the university was committed to electing Thurloe and Morgan was to be elected for one of the Irish seats.119TSP vii. 565. These results may in themselves have been acceptable to him.

Russell reluctantly resumed his seat in the Other House when this Parliament assembled on 27 January 1659 and the following day he was named to its committee for privileges.120HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 525-7. After turning up a further five times over the next eight days on which the House was sitting, he then returned home to Chippenham.121HMC Lords, n.s. iv. 528-33. This abrupt withdrawal had been forced on him by his humiliation at court. His efforts to patch up the rapidly deteriorating relations between Henry Cromwell and Fleetwood had met with universal derision: he was ‘thought a knave by some and a fool by others’.122Henry Cromwell Corresp. 508. Russell subsequently greeted the news that Fleetwood had forced the dissolution of this Parliament as confirmation of the general’s duplicity and further evidence of the transience of worldly success; as he pointed out to Henry Cromwell, the achievements of the late lord protector were already being forgotten.123Henry Cromwell Corresp. 507-8. Russell correctly sensed that he would share in the eclipse of the Cromwells

Following the recall of the Rump in May, Russell was fined £40 for non-attendance.124CJ vii. 790a. On his return to England in July, Henry Cromwell retired to Chippenham to stay with the Russells and he remained there in the period immediately following the Restoration.125Chippenham par. reg. 1669-1719, f. 12; Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/57/19. In what may well have been a precaution against confiscation, Cromwell transferred his lands in Ireland into the name of John Russell, Sir Francis’s eldest surviving son, who then sold some of them on to the earls of Cork and Arran.126Hunts. RO, Cromwell-Bush 731/33-34. As early as July 1660 Sir Francis applied for and obtained a pardon from Charles II.127PSO5/8, unfol. Neither he nor Henry Cromwell had any reason to welcome the religious settlement which emerged from the deliberations of the Cavalier Parliament; their sympathies were made plain when the ejected vicar of Chippenham, Richard Parr, was employed as a chaplain first by Russell and later by the Cromwells.128J.T. Cliffe, The Puritan Gentry Beseiged, 1650-1700 (1993), 92-3, 224; Calamy Revised, 381. Russell meanwhile successfully pursued the maintenance grant which had been awarded to his sister Ann, following the breakdown of her marriage to the Welsh royalist John Bodville.129CSP Dom. 1661-2, pp. 354, 361. He also took steps to confirm the settlement of the family estates which his father had made in 1639.130Cambs. RO, R.55.7.7.6-8. One of Sir Francis’s last acts was to strengthen further the Russells’ links with the Cromwells by marrying his son, John, to Frances Cromwell, daughter of Oliver and widow of Robert Rich. She brought with her a dowry worth £2,000.131HMC Frankland-Russell-Astley, 25-8, 203. When his father died, John told his wife that only his love for her could dissuade him from wanting to be buried along with his father.132HMC Frankland-Russell-Astley, 29.

According to his letter to one of the Cromwell’s former chaplains, Jeremiah White, by September 1663 Russell was suffering from chronic bladder problems. He welcomed the discipline of the strict diet White had recommended because ‘some kind of rod or other is needful for us all while we are but young, or children, for few or none will learn obedience or wisdom without it’, but also for him because ‘among the weak and ignorant I am one of the chiefest’.133Museum of London, Tangye MS 46.78/691; R. Tangye, The Two Protectors (1899), 267. He died the following April (probably while on a visit to London).134HMC Frankland-Russell-Astley, 29. His body was transported back to Cambridgeshire for burial at Chippenham.135Noble, Mems. of House of Cromwell, ii. 389.

Sharply declining fortunes forced the Russells to sell their Cambridgeshire estates in 1689. The only further family member to sit in Parliament was Sir Francis’s younger brother Gerard†, returned for Cambridgeshire in 1679 as a whig. But the baronetcy lasted until 1804, and in the intervening years family fortunes had begun to recover.136J. Waylen, The House of Cromwell and the Story of Dunkirk (1891), 106-8. In the 1760s Sir Francis’s great-great-grandson, Sir John, 8th baronet, inherited Chequers in Buckinghamshire from his mother and his direct descendants were seated there until 1912, shortly before it was presented to the nation.137N. Major, Chequers (1996), 39-44.