RUSSELL, William (1616-1700), of Woburn Abbey, Beds., Chenies, Bucks. and Bedford House, Strand, Westminster.

The early life of William Russell corresponded to that which might be expected of the eldest son of a peer. Of his various family homes, there seems little to suggest that Tavistock was one of them, even though it was the most important estate that the family owned, more significant in terms of land and patronage than Woburn or Chenies. Russell’s public education was rather casual. He was said by Edward Hyde* to have been at Magdalen, Oxford. There is no proof of this, although in November 1631 there is a reasonably reliable record of his having left that university city.1Letters and Pprs. of the Verney Fam. ed. Bruce, 150. He was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in February 1630, at the request of one of the Glanville family of Tavistock.2L. Inn Admiss. i. 210. Russell’s travels in France in 1634 made a noticeable and beneficial impact on him, according to Ralph Verney*, but in March 1636 he was rejected by Thomas Howard, 21st earl of Arundel, as an aide in his visit to the Holy Roman emperor. He then travelled in Spain, returning to marry Anne Carr, daughter of the earl of Somerset.3Letters and Pprs. of the Verney Fam. 170.

Russell was returned for Tavistock, the family’s borough, at both the elections of 1640. In the Short Parliament he was named to the committee of privileges (16 Apr.) and to conferences with the Lords about their joint fast day.4CJ ii. 4a, 9a. His only other known contribution was his part in a committee to the king on the violation of liberties that had marked the end of the 1629 Parliament, an appointment which reflected his standing as the heir of an opposition peer, and gave some extra weight to the delegation.5CJ ii. 7b. This pattern of service was repeated in the early days of what became known as the Long Parliament. Russell was elected to the privileges committee (6 Nov.) and his first committee appointment three days later was to one about a fast with the Lords.6CJ ii. 21a, 23b. Of the six remaining committees and conferences to which he was nominated during his time in the Commons, three were with the Lords, in which the trial of Sir Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford, was the dominant topic.7CJ ii. 25b, 39b, 98a. Russell’s committee work independent of the Lords was concerned with the petitions of the merchants Richard Chambers and Samuel Vassall* (2 Dec.), the petitions of William Prynne* and other victims of the court of high commission during the king’s personal rule (3 Dec.) and the bill for annual parliaments, which became the brain-child of the west-countryman Edmund Prideaux I*.8CJ ii. 43a, 44b, 60a.

During the first months of 1641, Russell’s parliamentary activity was almost entirely devoted to acting as a messenger between the Houses on the Strafford trial. The message about the conference planned to be managed by John Pym*, John Glynne* and John Hampden* (9 April), at least as devised in the Commons, was typical in its impatience with delays in the upper House.9CJ ii. 117b. On 24 April, Russell delivered a further expression of the Commons’ sense of delay: it is unfortunate that no record seems to survive of how he interpreted his message and his task.10CJ ii. 127b. On 3 May he took the Protestation, and also took a message to the Lords to ask for another conference, this time on the state of the kingdom. Pym, John Maynard*, Denzil Holles* and Sir John Culpeper* were to manage it, and Russell brought news of the Lords’ consent to the conference the next day.11CJ ii. 133a, b, 134b. Five days afterwards, Russell succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father, and his Commons career was over.

In August 1641, the new earl of Bedford was called upon by Parliament to represent the Houses to the king in Scotland, and in December he was again identified for that role, but in the event he did not act.12CJ ii. 265b, 331b. During the build-up to civil war in 1642, Bedford was made lord lieutenant of Devon, Exeter, Somerset and probably Bedfordshire, and on 14 July was given by Parliament the title of general of horse, although the real soldiering was to be done by Sir William Balfour.13Clarendon, Hist. ii. 354-5. In August, Bedford went to the west country with Denzil Holles, to confront William Seymour, 1st marquess of Hertford, Sir Edward Seymour† and Sir Ralph Hopton*, but his first venture into the field ended rather ignominiously when he marched away from Sherborne after refusing a duel with Hertford and having a peace treaty brokered by John Northcote* spurned by the marquess.14Clarendon, Hist. ii. 299, 316, 448; iii. 151. Later that summer, Bedford withdrew from driving the royalist forces out of Somerset into Wales to join the main parliamentarian army under Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex. He was at the battle of Edgehill on 23 October.15Clarendon, Hist. ii. 316-7, 357.

Bedford was a promoter of peace with the king in the House of Lords in August 1643, which led Sir Simonds D’Ewes* to note how unpopular the peer was on the streets of London. In August six peers including Bedford defected to the king, and he surrendered at the king’s garrison of Wallingford, where he was civilly received.16Clarendon, Hist. iii. 155; A. Hopper, Turncoats and Renegadoes (Oxford, 2012), 25, 27. Naturally enough, he had to work to overcome suspicions of him at Oxford, and in London, his mansion of Bedford House and the goods there valued at £765 were sequestered by Parliament. Sir William Waller* was authorised to live there.17Clarendon, Hist. iii. 150, 156; Survey of London, xxxvi. 205-7. The king made use of his military experience by having Bedford in his retinue before Gloucester, and he fought with Prince Rupert at the first battle of Newbury (20 Sept. 1643).18Oxford DNB; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 193. But once again, Bedford defected, and by December he was in the custody of Essex, and was confined to his sister’s house in Middlesex.19Hopper, Turncoats, 34. This marked the end of Bedford’s public career before 1660. Only with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 did he re-enter politics, in effect beginning a fresh public career which ended with his being created duke of Bedford in 1694 and Baron Howland the following year.