Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Lady Rachel Russell
-
Standard Name: Russell, Lady Rachel
Birth Name: Rachel Wriothesley
Styled: Lady Rachel Wriothesley
Married Name: Rachel Vaughan
Titled: Rachel, Lady Vaughan
Married Name: Rachel Russell
Titled: Rachel, Lady Russell
Indexed Name: Lady Rachel Russell
The reputation of LRR
's letters sprang at first from her husband's political fame, but she was a letter-writer of high quality in her own right. Surviving letters probably represent only a fraction of those she wrote. Like many intelligent women of her time and rank, she used writing not only to communicate with relations and friends, but also privately, to shape her religious practice and her sense of her own life. She left diaries, essays, a catechism, and Instructions for Children.
This diarist, JCM
's paternal grandmother, Sarah, Lady Cowper
, was an extraordinary woman. Born into the wealthy merchant class, deeply pious, highly intelligent and well-read, she consoled herself for an unhappy marriage to an...
Friends, Associates
Sarah Lady Cowper
SLC
brought to the social rituals of visiting some of the same suspicious stance with which she viewed her relations. I visit Some people for the Same Causes as the Indians Worship the Devil, least...
Intertextuality and Influence
Lucy Aikin
LA
's preface denies the absurd notion that absolute gender equality might be feasible and advises women not to attempt to become inferior men. But she asserts, there is not an endowment, or propensity, or...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Strutt
Women, says ES
, must be essentially equal with men since both are made in God's image. But women's existing social position
Strutt, Elizabeth. The Feminine Soul. J. S. Hodson, 1857.
1
stems from man's superior physical strength, which has allowed him to seize...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Ham
The story opens with the young Englishwoman Rhoda Ford (the unbeautiful one of two sisters) and her family in the west of Ireland, where her father has an entrepreneurial scheme. They try to come...
Intertextuality and Influence
Cassandra Cooke
Other events follow the ending of the inset tale. Dr Scot is involved in a hush-hush mission with General Monck
, facilitating the Restoration of Charles II
. The story cannot end until the title...
Intertextuality and Influence
Sarah Lady Cowper
SLC
flags some items of her own under Observe by beginning them I observe. In a series about books of the Bible she comments in some detail on the behaviour of King Saul
and...
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968, 5 vols.
Textual Features
Susanna Watts
The many pictures in the volume include diagrams of the hold of a slave ship, I & Dash my Dog (a sketch), and prints of Hester Mulso Chapone
, Lady Rachel Russell
(with a copy...
Tighe, Mary. Keats and Mary Tighe. Editor Weller, Earle Vonard, Kraus Reprint Corporation, 1966.
308
and says that if she could resign herself to parting with her friends, then the bitterness of death were past
Tighe, Mary. Keats and Mary Tighe. Editor Weller, Earle Vonard, Kraus Reprint Corporation, 1966.
308
—citing the words of Lady Rachel Russell
's husband...
Textual Features
Clara Balfour
A chapter which discusses moral heroism . . . in the female character
Balfour, Clara. Moral Heroism; or, The Trials and Triumphs of the Great and Good. Houlston and Stoneman, 1846.
prelims
exemplifies pious and admirable female behaviour in the figures of the letter-writer Rachael Russell
and the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry
...
Textual Features
Frances Arabella Rowden
The second part opens with quotations from Cicero
and Voltaire
.
Rowden, Frances Arabella. The Pleasures of Friendship. A Poem. 1810.
47
It includes a picture of connubial love gone sour, turned to mutual wrongs, and mutual hate.
Rowden, Frances Arabella. The Pleasures of Friendship. A Poem. 1810.
63
Its examples of heroic friendship include...
Textual Features
Isabella Neil Harwood
In the play Lord Russell is first seen as he hears the news that the King has dissolved the parliament: he has Quite broken with his people, and to govern / Must needs oppress them...
Textual Features
Lydia Maria Child
LMC
's first four subjects were all known for their writings and for their resistance to tyrannical authority, either political or religious, but she is more interested here in what she alleges to have been...
Textual Features
Cassandra Cooke
The novel opens [t]owards the end of Oliver Cromwell
's usurpation,
Cooke, Cassandra. Battleridge. C. Cawthorn, 1799, 2 vols.
1: 1
among the Vesey family of Battleridge Castle (in the north of England, near one of the castles owned by Lady Anne Clifford
Timeline
22 March 1683: A fire at the racing centre of Newmarket...
National or international item
22 March 1683
A fire at the racing centre of Newmarket preserved the lives of Charles II
and his brother
; by leaving early for London they avoided a planned assassination.
Todd, Janet. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. Rutgers University Press, 1997.
300-1
13 July 1683: William, Lord Russell (husband of the letter-writer...
National or international item
13 July 1683
William, Lord Russell
(husband of the letter-writer Lady Rachel
), stood trial for High Treason, accused of planning to assassinate the king
in an alleged Protestant Plot.
Evelyn, John. The Diary of John Evelyn. Editor De Beer, Esmond Samuel, Oxford University Press, 1959.
747-8
21 July 1683: William, Lord Russell, husband of the letter-writer...
National or international item
21 July 1683
William, Lord Russell
, husband of the letter-writer Lady Rachel Russell
, was beheaded in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Evelyn, John. The Diary of John Evelyn. Editor De Beer, Esmond Samuel, Oxford University Press, 1959.
750, 761
7 December 1683: Months after the execution of William, Lord...
National or international item
7 December 1683
Months after the execution of William, Lord Russell
(husband of Lady Rachel
), Algernon Sidney
met the same fate (after a search of his private papers), charged with Protestant extremism and plotting against the crown.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Texts
Russell, Lady Rachel. Letters of Lady Rachel Russell. Editor Sellwood, Thomas, E. and C. Dilly, 1773.
Russell, Lady Rachel, and William, Lord Russell. Letters of Lady Rachel Russell. Editor Sellwood, Thomas, 5th ed., J. Mawman, 1801.
Berry, Mary, and Lady Rachel Russell. Some Account of the Life of Rachael Wriothesley Lady Russell. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1819.