Lady Rachel Russell

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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.
Stipple half-length engraving of a young Lady Rachel Russell by Henry Meyer after Samuel Cooper, published 1853. She is wearing a loose-fitting gown with wide sleeves, low round neckline, jewel at the bust and jewelled armband, and a mantle pinned behind. Her hair is swept back to a bun, except for a long curl hanging down her back.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
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...
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.
prelims
exemplifies pious and admirable female behaviour in the figures of the letter-writer Rachael Russell and the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry ...
Occupation Henrietta Battier
HB acted at Drury Lane Theatre in the role of Lady Rachel Russell in Thomas Stratford 's tragedy on the death of Lord Russell .
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press.
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Maria Callcott
MC opens her preface with a kind of apology for not being a mother herself. Her history is attentive to women, both public and private. Of her three chapters on Queen Elizabeth , she says,...
Textual Production Mary Chandler
Another poem by MC on the topic of choosing spinsterhood is A Letter to the Right Honourable, the Lady Russell written at her Ladyship's Desire, on the Conversation at Breakfast.
Shuttleton, David. “’All Passion Extinguish’d’: The Case of Mary Chandler, 1687-1745”. Women’s Poetry in the Enlightenment: The Making of a Canon, 1730-1820, edited by Isobel Armstrong and Virginia Blain, St Martin’s Press, pp. 33-49.
39
This time the...
Textual Production Lydia Maria Child
In 1832 appeared The Biographies of Madame de Staël and Madame Roland and The Biographies of Lady Russell and Madame Guyon. The following year came Good Wives—which in later editions sometimes appeared as...
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.
1: 1
among the Vesey family of Battleridge Castle (in the north of England, near one of the castles owned by Lady Anne Clifford
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...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Camilla Crosland
In the preface she declares that she sought to simply set before the young women of the present day examples of wives and mothers who have done their duty under difficulties and temptations; and if...
Textual Production Dorothy Sidney, Countess of Sunderland
DSCS was close to her son-in-law, and continued a correspondence with him years after her daughter's death. Her letters to Halifax were published by Mary Berry in 1819, together with the letters of Lady Rachel Russell
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...
Textual Production Isabella Neil Harwood
Elfinella, or, Home from Fairyland; Lord and Lady Russell, one of Isabella Harwood 's most popular volumes of plays, was published by Ellis and White , five months after it reached the stage.
Pall Mall Gazette. J. K. Sharpe.
3468 (30 March 1876)
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Isabella Neil Harwood
The second play in this volume, Lord and Lady Russell was met with much less interest than Elfinella. It is a historical drama set in the court of King Charles II . The despicable...
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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, 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.