Notes |
- BIOGRAPHY
Son of John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, and Lady Gertrude Leveson-Gower, Francis Russell was born 27 September 1739 in London. Francis Russell, Marquess of Tavistock, was his father's second but first surviving son. He became a Whig M.P. for Armagh (1759-1760) and for Bedfordshire (1761-1767).
On 8 June 1764, he married Lady Elizabeth Keppel at Woburn Abbey. They had a short but happy marriage. She was expecting their third son when, while hunting Lord Tavistock was thrown from his horse and kicked on the head by the horse's hoof, receiving a fractured skull. Despite horrifying operations, he died two weeks later at only twenty-seven.
Heart-broken, his wife gave birth to their third child but her health then started to deteriorate. While taking her pulse, the doctor attending her asked her to open her hand. After some reluctance, she showed him a miniature portrait of her husband, telling him that she had kept this portrait on her person from the day her husband had died, and that it would stay with her till she herself would die. She then went to Portugal, hoping its mild climate might help her recover; but soon after her arrival at Lisbon she died a year and a half after her husband.
|