English country houses and gardens - Woburn and the Russells

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English country houses and gardens - Woburn and the Russells by Georgiana Blakiston

Jeremiah Wiffen, librarian to the sixth Duke of Bedford, traced the lineage of the family to Olaf the Sharp-Eyed, King of Rerik, who flourished in the dark forests of the North in the seventh century. Later, Wiffen was thought to have been too ingenious; the first ancestor of the Earls and Dukes of Bedford proven by documentary evidence was Stephen Russell, who lived at the end of the fourteenth century, and through marriage came into the property of Berwick by Swire in Dorset, regarded as the cradle of the family. This was the home from which John Russell, a century later, set out on his varied and triumphant career in the service of the crown, receiving an Earldom in 1550.

Great families rise and fall; but from the time of the first Earl nearly 500 years ago, the Russell family have sustained a remarkable ascendency, usually adding to their property with each generation, or producing men as brilliant and distinguished as Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, in the last century and Bertrand Russell in our own. Sydney Smith, the clergyman and celebrated wit, said during one of the pregnancies of Lady William Russell that `the manufacture of Russells is a public and important concern'.

Georgiana Blakiston, herself a Russell by birth, marvellously evokes the history of the great house in her new book, and breathes life into its past inhabitants. Absorbing in itself, it will also greatly enrich the experience of a visit to Woburn . The visitor will look, perhaps, at the portrait of Rachel, Lady Russell by Lely and recollect how, grief-stricken after the execution of her husband William, Lord Russell for his involvement in the Rye House Plot of 1683, she lived on for 40 years, a disconsolate widow. Or, looking at the ravishing portrait of Elizabeth Keppel, Marchioness of Tavistock, by Reynolds, he will remember how she too was equally inconsolable nearly a century later when her husband was thrown from his horse and died from a fractured skull, after only three years of an ideally happy marriage.

A book so rich in history and anecdote as Woburn and the Russells leaves an indelible impression on the mind of the reader. (Source: Frontflap ISBN 0094612102)

Georgiana Blakiston is married to Noel Blakiston, who has published a number of volumes of short stories, brought together and put out in a collected edition by Constable in 1977.

Below are some of the reviews of Lord William Russell and his Wife 1815-1846, Mrs Blakiston's first book, published in 1972, in which she edited the letters and diaries of two of her great grandparents.

`There can be no doubt that Mrs Blakiston has done her job very well indeed' Philip Toynbee, Observer

`Mrs Blakiston has done her work very well. . . To say that the whole period "lives" before our very eyes is to put it mildly: our very eyes are kept almost permanently on stalks' Nigel Dennis, Sunday Telegraph

`This is a first-rate book, no less fascinating in its sort than Bertrand Russell's Amberley Papers and Miss Nancy Mitford's two volumes about the Stanleys of Alderley' Raymond Mortimer, Sunday Times

`It may seem that for all Mrs Blakiston's care, scholarship and literary skill, this is a book for restricted circles. If so, let me disabuse the reader. This book throws interesting light on great issues . . .' Christopher Sykes, The Listener

`Highly entertaining ... a superb book' H.D. Ziman, Daily Telegraph (Source: backflap ISBN 0094612102)

Photographs on back and front cover of jacket (from left to right): 6th Duke of Bedford by Sir Thomas Lawrence; Anne Russell, Countess of Bristol, by Theodore Russel; 4th Earl of Bedford by Van Dyck; Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford, by unknown artist; Francis, Marquess of Tavistock, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Also west front of Woburn Abbey. All photographs the property of Woburn Abbey.

Jacket design by Wings Design Consultants Ltd

Constable & Company Ltd

10 Orange Street London WC2H 7EG (Source: backflap ISBN 0094612102)

Possible opportunities to buy or read reviews of this and mentioned books ...

English country houses and gardens - Woburn and the Russells

Amazon US UK Canada (hardback book 1980)

Amazon US UK Canada (paperback book 1982)

Lord William Russell and his Wife 1815-1846

Amazon US UK Canada (hardback book 1972)

Amberley Papers - Bertrand Russell and Patrica Russell - very limited availability

Amazon US UK Canada (hardback book 1966)