Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- ANASTASIA VENETIA STANLEY, LADY DIGBY
- THE COUNTESS OF DESMOND
- ELIZABETH CROMWELL AND HER DAUGHTERS
- MRS. LUCY HUTCHINSON
- FRANCES STUART, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND
- DOROTHY SIDNEY, COUNTESS OF SUNDERLAND
- ELIZABETH PERCY, DUCHESS OF SOMERSET
- LADY RACHEL RUSSELL
- MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE.
- ANNE, COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA
- MRS. KATHERINE PHILIPS
- JANE LANE
- ANNE KILLIGREW
- FRANCES JENNINGS, DUCHESS OF TYRCONNEL
- MARY BEALE
- ANNE CLARGES, DUCHESS OF ALBEMARLE
- LADY MARY TUDOR
- ANNE HYDE, DUCHESS OF YORK
- ANNE SCOTT, DUCHESS OF MONMOUTH
- STELLA AND VANESSA
- SUSANNAH CENTLIVRE
- Plate section
LADY RACHEL RUSSELL
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- ANASTASIA VENETIA STANLEY, LADY DIGBY
- THE COUNTESS OF DESMOND
- ELIZABETH CROMWELL AND HER DAUGHTERS
- MRS. LUCY HUTCHINSON
- FRANCES STUART, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND
- DOROTHY SIDNEY, COUNTESS OF SUNDERLAND
- ELIZABETH PERCY, DUCHESS OF SOMERSET
- LADY RACHEL RUSSELL
- MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE.
- ANNE, COUNTESS OF WINCHELSEA
- MRS. KATHERINE PHILIPS
- JANE LANE
- ANNE KILLIGREW
- FRANCES JENNINGS, DUCHESS OF TYRCONNEL
- MARY BEALE
- ANNE CLARGES, DUCHESS OF ALBEMARLE
- LADY MARY TUDOR
- ANNE HYDE, DUCHESS OF YORK
- ANNE SCOTT, DUCHESS OF MONMOUTH
- STELLA AND VANESSA
- SUSANNAH CENTLIVRE
- Plate section
Summary
Few women have attained more universal sympathy and admiration, or have more justly deserved commendation, than the saint like daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. Her mother was Rachael de Rouvigny, of an ancient Huguenot family in France; she died in the infancy of this, her second daughter, who was born in 1636.
Whether owing to the political disturbances which occurred in her youth, or from the circumstance of her having no mother's eye on her education, it seems to have been somewhat neglected, to judge by the grammatical errors in some of her letters; which, however, are by no means rare in the correspondence of ladies of her period who had a high reputation for erudition. But in piety and purity of heart she excelled from the tenderest age; and her father's freedom from sectarian prejudice probably guided her judgment, and prevented her from falling into the illiberal notions of the age, for that she had truly charitable and Christian feelings her letters prove.
Her father, who was three times married, gave his daughter Rachel to the eldest son of the Earl of Carberry, Francis Lord Vaughan, when both parties were too young to choose for themselves; as she herself expresses her opinion, speaking of early marriages, “It is acceptance rather than choosing on either side.”
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- Memoirs of Eminent Englishwomen , pp. 147 - 210Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1844