Lord William Russell and His Wife

In preparing this book I have made use of papers that, with one or two exceptions, have not been published before. I have drawn freely on Lord William’s diary, which is preserved at Woburn Abbey, and on three volumes of letters addressed to him, which were printed for private circulation between 1915 and 1920 by Herbrand, Duke of Bedford. Access to a collection of Russell family papers in private hands has also been invaluable. The Holland House papers and the Lieven papers, both in the British Museum, have provided material without which much in the lives of the William Russells would have remained obscure. Lord William’s private correspondence from his legations in Portugal and Germany, preserved among the Palmerston papers, illuminates the official side of his life. The sixth Duke of Bedford and his sons wrote at length to each other about politics, but such matters, being considered beyond the scope of this book, have been generally omitted.