The Russell School

John Russell, Lord Privy Seal and Earl of Chenies

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John Russell was the 1st Earl of Bedford and former resident of Chenies Manor.

The drawing on the right of John Russell, Lord Privy Seal was copied from a picture by Holbein who came to England in the reign of Henry VIII on the invitation of Tomas Moore and who made 87 portraits or distinguished men of his time. This copy was given to the school by Mr Hurst in May 1970. The original picture witch is at Windsor, is described in a book about the Russell family written by Lady Adeline Russell, who used to live at "Woodside House" on the river Chess by the old mill at Chenies. In her book, she records the inscription at the top of Holbein’s picture, " 1st Russell, Lord Privy Seal with one eye". Although Holbein’s picture shows both eyes, the alabaster statue on the first Earl’s tomb in the Bedford Chapel in Chenies Church, has only one sound eye, and the drooping eyelid indicates that the other eye is missing. It was damaged by a arrow at Morlaix in 1522 while John Russell was fighting in France for King Henry VIII who knighted him after the battle.

Sir John, who later became the first Earl Russell, was born in 1486 in the reign of Henry VII and died in 1555 in the reign on Mary I. He served Henry VII, his son Henry VIII, his young son Edward and daughter Mary. In 1526 when Sir John Russell was 40, he married Anne Sapcote the daughter of Sir Guy Sapcote of Huntingdonshire, and lived at the Manor of Chenies which his wife had inherited through her father from the last of the Cheyne family. Chenies have been given to the Cheyne family by King Edward III about 200 years earlier. Is grandfather, Edward I has used it as his country residents and hunting lodge. The manor house, village and surrounding lands which came to Sir John Russell on his marriage, became a family home of the Russells, who later became the Dukes of Bedford. The fourth Duke Frances moved to Woburn Abbey in 1625. The Chenies estates continued to belong to the Bedford family until the present Duke had to sell them in 1954, to help pay the 4 and a half million death duties which were levied when his father the twelfth Duke died the previous year.

Thirteen years after his marriage to Anne Sapcote, Sir John was made Earl Russell of Chenies by Henry VIII, who in 1539 was rejoicing at the birth of his son Edward. The new Earl Russell was given large areas of land in Somerset where his parents lived, around Tavistock, in Devon and Cornwall and in the Easten counties, (much of which had been seized by Henry from the monks), and also 7 acres of land in London including Covent Garden. The Russell family had long been prosperous and influential but it was John, the first Earl or Chenies, who became the founder of their immense wealth and greatness. They had made money in the days of Chaucer by trading with France from the port of Weymouth in Dorset.

The first of the Russells to come to England was Hugh de Rossel of Normandey, a follower of Duke William of Normandey, who won the battle of Hastings in 1066. It was probably for his assistance in helping Duke William to become King of England after King Harold’s death, that Hugh de Rossel was rewarded by William with large gifts of land in the country of Dorset. His grandson, Robert, the first to spell his name Russell, settled there permanently with his family. Robert’s grandson, the first of Russells to be called John, became constable of Corfe Castle in 1221 and also Sheriff of Somerset. Several Russells had been members of Parliament; one for Hampshire and one for Dorchester and the grandfather of the John Russell of our portrait had been Speaker of the House of Commons in the reign of Henry VI. So John Russell, Lord Privy Seal the first Earl of Chenies, had a great family tradition behind him. He’s also seems to have inherited the Russells’ intelligence. He was certainly clever, learned and enterprising and he must have been very good at foreign languages. When he was only 20 he was called to Windsor Castle by King Henry VII, to help entertain foreign royalty. He was Lord Privy Seal to Henry VIII and to his daughter Mary when she became Queen, and he was also made Lord High Admiral of the Fleet. He became Ambassador to Spain and was sent there to escort the Spanish Philip II to England for his marriage to Mary. As her father Henry VIII had died, it was Earl John Russell who gave her away at the wedding in Winchester Cathedral. He had accompanied Henry VIII to the French wars and the king obviously had great trust in him, for he had appointed Earl Russell as one of the executors of his will, with the special responsibility of seeing that his young and only son Edward, should become strongly established as King of England. As a reward for carrying out these duties, Henry, in his will, gave to John Russell, Earl of Chenies, the old Cistercian Abbey and lands of Woburn which he had previously seized from the Abbot.

Although Woburn Abbey came to Earl Russell on the death of Henry VIII, he still continued to live at Chenies, as the Abbey buildings were partly in ruins. Two years later, however, in recognition of his lands at Woburn, he was made Earl of Bedford and after his death in 1555, the Bedford Chapel was built at the side of Chenies Church, in which he and nearly all the Dukes of Bedford have since been buried.

Since the present Duke opened Woburn Abbey to the public, visitors by car and coach have crowded in to see the house, the portraits of his ancestors, the furniture and rare china. It was on land belonging to the present Duke’s father that our school was built and the three shells or "escallops" in the school badge are the same as those in the Russell crest.

It seems appropriate to have the portrait of a famous Russell in our school and to know something about the family whose name we’ve made our own.

For more information on John Russell and Chenies Manor see...
http://homepages.tesco.net/~k.wasley/Russell.htm
http://met.open.ac.uk/genuki/big/eng/BKM/Chenies/Index.html