John Russell (royalist)
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John Russell was a member of the Sealed Knot. He was the third son of Francis Russell, fourth Earl of Bedford, known as the "wise earl". He was a wealthy man with estates at Shingay, Cambridgeshire.
He sat for Tavistock in the Long Parliament and sided with the King. The family had divided loyalties in the Civil War. His brother, William, the fifth Earl, changed sides twice. He had many aristocratic equally vacillating connections among his brothers-in-law: the parliamentarians, Lord Brooke and Lord Grey of Wark, the turncoat Earl of Carlisle and the Royalists Lord Bristol and Lord Newport of High Ercall.
In the Civil War he commanded Prince Rupert's blue coated regiment of foot, was prominent at the storming of Leicester in May 1645, was wounded at Naseby and was in the Oxford garrison before its surrender.
[edit] References
- Royalist Conspiracy in England 1649-1660, David Underdown, Yale University Press, 1960, pages 80 & 81.
