Rachel Russell, Lady Russell
English noblewoman, heiress and author (1636-1723)
Rachel, Lady Russell (née Wriothesley RYE-əths-lee; c. 1636 – 29 September 1723) was an English noblewoman, heiress, and writer. Her second husband was William, Lord Russell, who was implicated in the Rye House Plot and later executed. A collection of the many letters she wrote to her husband and other distinguished men was published in 1773.
Family and early years
Lady Rachel was born in about 1636 at Titchfield, Hampshire, the second eldest daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton, by his first wife, Rachel de Massue, daughter of Daniel de Massue, Seigneur de Rouvigny and Madeleine de Pinot des Fontaines. Lady Rachel received a religious upbringing, and remained throughout her life, a devout member of the Church of England.
In her youth, she was described as having been remarkable for her elegance of form, personal beauty, and graceful manners.
Marriages and issue
In 1653, Lady Rachel married her first husband, Francis Vaughan, Lord Vaughan, the eldest son of Richard Vaughan, 2nd Earl of Carbery. Upon their marriage, she went to live with her father-in-law at Golden Grove in Carmarthen, Wales. In 1655, she gave birth to a child, whose sex and name was not recorded as it died shortly after its birth. She became a widow in 1667, which was the same year her father died.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6832998. VIAF identifies the subject as 822823. The Library of Congress control number is n86835673. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1636, 1723, 1773 and 1653.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rachel Russell, Lady Russell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.