Talk:John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford

Reversion of Richnlorraine 15/2/2011

This text needs a lot more work to make it useful, clear & unconfused. It is currently more in note/memo form than suitable for publication. It is certainly of value as matter for discussion here on the talk page, after which perhaps elements of it can be re-submitted. I have removed the text from the article to here below. The text repeats the discredited assertion of Wiffen that Sir Theobald Russell(d.1340/1) married secondly Eleanor de la Tour, a known ancestress of the Bedford Russells. This can be disproved as his first wife survived him from 1340/1 to 1376. Wiffen's work in this area is willfully erroneous as he was desperate to manufacture a link to an ancient family for his patron the Duke of Bedford. I don't see much value for the WP reader in re-hashing much of Wiffens confused work.

"Without discounting the genealogical efforts of either G.S. Thompson (Two Centuries of Family History, 1930) or J.H. Wiffen’s earlier work (Memoirs of the House of Russell, 1833), where the Duke’s of Bedford claim their descent from the Kingston-Russell line has been “ declared unproven,” there may be some circumstantial information which supports the original claim. First, it has been established that much of Wiffen’s work if “fatally flawed [in this one regard,] contains much valuable information” none-the-less, and cannot be discounted in whole. And it is from this other information (albeit circumstantial), that illuminates upon the original claim. Some of the confusion surrounds the fact that Henry ‘Gascoigne’ Russell (and probably his father Stephen), were residing at the Berwick Manor, an estate long held by the de la Tour family. Thus, arose the hypothesis that Henry acquired the residence through his mother Alice (who ‘may’ have been a de la Tour); however, Wiffen’s work indicates that the mother of (his) Sir Henry Russell, to be from the Muschamp family (pg. 159). Further, his work places the Berwick estate—at least one third of it—firmly in the possession of Eleanor de la Tour, who married Sir Theobald Russell (his Henry’s alleged grandfather); the remaining two thirds of the estate was split between her brother John and her uncle’s widow Emma. He goes on to claim that the estate came “ultimately to be possessed” by her; whereby, it “became the fixed residence of” her heirs (pgs. 156-157). Pulling this information together, at least with regard to the Berwick estate, Alice (if she was a de la Tour) would need to have been either the daughter of John (Eleanor’s brother) or possibly the son of her deceased uncle (Gregory), his heir Thomas de la Tour (pg. 156). This seems unlikely given that there is no evidence to support this, and given that there is at least some evidence to support that the Berwick Manor was passed down from Eleanor de la Tour. It further implies that Stephen ‘Gascoigne’ Russell (Henry ‘Gascoigne’s father) was either her (and likely Sir Theobald’s) son, or someone who purchased the estate, and who had, or took on the Russell name. From this, Wiffen’s error may not have been in the overall lineage, but rather in the use of the name William verses Stephen, or possibly in transposing of one brother (or half-brother) for another. Wiffen indicates that Sir Theobald Russell was first married to Eleanor de Gorges, with whom he had three sons: Ralph, Theobald, and a son named William who he claims “survived his father but two years” with no offspring (pgs. 141-142). This being the case, it would then seem unlikely—but not necessarily unheard of in that era--that Sir Theobald would duplicate the name of another living son, even with another wife (Eleanor de la Tour). And a further suggestion to this is found in the fact he claims (his) Sir Henry had a brother named Stephen (perhaps named after his father), who on October 3rd 1438, “rector of Winterborne-Stapleton, exchanged that living for the vicarage of Whitchurch” (pg. 159)."

Above is the reverted text, for discussion. (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 14:17, 6 March 2011 (UTC))