William, Lord Russell: The Making of a Martyr, 1683–1983

On July 21, 1683, William, Lord Russell, the former leader of the Whig party in the House of Commons, was executed in Lincoln's Inn Fields for high treason. The week before a jury had convicted him of conspiring with other Whig leaders in schemes that have become known as the Rye House Plot to raise rebellion by capturing King Charles II's guards and, thereby, in law, to kill the king. But Russell is not known in history as a traitor or even as a Whig conspirator. Rather he is remembered as a Whig martyr, as a victim of late-Stuart tyranny, a man who suffered death in the cause of the liberties and rights of Englishmen and the true Protestant religion. To explain how the Whig conspirator became the Whig martyr and has remained so from 1683 to the present is my central purpose in this essay. I will show that the carefully constructed image of Russell as martyr drew inspiration from familial and political considerations and that it has influenced our understanding not only of Russell but also of late-Stuart politics and political ideas. It is self-evident, I think, that a martyr is made-and made only by the interaction of three factors. First, an individual must die or endure suffering with great courage on behalf of some cause or principle.1 Although this is true of all martyrs, there seem to be no personality traits common to them. A common pattern of psychological behavior