The Queen and Lord M

Chapter III THE SENSATIONAL PAST OF A PRIME MINISTER

On his way to Melbourne House from Kensington, Lord Melbourne considered the events of the day and felt exhausted by his own emotions. He was extremely sensitive and if his feelings were somewhat superficial while he suffered them they were real enough. The tears came easily to his eyes – as Victoria had noticed and had warmed towards him because of this – but they did not spring from very deep wells. At the same time he had been deeply touched today by the prospect of this young girl who had never really emerged from the schoolroom, yet who had become overnight the Queen of England.

An enchanting creature he thought her, so natural, so honest. Caroline had been much younger when he had first met her. What a contrast! Caroline seemed to materialise on the carriage seat beside him to mock him as she had so often during the years when they were together. A mischievous sprite – he had always thought her, not entirely human – with her enormous hazel eyes and her hair the colour of ripe corn. How she had shocked everyone by cutting it off and wearing it like a boy’s! Caroline was unique. There would never be anyone else like her. Thank God, said the cynical Melbourne. No one could afford two Carolines in one lifetime, few could survive one; but he being himself – suave, civilised, intellectually superior to so many of his colleagues – had done so. Not without some cost. He shuddered faintly to recall the days of passion, of hopes, of quarrels and reconciliations, and the wild mad fascination of Caroline Lamb.

A new reign was about to begin and he had lived through three of them already: not a very admirable trio, he thought with a smile. Victoria’s grandfather, poor mad George III; her gouty extravagant uncle George IV – who though he might have been a Prince Charming in his youth had become a pitiable, querulous be-rouged mountain of decaying flesh by the time he was King – and William IV, certainly the most unkingly of them all, a man whom his people tolerated with a certain indulgence but who was suspected often of suffering from his father’s malady and certainly behaved in a manner to suggest this was true.

So was it not moving after a succession of unprepossessing half or wholly crazy old men, to find on the throne an eager young girl, anxious to do what was right and showing a willingness – one might say eagerness – to be guided?

He thought of her dispassionately not as a queen but as a girl. She was by no means beautiful, though at moments she could look almost pretty; her blue eyes were too prominent, her chin too small and receding; her nose was a trifle arrogant and when she laughed she showed her gums in a way which was not very attractive. But there was a determination there. Was it an obstinacy? There was an eagerness and above all an innocence. The Queen knew little of the world; she was too ready to trust; she was sentimental; life seen through her eyes would be a simple matter of right and wrong. What delightful material for a man satiated with experience, having lived life to the point beyond which there had seemed little of novelty to attract him, to mould into a queen! Here was a new interest in life. He was convinced that he knew exactly how to handle Victoria and he had not been so excited since the day he had married Caroline.

As soon as he had come face to face with the Queen he had been aware of the possibilities of a new relationship. He was a man who was very fond of the society of women; all his life he had had many friends among the opposite sex, which had on two occasions – three counting his marriage – brought him to the edge of disaster. It was due to his own inimitable insouciance that he had come through these scandals unscathed; and it was due to that same characteristic that the little Queen had met him and decided without preamble that he was the man she would choose for her favour and her confidence.

It was gratifying to know that the old charm was not lost and at the age of fifty-eight he could have this effect on a young girl.

There had been three great influences in his life – politics, literature and women; and perhaps women came first. It was not that he was a particularly sensual man; he indulged in female friendships and nothing could be proved against him in two divorce cases in which he had figured. When his wife had shocked London society with Lord Byron he had remained at home studying the classics; no man in Parliament had so many Greek and Latin quotations at his fingertips. His conversation was both racy and erudite; he peppered it with oaths and salted it with quotations; hostesses clamoured for his company knowing that any party at which Lord Melbourne was a guest would certainly be stimulating.

He could not have felt the same interest in the new monarch if her sex had been different. A young boy would not have been half as appealing, nor so susceptible to the charms of Lord Melbourne, he was sure. Therefore he was glad that the new monarch was a girl, but was he being premature to find a few short meetings in one day so significant? He did not really think so. They had in truth been overwhelmed by each other. But for the differences of age and the fact that she was a queen and he a Prime Minister one might have called it love at first sight. The phrase brought a smile to his lips.

How fanciful and yet not exactly untrue. He was looking forward with the greatest exhilaration to further meetings. It was just the fillip he needed to resume his appetite for living.

He had not been altogether surprised by his success although he had not expected it to be so unreserved. She really was a delightful young creature. It was that candour, that innocence, which made her so; all young, intelligent girls were attractive for their very youth if nothing else; but Victoria had a great deal besides youth – including a crown.

He supposed his life had been dominated by women. First there had been his mother. An unusual woman, brilliant and attractive, though scarcely moral, she had guided him through his childhood, surrounding him with cultivated people, made him into the man of fastidious taste that he had become. He could not say the same for Peniston Lamb, the first Viscount Melbourne who as his mother’s husband was reputed to be his father, but his mother (according to some reports) had obligingly supplied him with a sire far more distinguished than her own husband. It had been a long-standing matter of gossip that his real father was the Earl of Egremont. Well, he considered, it might well be so, for who the devil could tell who was anyone’s father? And the first Viscount Melbourne had never had the same feeling for his second son as he had for the other members of the family; but his mother had made up for any lack of affection her husband may have felt towards the boy whom he no doubt considered to be a changeling.

Yes, he owed a great deal to his mother. What an amazing woman and one to be proud of. Her salons were a centre for the wits of the day and she had entertained lavishly in both Melbourne Hall, near Derby, and her London residence, Melbourne House. The Prince of Wales had been a frequent guest and it was said the friendship between him and Lady Melbourne was of a very intimate nature.

Lady Melbourne doted on William, who was far more intelligent than Peniston her firstborn. Gracefully he had passed through Eton and Cambridge and had spent a year or so at Glasgow University where work was taken more seriously than at Oxford and Cambridge. He emerged as cultured a product as Lady Melbourne could wish, ready to take his place in the world of high society.

He remembered the talk they had had together in her boudoir at Melbourne House where he supposed she had entertained a lover or so. The Prince of Wales perhaps? The Earl of Egremont? How proud of her he had been! She was such a fascinating woman with sharp wit and knowledge of affairs.

‘William,’ she had said, ‘you are a son of whom to be proud, but a second son, alas.’

He murmured that she was deuced hard on poor Peniston who had done nothing but get himself born first.

‘A second son, William,’ she had said. ‘It’s not what I would have wished for you. I’d like to see you inherit the title and that which goes with it.’

‘Well, that will be Pen’s, of course.’

She had looked up at the picture of herself and Peniston at the age of one year. Poor Pen in chubby nudity was embracing her and she was looking serene and presumably at Sir Joshua Reynolds who was responsible for the painting.

‘A pity,’ she had said briefly. ‘Because it means, William, that you will have to have a career. I have been thinking a great deal about it.’

He had waited without undue concern. He was lazy by nature he supposed; and at that time would cheerfully have adopted almost any career she chose for him.

‘I had considered Holy Orders.’

‘Good God!’ he had said, startled out of his calm.

‘You always did use too many oaths, William.’

‘Sorry, Mamma, but Holy Orders! Do you really think I’d be suitable for such a calling?’

‘No. Neither does Lord Egremont.’

He had not asked why the Earl should be consulted, because the inference was obvious.

‘He is all for the Bar,’ she had added.

The Bar! It was not displeasing. The idea of studying law interested him. It seemed a profession ideally suited to his character. He had said so and she had been pleased.

‘You will be brilliant. You could become Lord Chancellor with your ability and my influence.’

He had agreed.

‘You should not, of course, consider marrying as yet.’

He had looked at her sharply and knew that she was thinking of Caroline, for he had met Caroline by then and been fascinated by her. Caroline had been only thirteen when he had first seen her – a strange elf-like creature, wild eyed and fey. She had looked like a slim young boy with her short hair and those enormous brilliant eyes.

‘William Lamb,’ she had said to him, ‘I have heard of you. Your mother talks a great deal of her brilliant son. He is good as well as being brilliant.’ She had laughed; he would never forget her laughter which had so often ended in hysterical tears. ‘Good people fascinate me,’ she had gone on. ‘Because you see I am far from good.’

She had been thirteen and he twenty. She had mocked him for his virtuous way of life even then. Good William Lamb, she called him and the adjective was disparaging.

‘I fell in love with you before I met you,’ she told him once. ‘You were so good … and I was bad … so that made an attraction of opposites.’

Looking back he wondered how he had allowed himself to become her victim, for that was what he had been. He should have been wiser but if he had been, what an experience he would have missed.

She had been strange from her childhood. Her grandmother, Lady Spencer, had feared that her eccentricities amounted to madness and had consulted a doctor about her. That was when she was a child. So he should have been warned.

His feelings for her were known. Caroline talked constantly and freely about her emotions and her experiences. She made no secret of the fact that she was in love with and intended to marry good William Lamb.

The Bessboroughs, Caroline’s parents, were not very pleased. Who were the Lambs? demanded Lady Bessborough and her husband, the third Earl, echoed her words. Their origin was wrapped in obscurity but there was money there; and Lady Melbourne had a place in high society. She was the only daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke and came from Yorkshire. But who were the Lambs? They had somehow acquired a fortune, but one could not see very far back into their ancestry and Caroline was the daughter of Frederick Ponsonby, third Earl of Bessborough, and his wife had been Lady Henrietta Spencer, daughter of an Earl. No, the Bessboroughs were not exactly delighted with the possibility of a match with a second son.

Caroline was not one to take heed of parents; she was in love; she was reckless. It was William who had been the cautious one.

‘I would marry you tomorrow, Caroline, if I could afford it,’ he had told her. ‘But as a second son …’

She had laughed at him, mocked him in that wildly passionate and disturbing way, so that in his wiser moments he had reasoned that it was just as well that he was not in a position to marry; but again and again he had gone back to her.

In the year 1805 his future had been decided for him, for his eldest brother, Peniston, had died. Lady Melbourne, though devoted to her other children – Frederick, George and Emily – and eager to see them all well placed in the world – more than that, determined that they should be – could not be completely bowed down with sorrow because the removal of poor Pen, who was so much like his father, made the way clear for her favourite second son, William. He would now inherit title, wealth and what was more important, the power to do without a lucrative career, which would make life so much more interesting for him. William could do what she had always hoped he would, and what she was well aware he wanted himself, for no doubt with his personality and fluency he had an aptitude for the life – he could go into politics.

So she drowned her sorrow in poor Pen’s death by making plans for William.

As for William, now that he was no longer a second son he would inherit Lord Melbourne’s title and most of his wealth; he would doubtless make a brilliant career in Parliament. He would also marry, he told his mother, and his chosen bride was Lady Caroline Ponsonby, the daughter of the Earl of Bessborough.

Lady Melbourne was not displeased. In fact, apart from the fact that Lady Caroline was a little wild, he could not have made a better choice, politically speaking. William had always been a Whig; he had admired Charles James Fox to idolatry; and of course Caroline’s aunt was the Duchess of Devonshire, who had been one of the most ardent Whig supporters of all time. William would be well received with open arms in Whig circles, for there could be no doubt of his cleverness, and once Lady Bessborough and the Earl realised what a brilliant son-in-law they had there would be no obstacles to his advancement.

‘Prime Minister, no less,’ declared Lady Melbourne, and later years proved her to be a true prophetess.

But that had been years ahead. Life with Caroline came in between and the battle uphill had to be won. He was not a great fighter; he was a better observer; he liked to stand outside the conflict and look on, finding the right moment to seize an advantage. He was too fastidious for the battle. Indeed, it was his aloof insouciance which had brought him through trials which would have finished a more sanguinary man.

Lord Melbourne had been less helpful than his wife. Such a stupid man! commented Lady Melbourne. He could not see what a credit their son William would be to them. Her husband’s rise in society had been due to her. She had pulled him up with her. And on the occasion of William’s marriage and his entry into politics with the whole force of the Whigs behind him one might say, the first Viscount Melbourne declared that William should have only £2,000 a year on which to set up house with the daughter of the Earl of Bessborough.

‘How was that possible?’ demanded the irate Lady Melbourne; and she had some high words with her husband in which the Earl of Egremont’s name was mentioned.

But the result was that Lord Melbourne would not budge from that £2,000 and all that Lady Melbourne could do was offer the young couple a floor in Melbourne House as their home. She began to feel almost immediately that this was not such a bad idea as she could keep an eye on them; and as she was one of the most popular hostesses in society and entertained people of such fame as Fox, Sheridan and of course the Prince of Wales, what could be better for William’s advancement than to live in such an environment?

She proved to be right. William began to advance. Even Lady Bessborough changed her opinion about her son-in-law and was delighted with his performance in the House of Commons (he had won the seat of Leominster); and with the death of Fox, it was realised that fresh blood was needed to stimulate the party and eyes were turned on William Lamb, who with his energetic mother and connections with the Devonshires, plus his own erudition and obvious talent, was indeed a man to watch. Society was soon watching him for another reason.

Oh, Caroline, he thought, as the carriage jogged onwards, what a dance you led me! And what an indication of his feeling for her that he should still remember her so vividly although it was nine years since she had died.

He was thinking of her now because of that other young girl; yet their only similarity was their age. Caroline had been nearly twenty when they married; Victoria was eighteen. He laughed aloud and murmured an oath. Victoria, somewhat prim, an innocent knowing little of the world and determined to be good, and Caroline, outrageous in word and deed, knowing so much of the frailties of human nature, except her own ungovernable temperament, and determined to be bad.

Yet he had thought he would mould Caroline into the perfect woman just as now he was thinking of moulding Victoria into the perfect queen. Did he see himself as a Pygmalion?

‘I hope, William,’ he said (he had a habit of addressing himself), ‘that you will make a bigger success of creating a queen than you did a wife.’

Certainly he would. The material was so different. Victoria would be so sweetly docile, whereas Caroline was a wild, irresponsible creature at the mercy of her illogical instincts. Victoria would be predictable; it would only be a matter of understanding how that clever little mind worked; and how could one ever be sure what went on in Caroline’s disordered one. ‘There you were doomed from the start, William. Oh, no, it was not you who were doomed. It was Caroline.’ And he thought of her living as she did with their poor tragic Augustus, their only child who had survived to live out his life in his own childish world, poor defeated Caroline waiting for the end in Melbourne Hall, while he, William Lamb, went on to become Lord Melbourne and Prime Minister of his country.

Caroline was unfaithful. How could it ever have been otherwise? Lady Melbourne, keeping a watchful eye on her daughter-in-law from the floor above in Melbourne House, was censorious.

‘Dear Mamma-in-law,’ Caroline had cried, ‘can you really blame me for liking the society of gentlemen? Surely you understand how alluring that can be.’

And Lady Melbourne, who was well aware that her own name had been linked with men like the Earl of Egremont and the Prince of Wales, tried to instil into Caroline something of the nice distinctions of adultery. She had been married to a fool, a man who would have been nothing without her. Caroline was married to William Lamb, a future Cabinet Minister. And who knew what rank awaited him? Romantic attachments enhanced some while they destroyed others. Caroline must learn.

As if Caroline would ever learn!

And he himself, how had he felt? It was hard to say. She had exasperated him, but he had begun to know himself and the superficiality of his emotions. He began to realise that he could never mould Caroline into the perfect wife; and that she was unfaithful to him had ceased to disturb him greatly. He had accepted her infidelity, for afterwards she would be contrite, devoted, swearing that she loved him only. ‘Always first with me will be William Lamb,’ she had told him. And in spite of his cynicism, he was still attracted by her. That very strangeness which was to destroy her and would undoubtedly have destroyed a weaker man had been clear to him. He had seen the dangers; and his mother was constantly calling his attention to them. But in his calm detached way he was fascinated. So he always forgave and was ready to start again.

Then Lord Byron, the wicked fascinating poet, had limped into society and set Caroline firmly on the road to madness.

What a romantic figure Byron had been! Three years younger than Caroline, he was not only a famous poet (Childe Harold was being discussed everywhere) but he had possessed great personal beauty. His grey eyes had been set off by enormously long dark lashes and his dark brown hair was a riot of curls over a high forehead; his teeth had been white and perfect; but it had been his expression which could be aloof, cold, vital and passionate all in the space of a few moments that people had talked of. Women had been immediately attracted by him – a challenge which Caroline had found irresistible. She wrote in her diary of him: ‘He is mad, bad and dangerous to know’ and therefore her great desire had been to know him.

Being as eager for notoriety as herself, Byron had not been averse. The wife of William Lamb would have seemed to be a worthy conquest, for it would be one which would excite the interest of society. It did. She and Byron were together everywhere; they quarrelled violently and publicly; they were reconciled and quarrelled again; and society watched with avid interest the growing indifference of Byron, the increasing passion of Lady Caroline and the seeming aloof indifference of William Lamb.

He had not been as detached as he had appeared to be, for it was at this time that he had begun seriously to consider a separation. His mother believed this should be arranged.

‘You have proved yourself in Parliament,’ she had declared. ‘You have your Whig standing. No one would blame you if you broke free of her. In fact society expects it, and this latest Byron affair perhaps makes it a necessity.’

Yet he had continued to smile and make no comment on Caroline’s behaviour. He shut himself away with his books and found great satisfaction in the Greek and Latin classics. At first they had been a drug to make him forget the difficulties of his marriage; later they became a necessity. While William improved his mind Lady Caroline had begun to lose her place in her lover’s affections. Lord Byron was bored; those dramatic and passionate scenes which had amused him in the beginning began to pall. He had had enough of Lady Caroline Lamb, and he told her so.

‘My poor Caroline,’ mused Melbourne, ‘why did you always take the road to self destruction?’ But then had she been a normal rational being she would have never exposed herself to such a scandal as she had. She had been completely frank; she had never stopped to consider. ‘I love Byron,’ she had told him, herself and the world, and she would not pretend otherwise.

She had tried to explain to her husband. ‘I love Byron, yes, and I love you, William Lamb. But it is enough to know you are there and always will be there. I don’t feel this mad craving for your company. I must see Byron or I shall go mad.’

And he had looked at her quizzically and thought: But Caroline my dear, you are already mad and can you be sure that I shall always be there?

He had shrugged his shoulders and gone back to Aeschylus which was more rewarding than the ramblings of a mad woman.

Perhaps his indifference had goaded her. Perhaps he had been wrong to shrug his shoulders. Perhaps she needed him to take her firmly in hand as other men would have done; either to have discarded her or to have fought to bring her back to him. But he did neither; his indifference had been clear; it was that which had saved him.

That was the most difficult of all times, when the whole of society, the whole of London was talking about Caroline Lamb’s crazy passion for Lord Byron who was trying to elude her. Neither of them had made concessions to conventional behaviour. They had cared nothing for the fact that their affair was made public. They insulted each other in company; they quarrelled in the open so that all might know how their relationship progressed. She pleaded; he scorned. She offered him all her jewels; she would wait outside his house for him to come home and then plead with him; she bribed his servants to let her into his house. There was no end to the follies of Caroline. She could not see that Byron was tired of her and that the more she pursued him the more she bored him.

Then there was that scene which was recalled even now when, finding herself at a party at which the poet was a guest, Caroline had accosted him, had accused him of neglect and quarrelled noisily with him to the outward consternation and inward delight of the other guests. He had expressed his contempt, his dislike and his great desire never to see her again, at which she had picked up a knife and tried to stab herself, and when this was wrested from her, crying passionately that she had no desire to live, she had snatched a glass, broken it and tried to cut her wrists.

William’s fortunes had seemed low then; he had lost his seat owing to his support of the Catholic Emancipation Bill and had remained out of the House of Commons for four years. He was not sure how he would have come through that trying time but for his love of literature. He became familiar with Tacitus and Horace, Aristotle and Cicero. His obsession with the past enabled him to be a detached observer of the present. It became clear during that period of Caroline’s maddest escapades that he was an unusual man. There was his mother to advise and comfort him. She applauded his attitude but continued to urge a separation from Caroline. There would be a time when he would come back to the House of Commons, she told him, and Caroline would be an unsuitable wife for a Prime Minister. She had not thought it incongruous to consider that he would attain this goal, and had the utmost confidence that one day he would be the leader of the Whigs.

‘Dear Mamma,’ he murmured. ‘Right as usual.’

And after that disastrous scene of Caroline’s attempted suicide he had taken her to Ireland and sought to calm her. Surprisingly, she had seemed tolerably happy there. He had always wanted a son and he had one, although two other children had died in infancy. When was it he had first been forced to admit that Augustus was not normal? The boy was only six years old at the time of Caroline’s attempted public suicide. ‘He’s a little backward,’ they had said. ‘Some children are.’ But of course later he knew that Augustus would go through life with the mind of a child.

What tragedy, people said, for William Lamb! A mad wife, his only child mentally deficient and his political career in ruins. But his charming indifference had made him as outstanding as their dynamic energy did most men.

Caroline had continued to fret for Byron and Lady Melbourne had decided it would be useful if the fascinating poet were married, so with characteristic verve she produced a wife for him – her own niece Annabella Milbanke – and rather to everyone’s astonishment Byron agreed to the match.

Caroline had been overtaken by melancholy when the marriage took place; she shut herself away in her rooms and did not emerge for days; it transpired later how she had occupied herself and in the meantime Lady Melbourne made William see that he must agree to a separation from his wife if he were to continue with his career. So he had agreed; and the deeds of separation had been drawn up. How Caroline had wept and thrown herself at his feet and clung to him and demanded to know what she would do without him! She was fascinated by Lord Byron, she declared; she was ready to die when he deserted her, and would have done so if she had not been prevented. But if William Lamb deserted her she would surely die. She was wild; she was mad; but he knew that she meant what she said. The loss of Byron had filled her with passionate rage; the loss of William Lamb would fill her with melancholy; and the latter was the more dangerous of the two.

He had tried to reason with her, but who had ever reasoned with Caroline? She was his creature; he had sought to mould her; he had failed; but he could not forget her as he had seen her at thirteen and later when they had married – slim, boyish, with the short golden hair and the enormous wild eyes; she exasperated but she enchanted. She was a tragedy to herself and to him; but he supposed he could never be unmoved by her.

So he had capitulated and when the lawyers had come with the papers for him to sign they had found them together, she laughing, insisting on feeding him with thin slices of bread and butter.

‘The papers are ready for your signature,’ he had been told, and she had watched him, puckish, impudent and pleading all at once.

‘Take them away,’ he had said. ‘We have no need of them now.’

Then she had danced and flung her arms about his neck and had been passionate and gay – and mad of course, always mad.

But when it transpired that during those nights she had shut herself away she had been writing a novel, this was too much even for him to forgive. For the book told the story of herself, her husband and Lord Byron, highly exaggerated and romanticised. How could she have done this? It seemed as though she had deliberately sought ways and means of humiliating him and destroying them both. He had only learned of the book’s existence when it was on the point of being published and he went to her at once. ‘It can’t be true,’ he had cried. ‘You could not be so foolish.’

She had given him that puckish look as she retorted: ‘Haven’t you yet learned that there is no end to my foolishness?’

‘I have stood by you through great difficulties,’ he had told her then. ‘But if it is true that this novel is published I will never see you again.’

And he left her sobbing, wildly begging him not to desert her, but the book was published; all their friends, all his political enemies read it. It had indeed been more than any man could endure. Yet once more he had given way.

He recalled vividly the day when his mother had died; he could feel even at that moment the numbed desolation which had sent him to his books, his only consolation and refuge against the blows with which life was buffeting him. She had left him the stately old mansion of Brocket Hall near Hatfield and there he took Caroline with poor Augustus their son. Lord Melbourne, his mother’s husband, joined them; and in the quiet of the country he had tried to bring some serenity into his life. He had devoted himself to Augustus, trying with great patience to awaken the boy’s intelligence. When his son had uttered an intelligent sentence it had been a good day. His devotion to his son and his passion for the classics he supposed now had been his salvation. If only Caroline could have subdued her wild nature, if only she would have allowed him to be at peace, he could have made a tolerable life for them all. But being Caroline how could she? She grew wilder; she wrote more books; and his friends declared that she was making her husband the laughing stock of the country.

Then, in the year 1824, she chanced to be out riding when a funeral cortège came into sight. When she asked whose it was and was told ‘Lord Byron’s’ she had burst into hysterical tears, and collapsing with passionate grief had been brought home in a state of raving madness. After that she had been ill for months and when she had recovered a little of her physical health she no longer wished to visit London. She would be a recluse, she had said, and stayed in her own apartments at the Hall, not emerging for days. She had not come down to the dining-room; remains of meals which she would not allow the servants to remove had littered her bedroom; she tore the curtains at her windows and let them hang in rents; she kept bottles of brandy in her room – under the bed, in cupboards, on the mantelpiece, anywhere which would hold them; she would weep all day and then her hysterical laughter would be heard all over the house; and all the time she had been writing her books and diaries and the theme which ran through them all was her relationship with Lord Byron and William Lamb.

He marvelled at the manner in which he had been able to come through and find his way back into politics. He had seen that his mother was right when she had insisted that if he were going to lead a successful public life there must be a legal separation from Caroline. Caroline, shut in her room, taking liberal doses of laudanum to make her sleep and brandy to make her gay, had listened dully when he told her that it was now inevitable, and had not seemed to understand. When she discovered what had happened she had declared but without vehemence: ‘My heart is broken.’

Even then he had not deserted her. He was often at Brocket Hall. There had been his son Augustus to be cared for and he had gone on hoping that one day he would find the key to unlock what he believed to be that latent intelligence. At least the boy was gentle, unlike his mother, although the taint she had passed on had affected his brain.

So, there had been politics which began to absorb him. Canning, the new Prime Minister, had given him his first government post. Chief Secretary for Ireland was a long way from being Prime Minister but at least he was in the Government and that was an indication that the barren years were over. He was not free from Caroline then but the bonds were slackening; down at Brocket Hall she was drinking heavily and taking laudanum to forget her sorrows; and he was not surprised when he was summoned back because she was dying. She was forty-two. ‘Oh God!’ he had cried, ‘what a waste of a life.’

He was glad that he was in time to see her alive and that her last hours were lucid.

‘Oh, William Lamb,’ she had cried while the tears slipped down her cheeks and her sunken hazel eyes were mournful, ‘what have I done to you?’

She must not fret, he had told her. The past was forgotten and forgiven. He loved her. He always would love her. No woman would mean to him what she had always been.

And she had smiled, happier perhaps than she had ever been in her frenzied attachments.

She was buried in Hatfield Church; he could only feel sorrow although he now was free. No longer would there be this force to undermine him, to humiliate him, to shatter his hopes.

Lord Melbourne had died soon after, and he succeeded to the title. He came home from Ireland and was often at Brocket Hall with Augustus. It had been a peaceful household now that Caroline was dead; the boy had looked forward to his visits, and had been better when he came; and always he had hopes of awakening his intelligence. Sometimes he had dreamed of having a son who could discuss the classics with him – an absurd dream. If Augustus could have read the simplest children’s book and understood it he would have been grateful enough.

And then scandal again when an Irish peer, Lord Brandon, brought a case against him. It was true he had been rather friendly with Lady Brandon. He had always liked the society of women, and after Caroline’s death had acquired a growing circle of women friends. A member of the Government to be involved in such an affair (‘improper intimacy with Lady Brandon’ was the charge) would almost inevitably be death to his career. In consternation he had employed the best possible lawyer and the case had been dismissed by the Lord Chief Justice who had stated that no one could give a word of proof against Lord Melbourne.

He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow at the memory of that affair. But it was nothing of course compared with that which came later. He had been friendly with the Nortons for some time, when in 1830 Lord Grey took office and had offered him the post of Secretary for Home Affairs. The Honourable George Norton was a Tory but he had a beautiful young wife, Caroline (ill-fated name), who was a Whig. Caroline Norton was the granddaughter of the playwright Sheridan and magnificently equipped both mentally and physically. Tall, dark, with enormous luminous eyes, and a voluptuous figure, she had become a well-known personality, and Lord Melbourne had found her very attractive. He had visited the Nortons frequently and was known as a friend of them both.

George Norton was not very successful and he became so hard pressed for money that his wife had asked Melbourne if he could do something for him. Consequently Melbourne had found him an appointment as a magistrate with a salary of £1,000 a year, and the friendship between the Home Secretary and the Nortons had grown. Nor had it slackened when in 1834, in spite of his lurid past, Melbourne became Prime Minister.

What solace he had found at Storey’s Gate, the Nortons’ somewhat humble – by Melbourne’s standards – London home. There he and Caroline had spent hours in spirited discussion; they did not always agree, but what pleasure to be able to discuss art and literature with an intelligent woman; George lacked his wife’s brilliance. Caroline was a poetess; she was also a noted beauty. Of course he had known that her marriage with George was not successful; George Norton was by no means worthy of Caroline. Perhaps he had thought that had she not been a married woman they might have made a match of it. She would have made an excellent wife for a Prime Minister. What a pleasure it had been after a wearying session at the House to call in and be received unceremoniously in her untidy drawing-room where she might be writing or painting. But what a terrible blow when Norton announced that he was going to sue for a divorce and named the Prime Minister as the co-respondent.

Here was a scandal as bad as anything that had happened with Lady Caroline. At least she had been his wife. The case had been a cause célèbre. He remembered now his acute distaste for the affair, his anxiety for Caroline Norton of whom he was genuinely fond, and his speculation as to what this would mean to his career.

Resignation seemed inevitable. He remembered the occasion when he had called on the King. He and peppery William had never much liked each other but the King was a firm supporter of justice and he declared that in his opinion this case they were bringing smacked of conspiracy of some sort. If Melbourne said his relations with the Hon. Mrs Norton were platonic, then the King believed him.

He never wanted to go through that again. The humiliation of listening to the accounts of his and Mrs Norton’s conduct was intense and would have been worse if they had not been so ridiculous as to prejudice the case in his favour. Drunken servants, servants who had been dismissed for stealing, servants with a grievance, they all came along to testify against the Prime Minister and the woman who had employed them. And the case was won as it must have been with any justice; for he was innocent and would never allow Mrs Norton’s innocence to be questioned. Indeed the case had fallen down on the evidence or lack of it; and the King and Wellington both congratulated him and declared it had been brought through jealousy.

He had had great fortune; for the scandals which had threatened his career and would have finished most men’s had left his unscathed; and when the case was over Melbourne was still Prime Minister.

But tragedy had not finished with him. This time it was his son who died quietly one evening when they were together. His mad wife was dead; his mentally deficient son was dead; he was fifty-eight years old, and eighteen-year-old Victoria had ascended the throne. So young, so eager to learn, wanting to be good. What a challenge for an ageing man who had failed so bitterly in his marriage. But why must he think of that bitter failure on such a day as this?

The carriage had come to a halt at Melbourne House.

‘Caroline is dead,’ he said to himself. ‘And now … Victoria.’