CHAPTER VII

FAMILY AND POLITICAL TROUBLES

The true secret of Lady Melbourne’s trouble was that she knew that William’s carelessness about his career and distaste for public life were the results of the unhappiness of his home. For some time after her marriage and after the birth of Augustus, Caroline had seemed content with her home and her husband, but in 1810 Lady Melbourne’s life was complicated by the fact that her daughter-in-law was indulging in very open flirtations, and that they were carried not only beyond the bounds of prudence but also of good breeding. The views then taken of the sanctity of the marriage vow were lax, and divorce not infrequent. But Lady Melbourne, who had managed her own life with great perspicuity, had no wish to spoil the even tenor of her social way by a divorce in her family.

William was easygoing and in love with his wife. Lady Melbourne feared that divorce might be the least of the evils to dread. The growing indecorum of a daughter-in-law under the very eyes of her husband and as it were under his

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protection would be very undesirable. So with her usual acumen she spoke first to the wife, and spoke to the point. We can see the interview between them—the stately woman, mature but still beautiful and with a clear brain and mind, trained in worldly wisdom by her long experience of the world, and the wild daughter-in-law, partly from affection, partly in defiance, flattering and cajoling her “dear, dearest Lady Melbourne.” The latter received the flattery; expressed her regret that she had been unjust in her surmises. She, however, continued to watch her daughter-in-law, with the result that shortly afterwards she wrote to her a contemptuous letter, beginning—

“I only write you a few lines for the purpose of preventing yr. coming to me loaded with falsehood & flattery under the impression that it will have any effect—which I most solemnly assure you it will not. I see you have no shame nor no compunction for yr. past conduct. I lament it but as I can do no good I shall withdraw myself and suffer no more vexations upon your acct. Yr. behaviour last night was so disgraceful in its appearance & so disgusting from its motives that it is quite impossible it should ever be effaced from my mind. When anyone braves the opinion of the World, sooner or later they will feel the consequences of it & altho at first people may have excused your forming friendships with all those who are censured for their conduct, from yr. youth & inexperience yet when they see you continue to single them out & to overlook all the decencys imposed by Society—they will look

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upon you as belonging to the same class. Had you been sincere in yr. promises of amendment or wished to make any return to Wm. for his kindness—you would have discarded and driven from yr. presence any persons or things that could remind you of the unworthy object for whose sake you had run such risks & exposed yourself so much, but on the contrary you seem to delight in everything that recalls him to you & to nourish & foster those disgraceful feelings which have caused so much unhappiness to those who ought to be dearest to you. A Married Woman should consider that by such levity she not only compromises her own honor & character but also that of her Husband—but you seek only to please yourself—You think you can blind yr. Husband and cajole yr. friends.

This letter brought a flood of confession from Lady Caroline. Sir Godfrey had given her a bracelet; he had given her a dog, and the dog had flown at her little son Augustus, who she worshipped. Perhaps the dog was mad, and through her conduct she might have killed her child. So she raved, swearing to her “dear, her dearest Lady Melbourne, who had been more than mother to her,” that she recognized her faults, and would never see Sir Godfrey again. But at the end of one of these letters she describes William

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as a husband in terms that many a young husband would do well to take to heart:

“God knows I am humiliated enough, & did not expect I should ever act in this manner. Some heads may bear perfect happiness & perfect liberty, mine cannot, & those principles which I came to William with—that horror of vice, of deceit, of any thing that was the least improper, that Religion which I believed in then, without a doubt & with what William pleased to call superstitious enthusiasm—merited praise, & ought to have been cherished—they were safeguards to a character like mine & nobody can tell the almost childish innocence & inexperience I had preserved till then. All at once this was thrown off, & William himself though still unconscious of what he has done, William himself taught me to regard without horror all the forms & restraints I had laid so much stress on. With his excellent heart, sight, head & superior mind he might, & will go on with safety without them—he is superior to those passions & vanities which mislead weaker characters, & which, however I may be ashamed to own it, are continually misleading me. He called me Prudish, said I was straight-laced—amused himself with instructing me in things I need never have heard or known & the disgust I at first felt to the world’s wickedness I till then had never heard of in a very short time gave way to a general laxity of principles which, little by little, unperceived by you all, has been undermining the few virtues I ever possessed.”

The household of Melbourne House was con-

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ducted on the plan pursued by the great families of Italy in their palaces. Lady Melbourne seems to have given up the first floor to the Lambs on their marriage, and she and Lord Melbourne lived on the ground floor. Little Augustus had his nursery at the top of the house, for Miss Berry tells us how Lady Caroline dragged her there to show her the baby she was so proud of. Lady Melbourne continued to receive the great world at her routs and receptions, but Lady Caroline had her own receptions also, and Lady Sarah Spencer, afterwards Lady Lyttleton, describes a party given at Melbourne House by Lady Caroline in 1812, which lasted till three in the morning. The guests of Lady Melbourne, who she entertained in her own apartment downstairs, included Sheridan and the Prince of Wales. Sheridan was very drunk, and the supper party did not break up till six.

William was more cheerful; and his interest in politics revived. His wife for the moment had given up her flirtations, and was suffering from a violent fit of remorse. Lady Melbourne seized the opportunity to advise him to have a talk with Mr. Daniel Giles, the Member for St. Albans in the county of Hertford, with a view to standing for the Borough at the next general election. She assured William that Mr. Giles was quite willing to give up the seat to him, and was aware that he was only keeping it warm for the Lambs and advised him to call on Mr. Giles as early as possible.

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Mr. Giles of Youngsbury, Hertfordshire, was a pleasant bachelor of fifty, very popular in the County Society, when he was required to act in the Whig interest. When nothing was wanted of him he was treated in the same manner as Tierney was by the aristocratic Whigs and spoken of rather contemptuously as “the Hertfordshire Brewer.” Mr. Giles may have heard this. He was a determined man, and when William in September 1811, instigated probably by Lady Melbourne, discussed with Mr. Giles the advisability of replacing him as Member for St. Albans, Mr. Giles, furious at being looked upon as a mere warming-pan, quoted Lady Melbourne’s admiration of his popularity to William, who repeated it to his mother, and the result was a letter of dignified denial of Mr. Giles’ statements:

But Mr. Giles had a good memory, and reminded her among other matters of a walk he had taken with her and Lord Melbourne to call on Mrs. Fitzherbert and others. To be seen walking in this company must have been sweet to “the

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Hertfordshire Brewer.” We can imagine Lady Melbourne in her plumed hat and her sweeping skirts leaning on her husband’s arm, but only because it was the fashion of the day—no woman needed a husband’s support less than Lady Melbourne. Giles was shrewd enough to let her see that though his offer to stand down from St. Albans in favour of her sons before the last election had been refused, he had heard that she had privately made inquiries as to the popularity of the sitting Members. She received a letter from him:

Whether Mr. Giles met Lady Melbourne at Hatfield does not appear, but there is a slight threat contained in his mention of the visit to the Tory stronghold. It is more than probable, if Lady Melbourne did meet him there, that she devoted herself so much to him and brought him forward

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so frequently that he entirely forgot the past incident.

But it was impossible for the wild and wayward nature of William’s wife to control for long her strange and poisoned impulses. It had been in 1812, according to Mr. Vere Foster,1 that Lady Caroline’s attachment to Byron began. True to her character, the attachment and admiration speedily turned to a violent infatuation, and she exhibited her feelings in a most extravagant way. Lord Byron was also Lady Melbourne’s friend and came often to the house to talk to one whom he considered not only the wisest but also one of the most charming women. “Had she been a few years younger,” he wrote, “what havoc might she not have wrought in my affections!” There was therefore no difficulty in Lady Caroline meeting him not only in the world but at home in a natural and easy manner. The state of affairs must have made Lady Melbourne very anxious, and the position almost impossible. Lady Caroline was a difficult inmate in a house—one of her vagaries was to surround herself with a number of pages, whom she alternately beat and caressed. One she hurt most severely, and on seeing the blood screamed—“Oh God, I have killed the page!” The pages were an unusual

1 Vere Foster, youngest son of Sir Augustus Foster and grandson of Lady Elizabeth Foster.

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and rather mediaeval element in the households of that time, and they were probably very unpopular with the old and tried servants of the stately and orderly house. Lady Melbourne must have felt that Lady Caroline was becoming intolerable and yet was better under her roof than in a house of her own.

One morning, early in August 1812, Lady Caroline, who had lately been even more wild and eccentric than usual in her behaviour, was visited by her mother Lady Bessborough, who tried to persuade her to come to Roehampton, and remain quietly with her father and mother till William Lamb could join them, and they could all go to Ireland together. While Lady Bessborough was there, Lord Melbourne came in and spoke severely to Lady Caroline on her behaviour, which he said was becoming intolerable. The latter lost her temper and replied so rudely and impertinently that Lady Bessborough flew to call Lady Melbourne. She appeared instantly, but in that moment Lady Caroline was gone so swiftly that even the porter could not stop her.

Her mother drove up and down Parliament Street, hoping she would return. Lady Caroline had completely disappeared. When Lady Bessborough returned, Lord Melbourne admitted that she had threatened him that she would go to Lord Byron, and he had bid her “go and be damned.”

Lady Melbourne immediately accompanied Lady Bessborough to Lord Byron’s house, but

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found him alone and as much astonished as they were. Lord Byron promised to try and find her. He received through a hackney coachman a packet of letters from Lady Caroline for Lady Bessborough, and sent them to the latter at Devonshire House, where she was dining, and then by promises and bribes induced the coachman to tell him where Lady Caroline was and take him to her.

Lord Byron found her in a surgeon’s house in Kensington, where she had taken refuge, and having forced his way in told the surgeon that he was the lady’s brother, and brought her almost by force to her mother in Cavendish Square, from where he persuaded her to return to the Melbournes in Whitehall. William promised to receive her and forgive her, and Lady Melbourne seems to have met her half-way with kindness and affection. Lady Caroline was touched, and Lady Bessborough, broken-hearted and ill, drove home to seek peace and quiet in Cavendish Square. How she reached her home, Mrs. Petersen, probably the housekeeper or Lady Bessborough’s maid, told Lady Caroline, with her faithful heart filled with indignation; she took the precaution of enclosing her letter in one to Lady Melbourne, saying:

Cruel & unnatural as you have behaved you surely do not wish to be the Death of your Mother. I am sorry to say you last night nearly succeeded in doing so. She had fallen in a Fit at the bottom of her Carriage & with the utmost difficulty her footmen got her out. Oh, Lady Caroline could you have seen her at that moment you surely would have been convinced how wickedly you are going on. She was perfectly senseless & her poor mouth Drawn all on one side & cold as Marble we was all distracted even her footmen cryed out Shame on you for alas you have exposed yourself to all London you are the talk & [sic] every Groom & footman about the Town. A few months ago it was Sir Godfrey & now another has turnd your Head & made you forget what a Husband you have what an angel Child besides makeing you torture all your kind relations & friends in the most cruel manner.

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Your poor Father two was heart broken at seeing the wretched state you had reduced your Mother two we got Mr. Walker quick as Possible & thank God she is better—Lord Bessbro would not let me send for you he said the sight of you would make her worse. You have for many months taken every means in your Power to make your Mother miserable & you have perfectly succeeded but do not quite kill her—you will one day or other fataly feel the wickedness of your present conduct. Oh Lady Caroline pray to God for streanth of mind & resolution to behave as you ought for this is Dreadful.

[J. H. Petersen.]

2 Cavendish Sq.,
Monday.

I feel by sending you this I offend you for ever but I cannot help it.

The publicity of what had happened made it most desirable that Lady Caroline should leave London. William had forgiven her and, no doubt for the sake of appearances, went away with her, and they joined her father and mother, Lord and Lady Bessborough, who were going to spend some months at their home in Ireland.

Before they started Lady Bessborough saw the Prince Regent, and wrote to Lady Melbourne:

Lady Melbourne saw them go with a heavy heart. The journey might be the salvation of Lady Caroline, though Lady Melbourne cherished few illusions now about her daughter-in-law’s character. But it meant a blank space in William’s career, and he was far away from her influence.

She was left alone. She wrote to Lord Byron, reproaching him for the sorrow he had caused.

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The answer when it came surprised even her, accustomed as she was to the turns of Fortune’s wheel. She now had the skein in her own hands to unravel, and confident in her powers felt that Fortune had indeed been very kind. Byron wrote to say that his affections were not fixed where she supposed, and that the lady of his choice was Lady Melbourne’s own niece, Annabella Milbanke, daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke and Judith Noel his wife, daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Wentworth Noel.