The Creevey Papers
Thomas Creevey to Elizabeth Ord, 13 May 1836
“Brooks’s, May 13th.
“. . . Melbourne has been very ill, but is better, and will do.
Young, his secretary, told me that
he had been terribly annoyed by the Norton concern. The insanity of men writing letters in such
cases is to me incomprehensible. She has plenty of
Melbourne’s and others, but according to what is
considered the best authority, the Solicitor General of the
Tories—Follett—has saved
Melbourne, tho’ employed against him.
Follett is said to have asked Norton if it was true that he had ever walked
with Mrs. Norton to Lord
Melbourne’s house, and then left her there. Upon
Norton’s saying that was so, Follett told him there
was an end of his action.§
“The jaw about this case is now succeeded by the
breaking off of the marriage between Ld. Villiers and
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| 312 | THE CREEVEY PAPERS | [Ch XIII. |
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Lady — Herbert, Lady
Pembroke’s daughter. Lady
Pembroke’s case against Lady
Jersey is merely a charge of an attempt to get her daughter to
sign a paper doing herself out of £20,000—her whole fortune—without
any one’s knowledge.”
Sir William Webb Follett (1796-1845)
Lawyer, MP, and solicitor-general under Robert Peel (1834-35, 1841); he was made
attorney-general in 1844. He appeared against Lord Melbourne in the crim. con. case
involving Caroline Norton.
Elizabeth Fox, Lady Holland [née Vassall] (1771 c.-1845)
In 1797 married Henry Richard Fox, Lord Holland, following her divorce from Sir Godfrey
Webster; as mistress of Holland House she became a pillar of Whig society.
William Lamb, second viscount Melbourne (1779-1848)
English statesman, the son of Lady Melbourne (possibly by the third earl of Egremont) and
husband of Lady Caroline Lamb; he was a Whig MP, prime minister (1834-41), and counsellor
to Queen Victoria.
Hon. George Chapple Norton (1800-1875)
The younger son of Fletcher Norton (1744-1820) and brother of the third lord Grantley; in
1827 he married the poet Caroline Sheridan, whom he later unsuccessfully charged with
criminal conversation with Lord Melbourne.
Thomas Young [Ubiquity Young] (1848 fl.)
Private secretary and personal “spy” to Lord Melbourne; originally he was purser on the
Duke of Devonshire's yacht. He obtained his sobriquet by being omnipresent at social
gatherings.
