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.