Word: whigs
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Melbourne, by Lord David Cecil. A first-rate account of Britain's last big Whig, who said: "This damned morality will ruin everything'' (TIME...
...like many an indolent, skeptical fellow, Melbourne was fatally attracted by vigorous, strong-willed women. His wife, Caroline Ponsonby (known in Whig circles as "the Fairy Queen"), was fond of her amiable husband, but fonder, it was said, of such rare thrills as being "carried [into dinner] concealed under a silver dish cover, from which she emerged on the dinner table stark naked...
...Snack of Glass. When "Queen" Caroline met Lord Byron, even the robustest Whig was rocked by the resulting drama. Caroline dressed up as Poet Byron's page boy in a silver-laced jacket and scarlet pantaloons, bit large pieces out of her wine glass when she saw him talking to another woman. But Melbourne stood staunchly by his Fairy Queen, watching her glittering hysteria degenerate into madness. She died in 1828, leaving him the father of a half-witted...
...Lick Bad Habits. In 1837 the young Queen Victoria ascended the throne, and the aging Whig skeptic was handed the unusual task of explaining the basic principles of faith and politics to an innocent girl. The young Queen all but fell in love with him. "Dear Lord M" (as the Queen called him in her diary) could explain anything, from the martial conquest of Canada to the marital conduct of Henry VIII ("Those women bothered him so," he told her). He was always so reassuring about everything. "If you have a bad habit," he said, "the best...
...brief years, the last of the Regency Whigs held the hand of the first of the Victorian moralists. But the heyday of the Whig aristocracy was over. When the young Queen married her stern, respectable Prince Consort, Melbourne found himself in the doghouse. For a while Lord M fought the changing order, and his aged voice could be heard crying: "This damned morality will ruin everything!" But at last he retired to the country. "The fire is out," he told his friends bluntly. "The fire...