'I agree with Lord David [Cecil] that Melbourne as a friend or relative must have been one of the most delightful, wise and entertaining of men, but in public life I believe him also to have been ambitious, cynical and almost wholly without political principle.

Features hitherto unused material and an unprecedently searching assessment of the eminent Whig statesman of the 1830s/40s. This title tells that Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister should have been dragged through the courts by an aggrieved husband not once but twice.