Lord Egremont got involved with her; he never did choose to settle down in marriage with some suitably rich and wellborn girl. He suffered, his critics alleged, from “indiscretion and irresolution.” What was more, he had fallen under the spell of a fashionable London beauty-Lady Melbourne, later Byron’s confidante, whose second son, William Lamb, afterwards Queen Victoria’s first Prime Minister, was widely believed to be Lord Egremont’s illicit offspring. Her portrait, below, painted by Joshua Reynolds- a shrewd, sensuous, seductive face- ended up hanging in the room at Petworth that was once Egremont’s bedchamber.
---Joshua Reynolds. Read More:http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxfordshire_church_photos/5990724221/sizes/z/in/photostream/
( see link at end) …Elizabeth Milbank was the daughter of a baronet and grew into a beautiful, intelligent, clever girl. At 18 she was married to Peniston Lamb (does that name sound familiar?) and immediately set herself in organizing his rather disorganized affairs. That included overseeing the building of Melbourne House. After she had successfully fulfilled her duties of getting her husband’s affairs in order and giving him an heir Elizabeth retired, if you will, to a hedonistic lifestyle of debauchery and scandal.
Because of her assertive and intelligent personality she accomplished her sinful lifestyle very well. It was rumored that Lord Coleraine sold Elizabeth to Lord Egremont for £13,000 and that both Elizabeth and her husband were parties of this contract and got shares of the money. She not only got money from this contract, but two children as well. She had a notorious temper and was a natural leader so even when she resigned from her post as leading hostess she was likely holding a puppet string or two of Georgiana’s. In Sheridan’s play, The School for Scandal, the character of the evil Lady Sneerwell was likely modeled after Elizabeth.Read More:http://georgianaduchessofdevonshire.blogspot.ca/2008/07/tart-of-week-elizabeth-lady-melbourne.html
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