Frances Jocelyn, Viscountess Jocelyn Cowper was born in 1820, the youngest daughter of Emily Lamb, Countess Cowper, a daughter of Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne. Her paternity was officially attributed to Lady Cowper's husband, the 5th Earl Cowper. However, the historian K.D. Reynolds and others have argued that Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston was actually the father of Lady Frances and her brother William. Once widowed, her mother married Palmerston, though Lady Frances did not care for him. He became Prime Minister in 1859. In 1838, Lady Frances served as a maid of honour at the Coronation of Queen Victoria, and she also
Frederick Lamb, 3rd Viscount Melbourne marriage: even though Alexandrina was more than thirty years her husband's junior, he was described as being "as handsome and debonair at sixty as he had been at twenty-five." William, Frederick and their sister Emily Lamb, Countess Cowper remained close all their lives, although Frederick and Emily disliked William's wife Lady Caroline Lamb, whom they called "the little beast". He served as British Ambassador to Vienna ending in 1841. He was invested as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath and admitted to the Privy Council in 1822. In 1839 he was raised to the peerage as