William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne fall. The king and the Duke of Wellington urged him to stay on as prime minister. After Norton failed in court, Melbourne was vindicated, but he did stop seeing Norton. Nonetheless, as historian Boyd Hilton concludes, "it is irrefutable that Melbourne's personal life was problematic. Spanking sessions with aristocratic ladies were harmless, not so the whippings administered to orphan girls taken into his household as objects of charity." Melbourne was Prime Minister when Queen Victoria came to the throne (June 1837). Barely eighteen, she was only just breaking free from the domineering influence of her mother, the Duchess of Kent,
Lamb baronets 1st Viscount Wentworth and Judith Lamb, daughter of William Lamb. In 1821 he assumed by Royal licence the surname of Lamb in lieu of his patronymic. He was succeeded by his son by his second wife Anne Montolieu, Charles, the second Baronet. He was Knight Marshal of the Royal Household between 1824 and 1864. The title became extinct on the death of the fourth Baronet in 1948. The Burges family settled near Reading during the reign of Henry VIII; the surname is claimed to derive from Bruges in Flanders. Colonel Roger Burges held the town of Faringdon for the king