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,
Viscount Palmerston Viscount Palmerston married the Honourable Emily Lamb, sister of Prime Minister Lord Melbourne and widow of Peter Clavering-Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper. Emily's second son from her first marriage, the Honourable William Cowper, inherited parts of his stepfather's estates, including Broadlands near Romsey in Hampshire, and assumed the additional surname of Temple. In 1880 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Mount Temple, a revival of the junior title held by the Viscounts Palmerston. He was childless and the peerage became extinct on his death in 1888. However, it was revived once again in 1932 in favour of his great-nephew,