William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne and writing to her, and she responded with enthusiasm and grew in wisdom. On 7 May 1839, Melbourne announced his intention to resign. This led to the Bedchamber Crisis. Prospective prime minister Robert Peel requested that Victoria dismiss some of the wives and daughters of Whig MPs who made up her personal entourage, arguing that the monarch should avoid any hint of favouritism to a party out of power. The Queen refused to comply—supported by Melbourne, although he was unaware that Peel had not requested the resignation of all the Queen's ladies as she had led him to believe—and hence,
Frederick Lamb, 3rd Viscount Melbourne Baron Beauvale, of Beauvale in the County of Nottingham. In 1848 he succeeded his elder brother as third Viscount Melbourne. Despite a certain personal distance between them, Lord Palmerston, as Foreign Secretary placed great confidence in Lamb, wrote to him in a courteous style very different from his usual brusque manner, and left the running of the Vienna Embassy almost entirely in his hands. The coolness was due to Palmerston's decades-long affair with Lamb's sister Emily, Lady Cowper; Lamb disapproved of the affair and disapproved equally of their eventual marriage, although this proved to be very happy. Palmerston's biographer notes