The Shadow of Great Britain-Chapter 621 - 309: The Bigwig of the East India Company

After Arthur promised to resolve the issue, General Napier left, humming a tune to himself.

However, the secretary from the Foreign Office stayed and began to casually chat with Arthur about the recent changes in London.

Aside from the workers’ riots caused by the quarantine policy at the ports, the other major issue was the various incidents of patients’ relatives assaulting the quarantine hospitals due to the strict isolation of patients.

All in all, it sounded like the Home Secretary, Viscount Melbourne, must have been quite troubled recently.

In terms of public affairs, he had to deal with the peasant revolts in the south led by Swin and the various public health and security incidents caused by cholera. In his private life, he even had to find time to contend with the allegations of an undue relationship brought by Judge George Norton.

Although the position of Home Secretary has always been considered one of the three great thrones of the Cabinet, alongside Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, the job had evidently become a hot potato.

Even with Viscount Melbourne’s naturally indolent personality, he had been forced to work overtime and attend various inter-departmental meetings to consider what methods could be used to suppress these matters.

It was said that Lady Copper, his sister, had privately advised Viscount Melbourne, "With all these things weighing on you, why not settle out of court with George Norton? That insolent scoundrel just wants to extort 1,400 pounds, and we Lambs are hardly lacking that sum."

However, Viscount Melbourne was fiercely resistant to his sister’s advice. He vocally rejected her suggestion and asked her not to interfere with the matter any further.

Seeing her brother unheeding of counsel, Lady Copper went to Viscount Palmerston to borrow money, intending to secretly help her brother settle with George Norton.

But when Viscount Melbourne learned of this from Viscount Palmerston, the Viscount, who rarely showed anger toward anyone for decades, was unusually incensed. He immediately sent people to intercept his sister and emphasized repeatedly to her that he and Mrs. Norton were innocent and that he had no intention of bending to the whims of a scoundrel like Norton nor of sullying his own reputation.

Lady Copper, having been scolded by her brother, felt incredibly wronged. She had only wanted to help her family, and yet her brother showed her no gratitude for her efforts.

As a result, Lady Copper did not attend any social gatherings for two full weeks, and her whereabouts in London were unknown.

According to the ladies of Almack’s Club, it seemed she had gone back to the Earldom of Copper in a huff and would likely not return to London until the social season began again next spring.

Seeing Viscount Melbourne’s firm stance, George Norton also became furiously enraged and formally brought an adultery lawsuit against Viscount Melbourne and his own wife to the courts.

However, since the only evidence Norton could provide was that Mrs. Norton frequented the Home Office, and the correspondence between the man and the woman contained no definitive proof,

the court acquitted Viscount Melbourne and Mrs. Norton after the trial.

Yet, the trial’s end did not signify the end of the affair. Unsatisfied with the verdict, Judge Norton, after losing the case, kicked his wife out of their home and sent their three young sons, aged two, four, and six, to live with relatives, strictly forbidding contact between mother and children.

Given its scandalous nature, such an affair naturally caused quite a stir in London.

All sorts of tabloids in London began to scramble to report various details of this extramarital affair lawsuit.

Critics argued that Viscount Melbourne’s victory was owed to his dirty political influence on the court. A woman who kept visiting the Home Office for no apparent reason—what else could she be doing there if not secretly meeting a lover?

On the other hand, supporters claimed that Viscount Melbourne’s reputation had withstood the test of time. Even when his wife, Lady Ponsonby, created troubles for a decade or two with Lord Byron, Viscount Melbourne did not overly censure his wife. He even spoke up for her when she was at the heart of controversy, hoping to calm the situation. How could such a loyal and kind gentleman commit the immoral act of disrupting another’s family?

Some analysts tried to explain the issue from a human perspective, assuming at first that there had been an affair between Viscount Melbourne and Mrs. Norton.

They believed that it was because Viscount Melbourne had been cuckolded by Lord Byron, and his wife, Lady Ponsonby, was a thoroughgoing madwoman who even threw herself on Byron’s coffin in public when it was returned to the country, causing a scene.

It was these unbearable weights that an ordinary person could not withstand that likely led the cultured Viscount Melbourne to develop a degree of psychological aberration.

His relationship with Mrs. Norton might have been a way to compensate for his own deficiencies.

As the saying goes, despise the Minotaur, understand the Minotaur, become the Minotaur, transcend the Minotaur.

Analysts tended to summarize this as the psychological development process of Viscount Melbourne.

However, the ladies of London generally despised the so-called ’Minotaur theory.’ The complex relationship between Viscount Melbourne and his wife was common knowledge in the streets and alleys of London.

Furthermore, Lady Ponsonby’s last words to her servants, "Please call William, for in this world, only he has never let me down," resonated deeply with countless young women.

Viscount Melbourne, William Lamb, ranked first-class in education, status, and even in appearance and had not remarried since his wife passed. Therefore, with his poignant and tragic marriage story, he was once again branded by the ladies as a man of unwavering devotion.