Emily, Viscountess Palmerston, writes to her brother with diplomatic news, 1851
Emily, Viscountess Palmerston — wife of the third Viscount — was one of the great political hostesses of the first half of the nineteenth century. Her parties at Carlton House were legendary, and she was a doyenne of Almack’s. One of her brothers, William, had been Prime Minister (as the second Viscount Melbourne). This letter to her brother Frederick, the third Viscount Melbourne, a former diplomat, recounts news brought back by the Russian ambassador, Brunnow: ‘he is full of amusing details about the court and the Russian notions about England which he says they understand no more than they do China ...’
