[1] Granville began his career as a member of the House of Commons, representing Lichfield from 1795 to 1799, and Staffordshire for the next sixteen years.

[4] In 1833 during his second stint as ambassador to France, he was created Earl Granville and also Baron Leveson of Stone Park in the County of Stafford.

[5][6] While a recent historian describes Granville as "a drab figure, the original stuffed-shirt – starch outside, sawdust within,",[7] he was celebrated as a male beauty in his own time, with Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger comparing him to "Hadrian's Antinous".

For seventeen year,s she "loved [Granville] to idolatry",[11] but then, she understood that he must marry in order to further his career and assure his posterity, and so she actively collaborated in the arrangements for his wedding to Lady Harriet (known in the family as "Harry-O"), who was understandably reluctant to marry her aunt's lover.

[12] Granville had numerous other love affairs, including with Lady Hester Stanhope, the adventurer and antiquarian, who attempted suicide after he jilted her in 1804.