Henry William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (15 March 1779 – 24 November 1848) was a British Whig politician who served as the Home Secretary and twice as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

He is best known for helping Victoria settle into her role as Queen, acting almost as her private secretary, and the political scandals that resulted from it, most notably the Bedchamber Crisis.

His legacy as prime minister was not favourable, as he had no great foreign wars or domestic issues to handle, and he was involved in several political scandals in the early years of Victoria's reign.

[6]Lamb was educated at Eton, then at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1796 and graduated a Master of Arts in 1799,[1] and finally at the University of Glasgow (1799–1801), where he was a resident pupil of Professor John Millar alongside his younger brother Frederick.

[9] Lamb succeeded his elder brother Peniston as heir to his father's title in 1805 (and as captain of the Midland Troop, Hertfordshire Yeomanry, when he resigned his commission in the Volunteer Infantry[10]) and married Lady Caroline Ponsonby, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat.

[citation needed] Lady Caroline published a Gothic novel, Glenarvon, in 1816; this portrayed both the marriage and her affair with Byron in a lurid fashion, which caused William even greater embarrassment, while the spiteful caricatures of leading society figures made them several influential enemies.

He told Lord Holland that he was committed to the Whig principles of the Glorious Revolution but not to "a heap of modern additions, interpolations, facts and fictions".

Though a Whig, he accepted the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland in the moderate Tory governments of George Canning and Lord Goderich on 29 April 1827.

He appointed a special commission to try approximately 1,000 of those arrested, and ensured that justice was strictly adhered to: one-third were acquitted and most of the one-fifth sentenced to death were instead transported.

After Lord Grey resigned as Prime Minister in July 1834, William IV was forced to appoint another Whig to replace him, as the Tories were not strong enough to support a government.

Young replied: "Why, damn it all, such a position was never held by any Greek or Roman: and if it only lasts three months, it will be worthwhile to have been Prime Minister of England [sic]."

Peel's failure to win a House of Commons majority in the resulting general election (January 1835) made it impossible for him to govern, and the Whigs returned to power under Melbourne that April.

[22] At that time, such a scandal would have been enough to derail a major politician and so it is a measure of the respect that contemporaries had for his integrity that Melbourne's government did not fall.

Tutoring Victoria was the climax of Melbourne's career: the prime minister spent four to five hours a day visiting and writing to her, and she responded with enthusiasm.

[26] Lord Melbourne's tutoring of Victoria took place against a background of two damaging political events: first, the Lady Flora Hastings affair, followed not long after by the Bedchamber Crisis.

Victoria's reputation suffered in an 1839 court intrigue when Hastings, one of her mother's ladies-in-waiting, developed an abdominal growth that was widely rumoured to be an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Sir John Conroy.

A 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.

"[34] Melbourne reported Victoria responded "I shan't soon forgive you for that", rubbing his hands and chuckling over it while telling the story to Lord Clarendon.

[37] Following a vote of no confidence, initiated by Conservative MP John Stuart-Wortley, Melbourne's government fell, and he resigned as Prime Minister on 30 August 1841.

[38] After Melbourne resigned permanently in August 1841, Victoria continued to write to him about political matters, but as it was deemed inappropriate after a time, their letters became cordial and non-political without issue.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poetical illustration Lord Melbourne, to a portrait by Thomas Lawrence, was published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837.