Book Information: Queen and Lord M, the

Early on the morning of the 20th June in the year 1837, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chamberlain came to the palace of Kensington to tell an eighteen-year-old girl that she was Queen of England. The Victorian age had begun. Young, determined to dedicate herself to her country, deeply and demonstratively affectionate by nature, the Queen immediately succumbed to the worldly charm of Lord Melbourne, her Prime Minister.

This is a novel of the first years of the Queen's reign before her marriage to the Prince Consort. The innocent young girl found that she was at the heart of Palace feuds, intrigues and scandals which were to oust her from public favor, and the charming Queen whose youth and innocence had so appealed to the people became the villainess of the Flora Hastings scandal, the despot of the Bedchamber Plot and the subject of speculation concerning her relationship with her Prime Minister.

There was conflict between the Queen and her mother, the flamboyant Duchess of Kent, whose name was linked with that of Sir John Conroy, whom Victoria detested; and of another kind with Sir Robert Peel who became victim of the Queen's spite; and there was the aging Duke of Wellington who incurred her anger.

The scene is dominated by the imperious, hot-tempered Queen, unswervingly loyal to those whom she loves, as her dear 'Lord M'. And there is Melbourne himself, the aging politician and worldly cynic, the Prime Minister with the stormy past. The publicly-conducted intrigue between his mad wife, Lady Caroline Lamb, and the scandalous Lord Byron, though over long before the Queen's Accession, reverberated through the years; yet in spite of being cited as co-respondant in two divorce cases, he retained his position as Prime Minister and became a partner in a romantic relationship with the young Victoria.