Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/147

LADY PALMERSTON it at Lady Palmerston's house in Piccadilly. He had taken cholera, and died in the back drawing-room. Lady Jocelyn, who had by chance driven into town, found him in a dying condition.

In the autumn of 1844 Lady Palmerston made a tour in Germany with her husband, dining with the King of the Belgians at Laeken, with the King of Prussia at Berlin, and the King of Saxony at Dresden. The next year her friend Lady Holland died, leaving her £300, a portrait of Lord Melbourne by Landseer, and all her fans.

A pleasing incident, which showed in what estimation Lady Palmerston was held by the party, occurred in 1850, when a hundred and twenty Liberal Members of Parliament presented her with a full-length portrait of her husband by Partridge. She was extremely proud of the compliment paid her. The painting, now at Broadlands, was hung on the staircase of their town house.

Lady Palmerston could not bear, as I have said, to be separated from her husband. In January 1851 she went to Brighton with Lady 115