Emily Lamb, Lady Cowper - First Marriage

First Marriage

At age eighteen, Emily married Peter Clavering-Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper, a man nine years her senior. Lord Cowper had a reputation for dullness and slowness of speech which were in marked contrast to his wife's social gifts; a more favourable portrait was that he was a quiet, pleasant man who was far less stupid than he appeared but avoided society and politics. Emily threw herself into the Regency social scene, becoming by the early 19th century one of the leading ladies of the highly exclusive Almack's club. She was noted for kindness and generosity: she would do anything for a person she liked, and would even help people she disliked. Although she detested her sister-in-law Caroline, when Caroline was barred from Almack's, a deep social disgrace, Emily eventually managed to get the ban lifted. LIke many of the society ladies of the age, she had love affairs, including one with the Corsican diplomat Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, later Russian Ambassador to Great Britain.

Emily was noted not only for beauty but extraordinary charm: " grace put in action, whose softness was as seductive as her joyousness ".