Editing Lady Caroline Lamb (section)

==Later life and death==
[[File:In Spite of Epilepsy - The Rt. Hon. Lady Caroline Lamb.jpg|left|thumb|Illustration of Lady Caroline from ''In Spite of Epilepsy'' (1910) by Matthew Woods]]
Byron's confidante and close friend was his wife's maternal aunt, William Lamb's own mother, the colourful [[Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne]].<ref name="cecil">{{cite book|last=Cecil|first=David|title=The Young Melbourne & Lord M|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |location=London, UK|date=18 October 2001|pages=566|isbn=1-84212-497-8}}</ref> Lady Melbourne had been instrumental in bringing about the politically-advantageous marriage of her son to Lady Caroline, despite disliking both her and her mother.

However, once Lady Caroline had begun her affair with Byron, her mother-in-law began a long and blatant campaign to rid her son of his wife. As [[Lord David Cecil]] remarks, she had long since concluded that Caroline deserved all her misfortunes. William Lamb refused to submit and regretted that his mother had conspired against his wife with Byron. Calling Byron treacherous, William Lamb was supportive of his wife to her death.<ref>Cecil, David, ''The Young Melbourne & Lord M'', p. 178.</ref>

Ultimately, it was Lady Caroline who prevailed on her husband to agree to a formal [[Marital separation|separation]] in 1825. Both parties had had numerous extramarital affairs by then, and Lamb had long been known to eschew duplicity.<ref name="Douglassbio" /> She took up permanent residence at [[Brocket Hall]]. Her struggle with [[mental illness]] became more pronounced in her last years and was complicated by her [[Alcohol abuse|abuse of alcohol]] and [[laudanum]]. By 1827, she was under the care of a full-time physician as her body, which had always been frail, began to shut down and she retained fluids (a condition then known as [[dropsy]], and now known as [[oedema]]). William Lamb was now [[Chief Secretary for Ireland]] and made a perilous crossing to be by her side when Lady Caroline died on 25 January 1828.<ref name="Douglassbio" /><ref name="cecil" />

Lady Caroline was buried in the graveyard of [[St Etheldreda's Church, Hatfield|St Etheldreda's Church]] in [[Hatfield, Hertfordshire|Hatfield]]; her husband was later buried within the church.