Lady Palmerston thought her husband always in the right, and when he resigned in 1853 because he did not consider the Government’s policy towards Russia sufficiently decided, she wrote to Charles Greville to explain his reasons. Greville called on her, and found her in high good humour, and pleased at the testimonies of approbation her husband had received. But she was again careful to make it known in the right quarters that he had acted hastily and was ready to return, and thus it was in great measure due to her that the difficulty was adjusted. She had written to Monckton Milnes on 2nd December 1853: “Nobody looks very comfortable here; the Turkish question worries a great many, and Reform others, and I believe both might have been avoided.” She used to say that every event in which her husband was concerned left him standing higher than he did before. She was immensely proud of him, liked him to be first, was provoked at Gladstone’s enormous success in 1853, and always hated the idea of her husband being out of office. Therefore, notwithstanding the far harder work entailed both on himself and on herself, she was greatly elated when he became Prime Minister for the first time in 1855. Yet later on she confessed, “I would rather that my husband was only Foreign Minister or Home Secretary, for since he became Prime Minister I see nothing of him. He never comes to bed till four or five o’clock.” Except on Saturdays and Sundays, he hardly ever dined with her. He had his dinner at three p.m., went down to the House at four, and except some tea had nothing till he came home, seldom before one a.m.