#3148, Edith VILLIERS

Robert's father heavily influenced his son and did not approve of his spouse and indeed would not talk to her for the first 12 months of their marriage.  Edith faithfully accompanied her husband during his diplomatic career - a career chosen by his father!  He later relented.  She was Vicereine of India and was decorated with the honorific, Lady, Royal Order of Victoria and Albert and invested in the Imperial Order of the Crown of India.

Edith was noted for her support of the education of women in India.  Her daughter Emily retained an interest in Indian culture after the family's return to England and was later converted to Theosophy.

She became Queen Victoria's Lady of the Bedchamber in 1895.  In 1897 she accompanied the Queen to  the Duchess of Devonshire's Diamond Jubilee Costume Ball.  When the Queen died Edith, who had been at her bedside, rode with the body on the funeral journey from London to Windsor.  She subsequently held the role of Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Alexandra until she retired.

She lived at Homewood, a dower house on the estate at Knebworth, designed around the turn of the century by her son-in-law, Sir Edwin Lutyens in the Arts & Crafts style.

Edith Villiers, by then Lady Lytton, was the author of Lady Lytton's Court Diary, 1895-1899, edited by her granddaughter, Mary Lutyens and published by Rupert Hart-Davis in 1961.