During her early married years, Caroline used her beauty, wit and political ties to set herself up as a major society hostess. Her unorthodox behaviour and candid conversation raised many eyebrows in 19th-century English high society; she made enemies and admirers in almost equal measure. Among her friends were literary and political luminaries such as Samuel Rogers, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Trelawny, Abraham Hayward, Mary Shelley, Fanny Kemble, Benjamin Disraeli, the future King Leopold I of Belgium and William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire.Perkin, p. 85.Perkins, pp. 19, 26, 48, 84 and 178. She also claimed in later life to have taken part in the Tolpuddle Martyrs protest march in 1834.
