To make matters worse, George was unsuccessful as a barrister and the couple fought bitterly over money. 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 such literary and political luminaries 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. She also claimed in later life to have taken part in the Tolpuddle Martyrs protest march in 1834. Despite his jealousy and pride, George encouraged his wife to use her ties to advance his career. It was through her influence that in 1831 he was made a Metropolitan Police Magistrate. During those years, Caroline turned to prose and poetry as means of releasing her inner emotions and earning money. Her first book, The Sorrows of Rosalie (1829), was well received. The Undying One (1830), a romance founded on the legend of the Wandering Jew, soon followed. From 1832 to 1837 she edited The Court Magazine and Belle Assemblée. In 1843 she petitioned Sir Robert Peel for the post of Poet Laureate after the death of Robert Southey, but was unsuccessful. Separation and Melbourne scandal In 1836, Caroline left her husband. She managed to subsist on her earnings as an author, but George claimed these as his, arguing this successfully in court. Paid nothing by her husband and her earnings confiscated, Norton used the law to her own advantage. Running up bills in her husband's name, she told the creditors when they came to collect, that if they wished to be paid, they could sue her husband. Not long after their separation, George abducted their sons, hiding them with relatives in Scotland and later in Yorkshire, refusing to tell Caroline their whereabouts. George accused Caroline of involvement in an ongoing affair with a close friend, Lord Melbourne, then Whig Prime Minister. Initially, George demanded £10,000 from Melbourne, but Melbourne refused to be blackmailed and George instead took the Prime Minister to court. Lord Melbourne wrote to Lord Holland, "The fact is [George] a stupid brute, and [Caroline] had not temper nor dissimulation enough to enable her to manage him." Despite this