notorious romantic liaison. She was also reputed to have had an affair with Lord Palmerston, although there is no firm proof of this. She was a close friend of Lord Castlereagh, and was one of the first people to voice concerns about his increasingly strange behaviour in the weeks leading up to his suicide. Lord Grey confided in her, even sharing with her his intense grief on the death of his grandson Charles in 1831; on the other hand, she admitted that the details of the Reform Act 1832 came as a complete surprise to her, which may be a sign that Grey did not entirely trust her in spite of their friendship. In England's vibrant political environment, the princess discovered in herself a flair for politics. She also became a leader of society; invitations to her house were highly sought after, and she was the first foreigner to be elected a patroness of Almack's, London's most exclusive social club, where Lieven introduced the waltz to England. Despite her apparently frivolous nature, she had a deep religious faith, and seems to have disapproved of the death penalty far in advance of her time. She was something of a snob and made many enemies due to her haughty manner towards those she regarded as social inferiors. Indeed, she wrote to her brother, "It is not fashionable where I am not". Dorothea von Lieven's position as the wife of the Russian ambassador, her friendships, and her political acumen established her as a major political force. Though outwardly deferential to her husband, she was by far the stronger character and soon completely eclipsed him: London society jokingly called them "the two Russian ambassadors". Political career In 1825, Tsar Alexander I entrusted Dorothea with a secret overture to the British government. "It is a pity Countess Lieven wears skirts", the tsar wrote to his foreign minister Count Karl von Nesselrode-Ehreshoven, "she would have made an excellent diplomat." In October 1825, when both were staying at the same resort in Brighton, Lieven in an "off-the-record" conversation with the British Foreign Secretary George Canning told him that Russia wanted bilateral Anglo-Russian mediation of the Greek War of Independence. She also spoke of the "barbarisation project" said to be planned for Greece by the Turkish government, which would have mandated the mass deportation of the Greek Christian population. Lieven passed on to Canning a note written in