‘It is the next best thing to a “chat” in St J squ’

At heart of this book lie thousands of letters sent to and from Mary. These letters have either been overlooked or underused by political historians. This chapter considers what Mary’s letters can tell us about Victorian political culture and it is divided into three parts. The first section charts the history of Mary’s archive. It draws attention to the uneven patterns of survival that characterize the archives of aristocratic women and stresses the importance of historicizing the archives used by historians of high politics. The second section explores how Mary used the letter as a political tool to amass and exercise political influence. The final section explores the composition and form of Mary’s political network. Using network analysis, it reconstructs Mary’s position in political society and plots her proximity to the networks that sustained political life at Westminster. Overall, it argues that a close reading of epistolary culture offers a valuable insight into the labyrinthine networks that sustained Victorian political life.