Previous to his marriage, Lord Althorp had entered Parliament, and, as a Whig, was opposing Lord North.  When the Marquess of Rockingham came to power, he was made a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury.  In 1783, he succeeded to his father’s earldom.  The Dowager Countess lived on until 1814.  Her character has been variously described.  Mrs. Delany calls her “an agreeable person, with a sensible, generous, and delicate mind.”  She was termed vain.  What woman would not be who was mother to such beauties as Devonshire, Duncannon, and Lavinia.  In an autobiography by the third Earl, he naively remarks that his mother never liked his grandmother.  The pleasing picture of “Ruth and Naomi” is the exception in families.

On the breaking out of the French Revolution, Earl Spencer gave his support to Pitt, by whom he was appointed first lord of the admiralty, in 1794.  It was during the period of her husband’s brilliant career in this office that the Countess made her greatest success as a hostess in ministerial society.  She was a good conversationalist, and especially attractive to men of individuality who admired her sagacious, picturesque pungency of expression.  The great naval commanders, who frequented the admiralty, were impressed with the frankness and force of her superior mind, Nelson and Collingwood particularly.  She is frequently mentioned in their letters as being sure to have much sympathy in their work.  A late biographer of the Earl wrote:  “She had the penetration to appreciate Nelson through the cloud of personal vanity and silly conceit which caused him to be lightly esteemed in London society.”  Her “bull-dog” she used playfully to call him.  She visited Gibbon at Lausanne, in 1795, and he writes:  “She is a charming woman who, with sense and spirit, has the playfulness and simplicity of a child.”  By some she was accounted haughty and exclusive.  Perchance she was to those who were without the breeding or the brains to commend them to her.  Dignified she certainly was, and her influence was wholly for good in the uplifting of politics and the purifying of society.  “I would not advise any one to utter a word against any one she was attached to,” once said her father.  She became the wise coadjutor of her husband in forming the magnificent Althorp Library.

When the earl retired from the admiralty, in 1800, his entertaining became less general.  His hospitalities at Spencer House were restricted to his more intimate friends.  Here came Lord Grenville, Earl Grey, chief of the Whigs, Brougham, Horner, and Lord John Russell; the younger men to hold converse with her who had known Burke, Pitt, Fox, and all the older time orators and statesmen.