A Biography

By Paul Douglass Broken lines indicate extramarital affairs. For Charlene LADY CAROLINE LAMB: A BIOGRAPHY Copyright © Paul Douglass, 2004. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-1-4039-6605-6 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world.

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN IS THE GLOBAL ACADEMIC IMPRINT OF THE PALGRAVE MACMILLAN division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Mac- millan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries.

ISBN 978-1-349-52931-5 ISBN 978-1-4039-7334-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781403973344

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Douglass, Paul, 1951- Lady Caroline Lamb / Paul Douglass. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Lamb, Caroline, Lady, 1785-1828. 2. Novelists, English--19th century- -Biography. 3. Politicians’ spouses--Great Britain--Biography. 4. Women and literature--England--History--19th century. 5. , George Gordon Byron, baron, 1788-1824--Relations with women. 6. Melbourne, William Lamb, Viscount, 1779-1848--Marriage. I. Title.

PR4859.L9D68 2004 823’.7--dc22 [B] 2004045620

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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First edition: October 2004 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents

List of Illustrations ...... vii

Acknowledgements ...... ix

Preface ...... xi

One A Child of the Mist ...... 1

Two Growing Pains...... 13

Three Coming Out ...... 31

Four Marriage ...... 49

Five Parenthood ...... 67

Six Indiscretions ...... 79

Seven Byron ...... 101

Eight Ireland ...... 119

Nine Medea and her Dragons ...... 143

Ten Playing Byron ...... 169

Eleven The Music of Glenarvon ...... 197 Twleve Politics and Satire ...... 209

Thirteen A Book to Offend No One: Graham Hamilton ...... 227

Fourteen Another Farrago: Ada Reis ...... 241

Fifteen Byron’s Death ...... 255

Sixteen Exile ...... 263

Seventeen Rational and Quiet...... 281

Epilogue ...... 289

Appendix Lady Caroline Lamb and Her Circle

Who’s Who ...... 293

Chronology ...... 297

Abbreviations ...... 302

Notes ...... 303

References...... 341

Index ...... 347 List of Illustrations

1. Vignette of Childe Harold at sea, a scene from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, by Lady Caroline Lamb (1812). By kind permission of Mr. Gerald Burdon. 2. Vignette of funeral scene from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, by Lady Caroline Lamb (1812). By kind permission of Mr. Gerald Burdon. 3. Lady Caroline Lamb, dressed in page costume holding fruit tray and with spaniel, painted in 1813 by Thomas Phillips. Courtesy of The Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth. Reproduced by permission of the Chatsworth Settle- ment Trustees. 4. . Contemporary photograph. By kind permission of Brocket Hall International. 5. in Albanian Dress, painted by Thomas Phillips. National Portrait Gallery, London. 6. William Spencer Cavendish, Marquis of Hartington, later 6th Duke of Devonshire, painted in 1811 (the year he inherited the Devonshire title) by Sir . Courtesy of The Devonshire House Collection, Chat- sworth. Reproduced by permission of the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees. 7. Georgiana Poyntz, Countess Spencer, Lady Caroline Lamb’s Grandmother, painted most probably in the period 1798-1810 by Henry Howard. Courtesy of The Devonshire House Collection, Chatsworth. Reproduced by permission of the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees. 8. . Artist unknown. Portrait circa 1810-1820. Courtesy of Charles Venour Nathan. 9. William Lamb, by Sir Thomas Lawrence. 1805. National Portrait Gallery, London. 10. Lady Caroline Tired and Dispirited. From a painting by Eliza H. Trotter. Exhibited 1811. National Portrait Gallery, London. 11. Sketch by Lady Caroline in the Hertfordshire Archives showing her dog Rover with a fairy on his back, and with the caption “To a lanky Cur I lov’d at that time-.” By permission of Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies. 12. Lady Caroline Lamb on horseback. E. Parocell (?). Private Collection. Photograph: Photographic Survey, Courtauld Institute of Art. 13. Lady Melbourne by . National Portrait Gallery, London. 14. Sketch by Lady Caroline showing winged cherub attacked by snakes and demons, with the caption “un soupçon cruel le dechire.” By permission of Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies. 15. Lord Granville Leveson Gower after Sir Thomas Lawrence. By kind permis- sion of the Courtauld Institute of Art. 16. Sketch by Lady Caroline in her Commonplace book at John Murray Archive showing her husband William, herself, and their son Augustus. Much madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. ’Tis the majority In this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; Demur,—you’re straightway dangerous And handled with a chain.

—Emily Dickinson Acknowledgements

T he life of Lady Caroline Lamb has been documented by so many biographers, memoirists, and critics that simply reading and evaluating partial accounts and sifting through letters and documents relating to her marriage and extended family has been an immense task. I could never have done it alone. Margot Strickland generously gave me access to her research, including microfilms she had gathered; she corresponded with me over a period of several years, and I am deeply grateful. John Clubbe also encouraged me and shared his research. Frederick Burwick’s Poetic Madness and the Romantic Imagination influenced my approach to my subject, and more important, his brilliant mind and generous heart have challenged and sustained me throughout our long friendship. Peter Cochran corresponded with me and corrected errors in the manuscript with a wit that rivals those of Lady Caroline’s extremely witty contemporaries. Eve Culver, a graduate assistant at San Jose State University, spent many hours combing libraries and transcribing letters for me. Her sharp eye and quick understanding were invaluable. Those who have read Peter Graham’s and Regency England will recognize that the fourth chapter of that book eloquently states main themes of my own work. I am indebted to him and to Graham Pont, who pointed out to me that Isaac Nathan was a major character in the drama of Lady Caroline’s life. Similarly, I am grateful to Frances Wilson, who edited the Everyman reissue of Lady Caroline’s Glenarvon and defended Lady Caroline against moralizers and melodramatists in her Byromania, and to Jonathan Gross for his fine edition of Lady Melbourne’s letters. Without doubt the turning point in this project came on a hot August night in 2001 in Battery Park when Marilyn Gaull of NYU told me she believed in my book and would bring it to Palgrave and see it through the press. Thank you Marilyn, for all your advice and hard work to make this book as good as it could be. My colleagues at San Jose State University, Marianina Olcott and Dominique Van Hoof, read Greek and French for me and saved me from many mistakes. As I struggled to finish this book while chairing the English Department of a large state university, my friend, coworker, and fellow writer Mark Bussmann, helped me find time to write and gave me invaluable feedback. x Lady Caroline Lamb

I must here gratefully acknowledge the generosity of Gerald Burdon in permitting me to reproduce the two remarkable watercolors that Lady Caroline did in 1812 for Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Acknowledgements for permissions to reprint other pictures may be found in the List of Illustrations. The staffs of the Hertfordshire Records Office, the British Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford were extremely helpful. Diane Naylor, of the Devonshire Manuscripts in the Chatsworth Archive, was marvelously kind and efficient. How sweet were the hours spent working in these facilities! Sweetest of all, though, was time spent in the John Murray Archive receiving Virginia Murray’s indispensible help. Quotations from manuscript sources are by permission of Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies; the Bodleian Library; the Devonshire Manuscripts Archive in Chatsworth (United Kingdom); the Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum; the John Murray Archive; the Carl Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle of the New York Public Library (Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations); the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; and the Clifton Waller Barrett Library, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library. Extracts from the Lovelace/Byron Papers are reproduced by permission of Pollinger Limited and the Lovelace Papers on deposit in the Bodleian Library. My partner in marriage, Charlene Keller Douglass, spent many hours finding materials that enriched my work. When the chance came for us to go to England together, she accompanied me and did much research. She helped me to edit the final manuscript’s footnotes. I cannot thank her enough. Our children, Jeremy and Regan, were not yet in college when I started writing. Now, they have both graduated. I am thankful that my family understood my need to finish this task, which so long preoccupied me. I am further blessed in that they seem to appreciate my work, just as I love and appreciate them without end. Preface

I n 1785, Caroline Ponsonby—the future Lady Caroline Lamb—was born into a distinguished family. Her mother, Lady Bessborough, was one of the two or three most politically influential women of the era. Caroline’s Aunt Georgiana was the accomplished Duchess of Devonshire. Marie Antoinette was a family friend. Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, once bounced six-year-old Caroline on his knee in Lausanne. She had already gained a reputation as a brat, and she infuriated her aunt by telling Gibbon that his face was so ugly it had frightened her puppy. She became such a difficult teenager that her mother considered sending her away to a caretaker in the country. Lady Caroline lived through the Napoleonic wars and the “Regency,” named for the period during which the Prince of Wales exercised the King’s powers. She knew the Prince—the family called him “Prinny”—and his wife, whose liberal politics Lady Caroline supported. Lady Caroline’s social, political, and literary activities brought her the acquaintance of such notables of the era as Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the social philosopher and novelist William Godwin, and also literary figures like , , , , Ugo Foscolo, , Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and . Indeed she knew most of the politicians, powerbrokers, and literati of the day, and they knew her as the petite redhead described by Byron as “the cleverest most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing, dangerous fascinating little being that lives now or ought to have lived 2000 years ago.”1 As it turned out, Lady Caroline played a role in changing the possibilities for women of the nineteenth century. Her role would, however, not be an enviable one, for she sought her own independence, and so was reviled for breaking the rules by which women generally exercised power and influence. When Lady Caroline married William Lamb in 1805, they expected he would soon inherit a substantial estate from his aging father, Lord Melbourne, and that they would emerge on the stage of English society as ranking members of the elite. When Caroline died in 1828, however, William had still not received his father’s title or his riches, because his father had simply outlived her. Throughout her life Caroline lived in a wealthy world without really possessing any of it xii Lady Caroline Lamb herself. Her father and mother had financial troubles, and her husband received a relatively small allowance. Caroline never became the mistress of a household or the arbiter of the social scene in the way of her Aunt Georgiana or mother-in- law Lady Melbourne. Slowly, painfully, she fell from great expectations to a crippled marriage and collapsing health. A frequently cited cause of that fall has been William’s overindulgence of his wife, who is generally described as “spoilt” and “vain,” and “at heart a frustrated actor with a weakness for melodrama.”2 William, however, remained devoted to Caroline despite her tantrums and extramarital affairs, and Caroline loved William. Their partnership endured— despite the very public liaison she had with Lord Byron in the spring and summer of 1812, and despite his own family’s campaign to separate them—until she drew her last breath. When Byron broke off the affair, Caroline suffered a breakdown. The psychiatry of the time called it “erotomania”—dementia caused by obsession for a man. It was a malady she shared with hundreds of other Byron fans, except that she actually became Byron’s lover during the first great flush of his success. The experience made it somehow impossible for her to lead a normal life. Gossip soon made the affair and its aftermath into a sexual melodrama, and even sympathetic portrayals of Lady Caroline convey the image of an adulteress whose obsession with Byron drove him wild and her crazy. While Caroline was certainly Byron’s lover in the flesh, her pursuit of him was literary as much as libidinous. It was not a one-sided or narrow liaison, for she had talent and an education augmented by the study of Greek and Latin. Caroline was Byron’s equal in verbal wit at the time they met, when she was twenty-six and he had just turned twenty- four. They shared a love for dogs, horses, and music. Byron could sing, and Caroline played the harp and harpsichord and wrote songs. She made drawings and watercolors, and canvassed for elections. Byron also admired her for raising Augustus, her mentally retarded, epileptic son, at home instead of placing him with caretakers. By 1812, when she met Byron, Lady Caroline had developed a contempt for the low morals and superficiality of Whig culture. Byron shared her contempt and admired her outrageousness. At first. But once he saw that she stood ready for any consequence—even exile from England—he pulled back, unprepared to burn his bridges. Wounded, Caroline wanted him to admit that he had been deeply affected by their relationship. To his annoyance, he found it impossible to drop her cold. He turned distant. She grew hysterical. She became for him a ghost whose skeletal features preyed on his imagination, for she simply did not know Preface xiii how to crawl away and suffer silently as married women did when their lovers jilted them. Most biographers have shared Byron’s frustration at Lady Caroline’s failure to conform to the feminine role of her era. They have not hesitated to prescribe a “sharp slap judiciously administered,”3 or even an out-and-out beating.4 Criticism, too, has administered body blows to the modest corpus of her literary work, starting with the publication of Glenarvon, her first novel, in 1816. She found herself wondering why “everybody wishes to run down and suppress the vital spark of genius I have, and in truth, it is but small (about what one sees a maid gets by excessive beating on a tinder-box). I am not vain, believe me, nor selfish, nor in love with my authorship; but I am independent, as far as a mite and bit of dust can be.”5 The overreaction of criticism to Caroline’s literary offenses seems itself mildly hysterical, like her biographers’ obsession with her outrageous entrances, temper tantrums and crockery-smashing. Those who have judged her novels and poetry have treated them as an extension of her personality: at best the production of a neurotic mind, and at worst a devious attempt to hurt Byron. This does no justice to her as a writer or human being. That is not to deny that the collapse Lady Caroline suffered when Byron ended their affair was serious. In certain periods Caroline was threatened with a straitjacket by two stout nurses she called “The Women.” After Byron left England, however, her life did not become a continuous round of whining and histrionics. She published three novels, two accomplished parodies of Byron’s poetry, several poems in literary journals, and a number of songs—besides having worked up three other novel manuscripts and a book on “domestic economy” that she printed in England and sought to publish in Ireland. This is not to say she did not fret. She did—and she overdramatized. But she also described herself and her world in memorable language. Her fiction shows a full awareness of her political and cultural milieu. With the completion of this volume, I have given Lady Caroline what I think she most desired from the time she was a little girl: undivided attention. She also receives herewith my sympathy, my laughter and astonishment, my pity, and, in the end, my admiration—though she long ago passed beyond anyone’s power to reassure.