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Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. The first week

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Speaker 1: of December in eighteen twelve, when a frost had just

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Speaker 1: barely begun to cling to the expansive lawns of Brocket Hall,

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Speaker 1: Lady Caroline Lamb ordered that a massive bonfire be built.

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Speaker 1: Since Lord Byron had first arrived in London society a

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Speaker 1: little under a year ago, Caroline Lamb's behavior had become

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Speaker 1: increasingly strange outrageous. Even the staff had learned not to

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Speaker 1: ask too many questions. From the nearby village of Welwyn,

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Speaker 1: Caroline gathered a group of local girls and told them

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Speaker 1: all to dress in white. Within minutes, she was leading

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Speaker 1: them down the road in a ghostly procession towards the

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Speaker 1: sky licking orange flames. She was like a pied piper,

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Speaker 1: pulling them forward, not with music, but with the implacable

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Speaker 1: magnetic force of her single minded resolve and her gleeful anger.

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Speaker 1: While the village girls danced around the flames, Caroline Lamb

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Speaker 1: revealed an effigy she had built of Lord Byron, made

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Speaker 1: of straw but unmistakable. She threw it onto the flames.

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Speaker 1: As the fire leapt higher and began to consume the

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Speaker 1: figure of straw, Caroline Lamb began tossing other things into

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Speaker 1: the fire, letters, quills, books, rings, and a golden locket.

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Speaker 1: And then, once everything Caroline Lamb had left of her

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Speaker 1: former lover was burning, she began to recite a poem

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Speaker 1: that she had written, Burn, Fire Burn, while wondering boys exclaim,

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Speaker 1: all gold and trinkets glitter in the flame. Any chill

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Speaker 1: in the December air was gone. Caroline Lamb was so

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Speaker 1: close to the heat of the fire that her hair

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Speaker 1: clung with sweat to her forehead. She stood so close

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Speaker 1: to the flames that they reflected in her dark eyes,

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Speaker 1: yellow orange, and dancing with a hellish fury, Caroline Lamb

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Speaker 1: didn't seem to blink. Although history has made Lord Byron's

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Speaker 1: anonymous with the wild passions to poetry, it's his most

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Speaker 1: famous lover, Caroline Lamb, who I confess I believe makes

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Speaker 1: a more fitting figurehead for the Romantic era. Caroline Lamb

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Speaker 1: was a woman driven mad with love, who shed all vanity,

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Speaker 1: all concerned for society or propriety, and devoted herself entirely

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Speaker 1: to the object of her affection. She quite literally lost

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Speaker 1: herself in poetry. Byron charming, handsome, vain, miserable. Byron was talented,

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Speaker 1: but he never off site of his exact position in

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Speaker 1: society and where he might move next. He was impatient

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Speaker 1: and easily bored. Isn't passion supposed to run deep? On

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Speaker 1: that December night in eighteen twelve, Caroline Lamb burned all

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Speaker 1: of the trinkets she had of her affair with the

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Speaker 1: era's most famous writer. But Byron's hold on her heart

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Speaker 1: would last for the rest of her life. The two

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Speaker 1: were locked in her wretched, beautiful dance, and when Caroline

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Speaker 1: Lamb was scorned, she was happy to leave ashes in

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Speaker 1: her wake. I'm Dana Schwartz and this is noble blood. Lord.

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Speaker 1: Byron's story began when he was a toddler living with

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Speaker 1: his mother, and the two got word that his father,

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Speaker 1: mad Jack Buyer, had died and in his will left

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Speaker 1: all of his debts to his three year old son.

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Speaker 1: Mad Jack had only married Byron's mother for her money.

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Speaker 1: Everyone knew that, and it took about a year or

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Speaker 1: so before he worked his way through it. After another year,

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Speaker 1: he was so heavily in debt that he was forced

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Speaker 1: to go into exile, leaving his wife a newborn son

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Speaker 1: alone to fend for themselves. Byron and his mother lived

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Speaker 1: in Scotland above a shop. But then a stroke of luck,

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Speaker 1: when Byron was eight, his uncle, the Baron Byron, died

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Speaker 1: without an heir. Young George Gordon Byron, future poet, inherited

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Speaker 1: his title. It was a low ranking title, sure, but

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Speaker 1: it was still a title, and so young Byron and

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Speaker 1: his mother made their way from their home in Aberdeen

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Speaker 1: down to the estate that Byron now owned, Newstead Abbey.

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Speaker 1: Nowstead Abbey was a wreck, a crumbling stone facade with

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Speaker 1: a half caved in ceiling and uneven floors. It would

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Speaker 1: be impossible to live in and its upkeep would be

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Speaker 1: a drain on Byron's finances for the rest of his life.

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Speaker 1: But still it was undeniably beautiful. There were sweeping grounds

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Speaker 1: and ancient edifices. It was a gorgeous Gothic fantasy playground

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Speaker 1: for the young Byron's imagination. Newstead Abbey, even in decay,

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Speaker 1: represented everything in the world that Byron wanted. Even the

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Speaker 1: poet Byron couldn't see the poetic irony of it being

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Speaker 1: uninhabitable after studying at Cambridge, Byron went on a grand

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Speaker 1: tour of Europe, during which he published the first two

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Speaker 1: cantos of his epic, semi autobiographical poem Child Harold's Pilgrimage.

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Speaker 1: Byron returned to England as a celebrity. Women swooned reading

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Speaker 1: his poetry about a young, disaffected man searching for meaning

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Speaker 1: and failing to find it among the hedonism and revelry

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Speaker 1: of high society, who before Byron had so perfectly captured

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Speaker 1: that exquisite pain of being surrounded by people but feeling alone.

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Speaker 1: Then stirs the feeling infinite so felt in solitude where

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Speaker 1: we are least alone. Lady Caroline Lamb was born to

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Speaker 1: the type of family that Byron could have only dreamed of.

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Speaker 1: She was the daughter of an earl and a countess,

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Speaker 1: niece to the famous Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and

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Speaker 1: wife of a man who would go on to become

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Speaker 1: Prime Minister. At twenty six, when she received an advanced

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Speaker 1: copy of Byron's Child Harold, she was one of the

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Speaker 1: most eminent women in London. Caroline Lamb was immediately smitten.

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Speaker 1: She had heard stories about Lord Byron, about his rakish adventures.

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Speaker 1: She had heard about when he was a student at Cambridge,

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Speaker 1: and he had been forbidden from keeping his dog with

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Speaker 1: him as a pet, and so, because the rules did

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Speaker 1: not explicitly forbid it, Byron had brought with him a

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Speaker 1: pet bear. And now Caroline read his poetry, it was irresistible.

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Speaker 1: She begged their mutual friend Samuel Rodgers to introduce her,

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Speaker 1: but Rogers new Byron, and more importantly, he knew Byron's

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Speaker 1: reputation with women. Child Harold was already a sensation, and

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Speaker 1: Rogers was flooded with requests from increasingly desperate women, begging

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Speaker 1: him to introduce them to his famous friend, and so

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Speaker 1: with Caroline Lamb, Rogers demurred. He told her that Byron,

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Speaker 1: who bit his nails, had a club foot and eyes

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Speaker 1: too close together, was almost certain lee nowhere near as

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Speaker 1: attractive as the man that Caroline Lamb conjured in her

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Speaker 1: mind while reading Child Harold, the sensitive, lonely poet. She

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Speaker 1: imagined when she read lines like there is a pleasure

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Speaker 1: in the pathless Wood, there is a rapture on the

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Speaker 1: lonely shore. But Caroline Lamb would not be dissuaded from

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Speaker 1: meeting him if he's ugly as as up. I must

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Speaker 1: see him, she informed Rogers. She decided to write Byron

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Speaker 1: a letter. She addressed it to Child Harold. I have

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Speaker 1: read your book and cannot refrain from telling you that

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Speaker 1: I think it beautiful. You deserve to be and you

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Speaker 1: shall be happy. Do not throw away such talents as

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Speaker 1: you possess in gloom and regrets for the past. And

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Speaker 1: above all, live here in your own country, which will

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Speaker 1: be proud of you. She left the letter anonymous. Lord

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Speaker 1: Byron had been receiving a lot of letters from female admirers.

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Speaker 1: He had been receiving so many letters, in fact, that

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Speaker 1: when women requested locks of his hair, he started sending

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Speaker 1: back clippings from his dog boat swing. But Caroline Lamb

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Speaker 1: could do something that none of the other women writing

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Speaker 1: to Byron could. She could imitate him his poetry rather

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Speaker 1: almost perfectly, And so just two days after she sent

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Speaker 1: the first anonymous letter, she sent a second, in which

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Speaker 1: she wrote fourteen lines with the same meter of child Harold,

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Speaker 1: a perfect homage strong love I feel for one I

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Speaker 1: shall not name what I should feel for THEE could

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Speaker 1: never be the same. But admiration interest is free, and

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Speaker 1: that Child Harold may receive from me. For a man

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Speaker 1: who loved himself as much as Byron did, Caroline Lamb

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Speaker 1: figured correctly there would be almost nothing more appealing than

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Speaker 1: his own, and reflected back at him. She signed this

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Speaker 1: letter ardent, as her passions were. She was still a

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Speaker 1: married woman and discretion was needed. Caroline Lamb ended the

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Speaker 1: second letter by asking Byron to leave his response for

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Speaker 1: her at the Circulating library on Bond Street under the

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Speaker 1: false name Mr. Sidney Allison. Caroline Lamb waited and waited

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Speaker 1: and waited. No response came. It was a rare thing

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Speaker 1: for a woman like Caroline Lamb, astronomically aristocratic, not to

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Speaker 1: get what she wanted. But her moment with Byron would

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Speaker 1: come soon enough. She saw him for the first time

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Speaker 1: just a few days later in person, at a ball

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Speaker 1: held by Lady Westernmoreland, where he stood so pale and

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Speaker 1: still that he looked like a marble statue come to life.

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Speaker 1: Byron was sometimes described as an alabaster vase lit from within.

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Speaker 1: He was not classically handsome, but he was impossible to

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Speaker 1: look away from, so charming and compelling that he had

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Speaker 1: both women and men desperate for just a moment of

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Speaker 1: his attention. He was standing at the edge of the

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Speaker 1: ball room. Byron, born with a club foot and always

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Speaker 1: self conscious about it, never danced, but over the years

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Speaker 1: in his bedroom alone, he had figured out exactly the

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Speaker 1: right way to stand so his club foot was impossible

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Speaker 1: to see, so that from a distance he looked tall

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Speaker 1: and straight and striking. He was an incredibly vain man.

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Speaker 1: He would go daze, eating only biscuits and water. To

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Speaker 1: maintain his slender figure. He kept his necklines low to

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Speaker 1: show off the curve of his collar bone. He knew

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Speaker 1: just how to look at a woman from underneath his

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Speaker 1: dark curls, to make it so that she would never

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Speaker 1: be able to think of anyone else. At the party,

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Speaker 1: Lord Byron saw Caroline Lamb, and Caroline Lamb saw him

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Speaker 1: flirting with other women, but the two made eye contact

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Speaker 1: from across the room while she danced, and Byron, proud

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Speaker 1: of himself for declining to answer her letter for making

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Speaker 1: her weight, prepared to make his introductions. But before he

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Speaker 1: could approach her, Caroline Lamb was gone. She had left

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Speaker 1: the party early. Byron was enthralled a woman that first

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Speaker 1: not only had written to him, but then had chosen

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Speaker 1: to shrug her shoulders and glide out of a party

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Speaker 1: before they could meet in person. If he hadn't written

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Speaker 1: back to her, she figured he could be the one

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Speaker 1: to chase her. But cool and elegant as she had

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Speaker 1: seemed leaving the Westernmoorland ball, when Caroline got home, her

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Speaker 1: heart was pounding with the memory of that strange and

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Speaker 1: handsome man. In her diary that very night, she wrote

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Speaker 1: the words that would be associated with Byron for centuries

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Speaker 1: to come, mad, bad, and dangerous to know. But she

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Speaker 1: wrote another sentence about Byron less remembered. Yes, but for

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Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb, far more prophetic that beautiful pale face. She wrote,

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Speaker 1: will be my fate. One morning, without announcing himself, Lord

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Speaker 1: Byron came with his friend Samuel Rodgers to Caroline Lamb's house.

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Speaker 1: She had not been expecting guests, and she entered the

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Speaker 1: house hot and sweaty from a morning of riding. Byron

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Speaker 1: had come with a gift. Arose, your ladyship, I am told,

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Speaker 1: likes all that is new and rare. For a moment

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Speaker 1: he said it was done. Caroline Lamb was in love,

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Speaker 1: and the two began an affair that turned aristocratic London

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Speaker 1: on its head for months. Byron called on Caroline Lamb,

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Speaker 1: frequently bringing her books and holding her young son, Augustus

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Speaker 1: on his knee. Caroline Lamb and Byron shared interests and

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Speaker 1: gardening and dogs and philosophy. They spent long evenings in

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Speaker 1: rooms lit only by dwindling fireplaces, reading The Castle of

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Speaker 1: a Tronto side by side, or gossiping about people that

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Speaker 1: they met at parties. He called her Caro, and she

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Speaker 1: adopted that nickname with everyone. The two wrote each other

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Speaker 1: multiple times a day. Byron told Caroline Lamb secrets he

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Speaker 1: had never shared with anyone else. He told her about

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Speaker 1: his first love, his cousin Mary, who broke his heart

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Speaker 1: when he once overheard her saying do you think that

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Speaker 1: I could care anything for that lame boy? Byron told

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Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb about his love affairs at university with the

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Speaker 1: chorus star John Edelston and two other boys. Homosexuality was

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Speaker 1: still a capital offense in England, one that could get

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Speaker 1: Byron hanged. Kara sent Byron a lock of her pubic hair,

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Speaker 1: cut so close to the skin that it clung to

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Speaker 1: dried blood. Byron sent back a golden locket engraved with

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Speaker 1: his family motto Cree Day Byron have faith in Byron,

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Speaker 1: but even when the two were in love, it was

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Speaker 1: never an easy domestic love. The two were artistic spirits

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Speaker 1: and they craved drama. Caro invited Byron to a waltzing dance,

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Speaker 1: and though he accepted, he seethed internally. His club foot

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Speaker 1: made him unable to dance, and he hated seeing Caroline

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Speaker 1: with other partners. He had to spend the party talking

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Speaker 1: to Caroline's beautiful, dull, religious cousin, Annabella Millbank, in the corner.

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Speaker 1: After that night, Byron forbade her from waltzing, and Caroline acquiesced.

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Speaker 1: Their friends tried to keep them apart. They were fire

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Speaker 1: and Gasolene, flint and steel, and sooner or later there

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Speaker 1: would only be rubble left. Caroline was a powerful woman,

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Speaker 1: but she was impulsive and jealous. Having an affair when

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Speaker 1: you were married was all well and good if you

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Speaker 1: could be subtle about it, but Caroline was finding that

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Speaker 1: increasingly difficult, especially once she saw how much attention Byron

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Speaker 1: was getting from all of the other women in London.

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Speaker 1: Annabella Millbank chuckling Lee dubbed it by Romania, but even

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Speaker 1: she couldn't resist asking her cousin Caroline to pass along

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Speaker 1: one or two of the poems she had written to

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Speaker 1: the famous Byron. Caroline was born status and she didn't

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Speaker 1: give a lick what other people thought of her. But

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Speaker 1: Byron low born Byron, craved approval, and more importantly, he

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Speaker 1: needed money. If he was to establish himself in proper society,

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Speaker 1: he wouldn't need a rich and statused wife, and finding

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Speaker 1: one would be all the more difficult if he was

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Speaker 1: scandalized by a wild and public liaison with a married woman.

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Speaker 1: When Caroline flippantly gave Byron a few of Annabella's poems,

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Speaker 1: he asked Caroline whether he thought that she might make

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Speaker 1: a good wife for him. Annabella was pretty, and she

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Speaker 1: was rich, and unlike Caroline Lamb, she was unmarried. Caroline

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Speaker 1: said that she was probably going to marry a man

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Speaker 1: they knew named George Eden, And for good measure, Caroline

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Speaker 1: composed a sarcastic poem for Byron, where she sardonically wrote

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Speaker 1: that Annabella would be a fond mother and a faithful wife.

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Speaker 1: Nothing could possibly be less appeal link to the impulsive,

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Speaker 1: impossible to please Byron so easily bored. Nothing was boring

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Speaker 1: about Caroline Lamb. But as the months drew on, and

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Speaker 1: she felt Byron's attention begin to wane. Her own devotion

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Speaker 1: to him became all the more zealous. She became more

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Speaker 1: public and more reckless in her ardor Byron's own friends

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Speaker 1: were urging him to keep his distance. Byron found that challenging,

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Speaker 1: especially when Caroline Lamb wouldn't admit that she loved him

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Speaker 1: more than her own husband. It's not that Byron could

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Speaker 1: actually have her, he didn't even particularly want her anymore,

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Speaker 1: but god damn it if he didn't need to hear

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Speaker 1: her say that she loved him above all else. So

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Speaker 1: he hinted at elopement. Caroline Lamb responded too eagerly. His

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Speaker 1: bluff was called, and at the urging of his friends,

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Speaker 1: he retreated from London to Newstead without saying goodbye. Caroline

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Speaker 1: Lamb was baffled and heartbroken. She sent dozens of letters

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Speaker 1: to Newstead, all of which went without a reply. It

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Speaker 1: was maddening. Carol became increasingly frantic, and when she heard

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Speaker 1: that Byron might have returned briefly to London, she was manic.

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Speaker 1: She showed up at his home H James Street in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the day, disguised as a page boy.

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Speaker 1: She wasn't thinking of what a scandal it would cause

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Speaker 1: to have a married woman alone at a man's house.

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Speaker 1: All she could think of was Byron. Byron told her

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Speaker 1: to leave. Caroline Lamb pulled a letter opener from his

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Speaker 1: desk and tried to stab herself, weeping with love and

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Speaker 1: anger and frustration and loneliness. Didn't he remember how it felt?

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Speaker 1: Hadn't he felt that loneliness that yearning when he had

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Speaker 1: written child Harold. Byron held her until she was calm,

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Speaker 1: until the knife dropped from her hand. Things had gone

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Speaker 1: too far. Byron's friends could see it, and Caroline's family

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00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:18,080
Speaker 1: could see it. Seeing her declining mental health, her in

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Speaker 1: laws insisted that she spent some time away from London

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Speaker 1: society in Ireland. With Caroline Lamb safely out of the country,

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00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:30,879
Speaker 1: Byron felt it was safe to write intimately again. The

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00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:33,480
Speaker 1: affair was over, but he didn't want to lose the

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Speaker 1: flattery of having a noble woman like Caroline Lamb be

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Speaker 1: madly in love with him, and so in his goodbye

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Speaker 1: letter he wrote, I was and am yours freely and

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Speaker 1: most entirely to obey, to honor, love, and fly with

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Speaker 1: you when where and how you yourself might and may

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00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:58,359
Speaker 1: determine throw her a bone. He figured Caroline Lamb was

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00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:00,560
Speaker 1: out of the country and out of his head, and

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00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:05,280
Speaker 1: Byron began a new affair, another older titled woman, a

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Speaker 1: friend of Caroline's, actually the Countess of Oxford. But love

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00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:16,000
Speaker 1: could not so easily extinguish itself in Caroline Lamb. She

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00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:22,320
Speaker 1: wrote him from Ireland endlessly. She stopped eating. She devoted herself,

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Speaker 1: body and soul to the memory of her affair with

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Speaker 1: Byron and the dream of rekindling it. If Byron thought

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Speaker 1: he could dismiss her with a kiss on the cheek,

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Speaker 1: he was incorrect, and so Byron had to be more explicit. Finally,

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Speaker 1: after months of letters, he wrote her back, correct your

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Speaker 1: vanity which is ridiculous, exert your absurd caprices upon others,

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Speaker 1: and leave me in peace. The letter was harsh and unsympathetic, yes,

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Speaker 1: but Byron did something a step further. He added to

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Speaker 1: the letter a final piece of nastiness that would cause

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00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:05,960
Speaker 1: the blood to leave Caroline Lamb's face and ignite in

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00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:10,359
Speaker 1: her a new, white, hot furnace of humiliation and fury.

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00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:14,960
Speaker 1: In a final act of cruelty, Byron had sealed the

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Speaker 1: letter with his new lover, Lady Oxford's wax stamp. Caroline

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00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:36,959
Speaker 1: Lamb became obsessed. Eventually, she and Byron both returned to London,

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Speaker 1: officially excess, and Caroline Lamb became desperate to enact or

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Speaker 1: revenge on the man who had helped her see the

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00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:47,119
Speaker 1: poetry in the world and then thrown it out with

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Speaker 1: a scornful laugh. Caroline wrote to Lady Oxford and threatened

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Speaker 1: to tell the world of their affair. Lady Oxford laughed

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Speaker 1: at the threat, but Byron was incensed and paranoid. The

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00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:02,680
Speaker 1: amazon she ated. Caroline Lamb would show up to parties

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Speaker 1: and spend the night clutching a glass and staring at Byron.

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00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 1: He joked to friends that he was being haunted by

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Speaker 1: a skeleton. Caroline wrote to Byron and asked him to

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Speaker 1: return her letters and all of the tokens of her

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Speaker 1: love that she had sent along to him. He obliged,

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Speaker 1: more or less some of the trinkets he had already

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Speaker 1: given to other women. Caroline threw them all into a

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Speaker 1: bonfire and danced around his smoldering effigy. She made up

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00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:34,840
Speaker 1: new buttons for her staff to wear. No cree day Byron,

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00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:39,160
Speaker 1: they said, a takeoff on his family crest have no

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Speaker 1: faith in Byron. No one knew Byron like Caroline Lamb,

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Speaker 1: and so no one knew, like Caroline Lamb, exactly how

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Speaker 1: to get under Byron's skin. When she showed up at

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Speaker 1: his home unannounced one afternoon to find him out, she

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00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:57,920
Speaker 1: snuck up to his desk and flipped open the inside

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Speaker 1: cover of the book Bathic by William Beckford. Remember Me,

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00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 1: she wrote inside. The threat was implicit. Beckford was famously bisexual,

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Speaker 1: and Caroline knew all about Byron's attraction to men. Byron

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00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:19,159
Speaker 1: responded with the poem he never published, Remember the Remember

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Speaker 1: the till least quench life's burning stream. Remorse and shame

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00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 1: still cling to thee and haunt thee like a feverish dream.

335
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 1: When Caroline Lamb heard that Byron wanted to give one

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Speaker 1: of his favorite portraits of himself to his new lover,

337
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:40,159
Speaker 1: Lady Oxford, she used her talent for mimicry once again.

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Speaker 1: She forged a letter from Byron and brought it to

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Speaker 1: his publisher, where they kept the portrait. They gave it

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Speaker 1: to her. Byron was furious. He was less angry that

341
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 1: the portrait was gone, although it had been a very

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00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: good one of him, and far more outrage that Caroline

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00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: Lamb had been good enough to imitate at his writing.

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Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb agreed that you would give him his portrait

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Speaker 1: in exchange for a lock of his hair in his scorn.

346
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 1: Byron agreed, but he sent along a clipping knot of

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Speaker 1: his hair, but of Lady Oxford's. Byron and Caroline's final

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Speaker 1: confrontation occurred at a party. I assume I'm allowed to

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00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 1: waltz now, Caroline said to her former lover, who was

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Speaker 1: standing as he always did on the sidelines. Well, of course,

351
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:38,400
Speaker 1: Byron responded, you do it so well and with everybody.

352
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb broke a glass in her hand and made

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Speaker 1: as if she were to cut herself with one of

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Speaker 1: the shards. They wrote about it in the papers the

355
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Speaker 1: next day. Byron joked that, ever the lover of theatrics,

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Speaker 1: she had performed the dagger scene from Macbeth. Eventually, even

357
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Speaker 1: Lady Oxford would leave Byron's favor when Byron's half sister,

358
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:06,400
Speaker 1: Augusta Lee, came to town. The two were so inseparable

359
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 1: that even polite society couldn't help. But murmur about possible incest.

360
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:16,919
Speaker 1: I mean they were inseparable. And then the murmurs became

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00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 1: a little louder after Augusta Lee had a baby, but

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00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 1: Byron needed to get married to an heiress. Caroline Lamb's rich,

363
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 1: well behaved apple cheeks cousin, Annabella Millbank, agreed to marry

364
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 1: him the second time he asked. It was a disastrous

365
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 1: decision from the onset. Byron never really wanted to marry her,

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Speaker 1: but the fact that she had once turned him down

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Speaker 1: meant that she was irresistible. He had to get her.

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00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:51,879
Speaker 1: Even Annabella realized she had made a mistake when Byron's

369
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: best man gave her a wedding gift and wished her

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Speaker 1: many years of happiness. As he sent them off on

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Speaker 1: their honeymoon, the new lady Byron replied, if I am

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00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 1: not happy, it will be my own fault. On the

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00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 1: way back from the ceremony, Byron had a panic attack.

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00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,400
Speaker 1: It's too late, now it's done, it cannot be undone,

375
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 1: he snapped at his new bride. As they exited the carriage.

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00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:18,480
Speaker 1: He smacked her hand away from his. That night, he

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00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: slept in the master bedroom with his half sister Augusta

378
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: while his new bride slept on the couch in the

379
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: dressing room alone. Byron became increasingly despondent, and his financial

380
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 1: troubles mounted. He rejected all income from his writing as

381
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Speaker 1: a gentleman. He believed it wasn't appropriate for him to

382
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: be paid for his poetry. He was manic and sour,

383
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: drinking heavily, and highly suspicious that his new wife was

384
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 1: sneaking through his private things. Annabella told friend that she

385
00:27:56,119 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 1: was afraid her husband had gone mad. Just after their

386
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: one year anniversary, one month after their daughter, Ada was born,

387
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: Annabella took Aida and left to stay with her parents.

388
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: Neither Annabella nor Ada would ever see Byron again. In

389
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 1: an effort to ensure that Aida didn't descend into her

390
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: father's poetic madness, Annabella steered her daughter toward mathematics. It

391
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:29,159
Speaker 1: seemed to take Ada Lovelace, Byron's only legitimate child, is

392
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: often credited as the world's first computer programmer, thanks to

393
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 1: her work on the Analytic Engine computer alongside Charles Babbage.

394
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: As for Caroline Lamb throughout all of this, love and

395
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: hate are impossible to disentangle completely. She comforted Annabella during

396
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 1: her separation proceedings, giving Annabella all of the information she

397
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: could that she could settle the divorce on her terms.

398
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 1: Caroline spread rumors of Byron's incestu his affair with his

399
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 1: half sister, but at the same time she wrote to Byron,

400
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: comforting him and claiming to be on his side through

401
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: it all, even after he broke her heart. She couldn't

402
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 1: allow herself to be hated by him. Byron, perhaps sensing

403
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 1: her duplicity, pulled away, disgusted, and so in eighteen sixteen,

404
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb played her final hand. In order to burn Byron,

405
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: she would immolate herself and let them go up in

406
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: flames together. She published a novel called Glenn Arvon, a

407
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: thinly veiled account of her affair with Lord Byron, in

408
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 1: which a scandalous rake named Lord Ruthven corrupts a young

409
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: married woman named Calantha. It was an immediate sensation, with

410
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: all of London society desperate to read such an intimate

411
00:29:56,040 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: and scandalous reflection of their own lives. Caroline Into reputation

412
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: was ruined, and she would never make her way into

413
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: high society again. As for Byron's side of the story,

414
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 1: will never read it at least not completely. Byron died

415
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 1: young at the age of thirty six of an illness

416
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 1: while he was in Greece, where he held the romantic

417
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 1: fantasy of leading an army up against the Ottoman Empire.

418
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 1: After his death, his friends assembled to read his memoirs.

419
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: After they finished, they unanimously decided to burn them should

420
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:38,680
Speaker 1: they be made public, They said they would have damned

421
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: him to everlasting infamy. If you're interested in learning more

422
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 1: about Lord Byron, you can check out a book I

423
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: wrote called The White Man's Guide to White Male Writers

424
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 1: of the Western Cannon. It's exactly like this, only much

425
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: less history and much more jokes. So almost nothing like this,

426
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: but I think you'll like it. It's available now at

427
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: your local bookstore. And if you want to hear about

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Speaker 1: how Lord Byron inspired one of the most famous characters

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Speaker 1: in all of literature, keep listening. After this brief sponsor break,

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Speaker 1: scandalized by his separation and the incessant rumors of incest,

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Speaker 1: Lord Byron left England for the final time in eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixteen with his personal doctor, John Polidori. He settled for

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Speaker 1: the summer at the Villa Diodati at Lake Geneva in Switzerland.

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Speaker 1: Joining him was the poet Percy bish Shelley, his future

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Speaker 1: wife Mary Shelley, and Mary's stepsister Claire Claremont, who had

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Speaker 1: had an affair with Byron in London, was madly in

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Speaker 1: love with him, and who had been the one who

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Speaker 1: more or less forced Mary and Percy to spend the

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Speaker 1: summer with Byron so she could tag along. It was

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Speaker 1: a famous and scandalous group. Hotels from across the lake

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Speaker 1: charged guests to look through telescopes for the chance to

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Speaker 1: see them, but guests who paid up hoping to witness

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Speaker 1: some orgy outside on the sand, were woefully unlucky. This

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Speaker 1: summer was miserable that year, wet, cold reigning incessantly, and

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Speaker 1: so the group of writers stayed inside and decided to

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Speaker 1: engage in a contest to see who could write the

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Speaker 1: best ghost story. Famously, the contest's winner was eighteen year

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Speaker 1: old Mary Shelley, who wrote the beginnings of what would

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Speaker 1: become Frankenstein. But that wasn't the only significant work that

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Speaker 1: began with that little contest. In his short story, John

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Speaker 1: Polidori wrote about a mysterious man who arrived in London,

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Speaker 1: a man with impossibly pale skin, and dark hair, who

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Speaker 1: seduced women and left a trail of bodies in his wake.

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Speaker 1: Eighty one years before Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, Polo Doori

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Speaker 1: wrote the first piece of Gothic literature ever to feature

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Speaker 1: that folklore creature, the vampire, and in Polodori story, the

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Speaker 1: vampire's name is Lord Ruthven you see, in case he

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Speaker 1: had been too subtle. Polo Doori borrowed the pseudonym that

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Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb had created for Lord Byron in her novel.

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Speaker 1: It was the name she used for the man who

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Speaker 1: took her blood, who took her heart, and who took

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Speaker 1: whatever was left. Noble Blood is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Aaron Mankey. The show was written and

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Speaker 1: hosted by Danis Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick,

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Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social

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Speaker 1: media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more

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Speaker 1: about the show over at Noble blood Tales dot com.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows. M