Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. The first week
Speaker 1: of December in eighteen twelve, when a frost had just
Speaker 1: barely begun to cling to the expansive lawns of Brocket Hall,
Speaker 1: Lady Caroline Lamb ordered that a massive bonfire be built.
Speaker 1: Since Lord Byron had first arrived in London society a
Speaker 1: little under a year ago, Caroline Lamb's behavior had become
Speaker 1: increasingly strange outrageous. Even the staff had learned not to
Speaker 1: ask too many questions. From the nearby village of Welwyn,
Speaker 1: Caroline gathered a group of local girls and told them
Speaker 1: all to dress in white. Within minutes, she was leading
Speaker 1: them down the road in a ghostly procession towards the
Speaker 1: sky licking orange flames. She was like a pied piper,
Speaker 1: pulling them forward, not with music, but with the implacable
Speaker 1: magnetic force of her single minded resolve and her gleeful anger.
Speaker 1: While the village girls danced around the flames, Caroline Lamb
Speaker 1: revealed an effigy she had built of Lord Byron, made
Speaker 1: of straw but unmistakable. She threw it onto the flames.
Speaker 1: As the fire leapt higher and began to consume the
Speaker 1: figure of straw, Caroline Lamb began tossing other things into
Speaker 1: the fire, letters, quills, books, rings, and a golden locket.
Speaker 1: And then, once everything Caroline Lamb had left of her
Speaker 1: former lover was burning, she began to recite a poem
Speaker 1: that she had written, Burn, Fire Burn, while wondering boys exclaim,
Speaker 1: all gold and trinkets glitter in the flame. Any chill
Speaker 1: in the December air was gone. Caroline Lamb was so
Speaker 1: close to the heat of the fire that her hair
Speaker 1: clung with sweat to her forehead. She stood so close
Speaker 1: to the flames that they reflected in her dark eyes,
Speaker 1: yellow orange, and dancing with a hellish fury, Caroline Lamb
Speaker 1: didn't seem to blink. Although history has made Lord Byron's
Speaker 1: anonymous with the wild passions to poetry, it's his most
Speaker 1: famous lover, Caroline Lamb, who I confess I believe makes
Speaker 1: a more fitting figurehead for the Romantic era. Caroline Lamb
Speaker 1: was a woman driven mad with love, who shed all vanity,
Speaker 1: all concerned for society or propriety, and devoted herself entirely
Speaker 1: to the object of her affection. She quite literally lost
Speaker 1: herself in poetry. Byron charming, handsome, vain, miserable. Byron was talented,
Speaker 1: but he never off site of his exact position in
Speaker 1: society and where he might move next. He was impatient
Speaker 1: and easily bored. Isn't passion supposed to run deep? On
Speaker 1: that December night in eighteen twelve, Caroline Lamb burned all
Speaker 1: of the trinkets she had of her affair with the
Speaker 1: era's most famous writer. But Byron's hold on her heart
Speaker 1: would last for the rest of her life. The two
Speaker 1: were locked in her wretched, beautiful dance, and when Caroline
Speaker 1: Lamb was scorned, she was happy to leave ashes in
Speaker 1: her wake. I'm Dana Schwartz and this is noble blood. Lord.
Speaker 1: Byron's story began when he was a toddler living with
Speaker 1: his mother, and the two got word that his father,
Speaker 1: mad Jack Buyer, had died and in his will left
Speaker 1: all of his debts to his three year old son.
Speaker 1: Mad Jack had only married Byron's mother for her money.
Speaker 1: Everyone knew that, and it took about a year or
Speaker 1: so before he worked his way through it. After another year,
Speaker 1: he was so heavily in debt that he was forced
Speaker 1: to go into exile, leaving his wife a newborn son
Speaker 1: alone to fend for themselves. Byron and his mother lived
Speaker 1: in Scotland above a shop. But then a stroke of luck,
Speaker 1: when Byron was eight, his uncle, the Baron Byron, died
Speaker 1: without an heir. Young George Gordon Byron, future poet, inherited
Speaker 1: his title. It was a low ranking title, sure, but
Speaker 1: it was still a title, and so young Byron and
Speaker 1: his mother made their way from their home in Aberdeen
Speaker 1: down to the estate that Byron now owned, Newstead Abbey.
Speaker 1: Nowstead Abbey was a wreck, a crumbling stone facade with
Speaker 1: a half caved in ceiling and uneven floors. It would
Speaker 1: be impossible to live in and its upkeep would be
Speaker 1: a drain on Byron's finances for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: But still it was undeniably beautiful. There were sweeping grounds
Speaker 1: and ancient edifices. It was a gorgeous Gothic fantasy playground
Speaker 1: for the young Byron's imagination. Newstead Abbey, even in decay,
Speaker 1: represented everything in the world that Byron wanted. Even the
Speaker 1: poet Byron couldn't see the poetic irony of it being
Speaker 1: uninhabitable after studying at Cambridge, Byron went on a grand
Speaker 1: tour of Europe, during which he published the first two
Speaker 1: cantos of his epic, semi autobiographical poem Child Harold's Pilgrimage.
Speaker 1: Byron returned to England as a celebrity. Women swooned reading
Speaker 1: his poetry about a young, disaffected man searching for meaning
Speaker 1: and failing to find it among the hedonism and revelry
Speaker 1: of high society, who before Byron had so perfectly captured
Speaker 1: that exquisite pain of being surrounded by people but feeling alone.
Speaker 1: Then stirs the feeling infinite so felt in solitude where
Speaker 1: we are least alone. Lady Caroline Lamb was born to
Speaker 1: the type of family that Byron could have only dreamed of.
Speaker 1: She was the daughter of an earl and a countess,
Speaker 1: niece to the famous Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, and
Speaker 1: wife of a man who would go on to become
Speaker 1: Prime Minister. At twenty six, when she received an advanced
Speaker 1: copy of Byron's Child Harold, she was one of the
Speaker 1: most eminent women in London. Caroline Lamb was immediately smitten.
Speaker 1: She had heard stories about Lord Byron, about his rakish adventures.
Speaker 1: She had heard about when he was a student at Cambridge,
Speaker 1: and he had been forbidden from keeping his dog with
Speaker 1: him as a pet, and so, because the rules did
Speaker 1: not explicitly forbid it, Byron had brought with him a
Speaker 1: pet bear. And now Caroline read his poetry, it was irresistible.
Speaker 1: She begged their mutual friend Samuel Rodgers to introduce her,
Speaker 1: but Rogers new Byron, and more importantly, he knew Byron's
Speaker 1: reputation with women. Child Harold was already a sensation, and
Speaker 1: Rogers was flooded with requests from increasingly desperate women, begging
Speaker 1: him to introduce them to his famous friend, and so
Speaker 1: with Caroline Lamb, Rogers demurred. He told her that Byron,
Speaker 1: who bit his nails, had a club foot and eyes
Speaker 1: too close together, was almost certain lee nowhere near as
Speaker 1: attractive as the man that Caroline Lamb conjured in her
Speaker 1: mind while reading Child Harold, the sensitive, lonely poet. She
Speaker 1: imagined when she read lines like there is a pleasure
Speaker 1: in the pathless Wood, there is a rapture on the
Speaker 1: lonely shore. But Caroline Lamb would not be dissuaded from
Speaker 1: meeting him if he's ugly as as up. I must
Speaker 1: see him, she informed Rogers. She decided to write Byron
Speaker 1: a letter. She addressed it to Child Harold. I have
Speaker 1: read your book and cannot refrain from telling you that
Speaker 1: I think it beautiful. You deserve to be and you
Speaker 1: shall be happy. Do not throw away such talents as
Speaker 1: you possess in gloom and regrets for the past. And
Speaker 1: above all, live here in your own country, which will
Speaker 1: be proud of you. She left the letter anonymous. Lord
Speaker 1: Byron had been receiving a lot of letters from female admirers.
Speaker 1: He had been receiving so many letters, in fact, that
Speaker 1: when women requested locks of his hair, he started sending
Speaker 1: back clippings from his dog boat swing. But Caroline Lamb
Speaker 1: could do something that none of the other women writing
Speaker 1: to Byron could. She could imitate him his poetry rather
Speaker 1: almost perfectly, And so just two days after she sent
Speaker 1: the first anonymous letter, she sent a second, in which
Speaker 1: she wrote fourteen lines with the same meter of child Harold,
Speaker 1: a perfect homage strong love I feel for one I
Speaker 1: shall not name what I should feel for THEE could
Speaker 1: never be the same. But admiration interest is free, and
Speaker 1: that Child Harold may receive from me. For a man
Speaker 1: who loved himself as much as Byron did, Caroline Lamb
Speaker 1: figured correctly there would be almost nothing more appealing than
Speaker 1: his own, and reflected back at him. She signed this
Speaker 1: letter ardent, as her passions were. She was still a
Speaker 1: married woman and discretion was needed. Caroline Lamb ended the
Speaker 1: second letter by asking Byron to leave his response for
Speaker 1: her at the Circulating library on Bond Street under the
Speaker 1: false name Mr. Sidney Allison. Caroline Lamb waited and waited
Speaker 1: and waited. No response came. It was a rare thing
Speaker 1: for a woman like Caroline Lamb, astronomically aristocratic, not to
Speaker 1: get what she wanted. But her moment with Byron would
Speaker 1: come soon enough. She saw him for the first time
Speaker 1: just a few days later in person, at a ball
Speaker 1: held by Lady Westernmoreland, where he stood so pale and
Speaker 1: still that he looked like a marble statue come to life.
Speaker 1: Byron was sometimes described as an alabaster vase lit from within.
Speaker 1: He was not classically handsome, but he was impossible to
Speaker 1: look away from, so charming and compelling that he had
Speaker 1: both women and men desperate for just a moment of
Speaker 1: his attention. He was standing at the edge of the
Speaker 1: ball room. Byron, born with a club foot and always
Speaker 1: self conscious about it, never danced, but over the years
Speaker 1: in his bedroom alone, he had figured out exactly the
Speaker 1: right way to stand so his club foot was impossible
Speaker 1: to see, so that from a distance he looked tall
Speaker 1: and straight and striking. He was an incredibly vain man.
Speaker 1: He would go daze, eating only biscuits and water. To
Speaker 1: maintain his slender figure. He kept his necklines low to
Speaker 1: show off the curve of his collar bone. He knew
Speaker 1: just how to look at a woman from underneath his
Speaker 1: dark curls, to make it so that she would never
Speaker 1: be able to think of anyone else. At the party,
Speaker 1: Lord Byron saw Caroline Lamb, and Caroline Lamb saw him
Speaker 1: flirting with other women, but the two made eye contact
Speaker 1: from across the room while she danced, and Byron, proud
Speaker 1: of himself for declining to answer her letter for making
Speaker 1: her weight, prepared to make his introductions. But before he
Speaker 1: could approach her, Caroline Lamb was gone. She had left
Speaker 1: the party early. Byron was enthralled a woman that first
Speaker 1: not only had written to him, but then had chosen
Speaker 1: to shrug her shoulders and glide out of a party
Speaker 1: before they could meet in person. If he hadn't written
Speaker 1: back to her, she figured he could be the one
Speaker 1: to chase her. But cool and elegant as she had
Speaker 1: seemed leaving the Westernmoorland ball, when Caroline got home, her
Speaker 1: heart was pounding with the memory of that strange and
Speaker 1: handsome man. In her diary that very night, she wrote
Speaker 1: the words that would be associated with Byron for centuries
Speaker 1: to come, mad, bad, and dangerous to know. But she
Speaker 1: wrote another sentence about Byron less remembered. Yes, but for
Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb, far more prophetic that beautiful pale face. She wrote,
Speaker 1: will be my fate. One morning, without announcing himself, Lord
Speaker 1: Byron came with his friend Samuel Rodgers to Caroline Lamb's house.
Speaker 1: She had not been expecting guests, and she entered the
Speaker 1: house hot and sweaty from a morning of riding. Byron
Speaker 1: had come with a gift. Arose, your ladyship, I am told,
Speaker 1: likes all that is new and rare. For a moment
Speaker 1: he said it was done. Caroline Lamb was in love,
Speaker 1: and the two began an affair that turned aristocratic London
Speaker 1: on its head for months. Byron called on Caroline Lamb,
Speaker 1: frequently bringing her books and holding her young son, Augustus
Speaker 1: on his knee. Caroline Lamb and Byron shared interests and
Speaker 1: gardening and dogs and philosophy. They spent long evenings in
Speaker 1: rooms lit only by dwindling fireplaces, reading The Castle of
Speaker 1: a Tronto side by side, or gossiping about people that
Speaker 1: they met at parties. He called her Caro, and she
Speaker 1: adopted that nickname with everyone. The two wrote each other
Speaker 1: multiple times a day. Byron told Caroline Lamb secrets he
Speaker 1: had never shared with anyone else. He told her about
Speaker 1: his first love, his cousin Mary, who broke his heart
Speaker 1: when he once overheard her saying do you think that
Speaker 1: I could care anything for that lame boy? Byron told
Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb about his love affairs at university with the
Speaker 1: chorus star John Edelston and two other boys. Homosexuality was
Speaker 1: still a capital offense in England, one that could get
Speaker 1: Byron hanged. Kara sent Byron a lock of her pubic hair,
Speaker 1: cut so close to the skin that it clung to
Speaker 1: dried blood. Byron sent back a golden locket engraved with
Speaker 1: his family motto Cree Day Byron have faith in Byron,
Speaker 1: but even when the two were in love, it was
Speaker 1: never an easy domestic love. The two were artistic spirits
Speaker 1: and they craved drama. Caro invited Byron to a waltzing dance,
Speaker 1: and though he accepted, he seethed internally. His club foot
Speaker 1: made him unable to dance, and he hated seeing Caroline
Speaker 1: with other partners. He had to spend the party talking
Speaker 1: to Caroline's beautiful, dull, religious cousin, Annabella Millbank, in the corner.
Speaker 1: After that night, Byron forbade her from waltzing, and Caroline acquiesced.
Speaker 1: Their friends tried to keep them apart. They were fire
Speaker 1: and Gasolene, flint and steel, and sooner or later there
Speaker 1: would only be rubble left. Caroline was a powerful woman,
Speaker 1: but she was impulsive and jealous. Having an affair when
Speaker 1: you were married was all well and good if you
Speaker 1: could be subtle about it, but Caroline was finding that
Speaker 1: increasingly difficult, especially once she saw how much attention Byron
Speaker 1: was getting from all of the other women in London.
Speaker 1: Annabella Millbank chuckling Lee dubbed it by Romania, but even
Speaker 1: she couldn't resist asking her cousin Caroline to pass along
Speaker 1: one or two of the poems she had written to
Speaker 1: the famous Byron. Caroline was born status and she didn't
Speaker 1: give a lick what other people thought of her. But
Speaker 1: Byron low born Byron, craved approval, and more importantly, he
Speaker 1: needed money. If he was to establish himself in proper society,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't need a rich and statused wife, and finding
Speaker 1: one would be all the more difficult if he was
Speaker 1: scandalized by a wild and public liaison with a married woman.
Speaker 1: When Caroline flippantly gave Byron a few of Annabella's poems,
Speaker 1: he asked Caroline whether he thought that she might make
Speaker 1: a good wife for him. Annabella was pretty, and she
Speaker 1: was rich, and unlike Caroline Lamb, she was unmarried. Caroline
Speaker 1: said that she was probably going to marry a man
Speaker 1: they knew named George Eden, And for good measure, Caroline
Speaker 1: composed a sarcastic poem for Byron, where she sardonically wrote
Speaker 1: that Annabella would be a fond mother and a faithful wife.
Speaker 1: Nothing could possibly be less appeal link to the impulsive,
Speaker 1: impossible to please Byron so easily bored. Nothing was boring
Speaker 1: about Caroline Lamb. But as the months drew on, and
Speaker 1: she felt Byron's attention begin to wane. Her own devotion
Speaker 1: to him became all the more zealous. She became more
Speaker 1: public and more reckless in her ardor Byron's own friends
Speaker 1: were urging him to keep his distance. Byron found that challenging,
Speaker 1: especially when Caroline Lamb wouldn't admit that she loved him
Speaker 1: more than her own husband. It's not that Byron could
Speaker 1: actually have her, he didn't even particularly want her anymore,
Speaker 1: but god damn it if he didn't need to hear
Speaker 1: her say that she loved him above all else. So
Speaker 1: he hinted at elopement. Caroline Lamb responded too eagerly. His
Speaker 1: bluff was called, and at the urging of his friends,
Speaker 1: he retreated from London to Newstead without saying goodbye. Caroline
Speaker 1: Lamb was baffled and heartbroken. She sent dozens of letters
Speaker 1: to Newstead, all of which went without a reply. It
Speaker 1: was maddening. Carol became increasingly frantic, and when she heard
Speaker 1: that Byron might have returned briefly to London, she was manic.
Speaker 1: She showed up at his home H James Street in
Speaker 1: the middle of the day, disguised as a page boy.
Speaker 1: She wasn't thinking of what a scandal it would cause
Speaker 1: to have a married woman alone at a man's house.
Speaker 1: All she could think of was Byron. Byron told her
Speaker 1: to leave. Caroline Lamb pulled a letter opener from his
Speaker 1: desk and tried to stab herself, weeping with love and
Speaker 1: anger and frustration and loneliness. Didn't he remember how it felt?
Speaker 1: Hadn't he felt that loneliness that yearning when he had
Speaker 1: written child Harold. Byron held her until she was calm,
Speaker 1: until the knife dropped from her hand. Things had gone
Speaker 1: too far. Byron's friends could see it, and Caroline's family
Speaker 1: could see it. Seeing her declining mental health, her in
Speaker 1: laws insisted that she spent some time away from London
Speaker 1: society in Ireland. With Caroline Lamb safely out of the country,
Speaker 1: Byron felt it was safe to write intimately again. The
Speaker 1: affair was over, but he didn't want to lose the
Speaker 1: flattery of having a noble woman like Caroline Lamb be
Speaker 1: madly in love with him, and so in his goodbye
Speaker 1: letter he wrote, I was and am yours freely and
Speaker 1: most entirely to obey, to honor, love, and fly with
Speaker 1: you when where and how you yourself might and may
Speaker 1: determine throw her a bone. He figured Caroline Lamb was
Speaker 1: out of the country and out of his head, and
Speaker 1: Byron began a new affair, another older titled woman, a
Speaker 1: friend of Caroline's, actually the Countess of Oxford. But love
Speaker 1: could not so easily extinguish itself in Caroline Lamb. She
Speaker 1: wrote him from Ireland endlessly. She stopped eating. She devoted herself,
Speaker 1: body and soul to the memory of her affair with
Speaker 1: Byron and the dream of rekindling it. If Byron thought
Speaker 1: he could dismiss her with a kiss on the cheek,
Speaker 1: he was incorrect, and so Byron had to be more explicit. Finally,
Speaker 1: after months of letters, he wrote her back, correct your
Speaker 1: vanity which is ridiculous, exert your absurd caprices upon others,
Speaker 1: and leave me in peace. The letter was harsh and unsympathetic, yes,
Speaker 1: but Byron did something a step further. He added to
Speaker 1: the letter a final piece of nastiness that would cause
Speaker 1: the blood to leave Caroline Lamb's face and ignite in
Speaker 1: her a new, white, hot furnace of humiliation and fury.
Speaker 1: In a final act of cruelty, Byron had sealed the
Speaker 1: letter with his new lover, Lady Oxford's wax stamp. Caroline
Speaker 1: Lamb became obsessed. Eventually, she and Byron both returned to London,
Speaker 1: officially excess, and Caroline Lamb became desperate to enact or
Speaker 1: revenge on the man who had helped her see the
Speaker 1: poetry in the world and then thrown it out with
Speaker 1: a scornful laugh. Caroline wrote to Lady Oxford and threatened
Speaker 1: to tell the world of their affair. Lady Oxford laughed
Speaker 1: at the threat, but Byron was incensed and paranoid. The
Speaker 1: amazon she ated. Caroline Lamb would show up to parties
Speaker 1: and spend the night clutching a glass and staring at Byron.
Speaker 1: He joked to friends that he was being haunted by
Speaker 1: a skeleton. Caroline wrote to Byron and asked him to
Speaker 1: return her letters and all of the tokens of her
Speaker 1: love that she had sent along to him. He obliged,
Speaker 1: more or less some of the trinkets he had already
Speaker 1: given to other women. Caroline threw them all into a
Speaker 1: bonfire and danced around his smoldering effigy. She made up
Speaker 1: new buttons for her staff to wear. No cree day Byron,
Speaker 1: they said, a takeoff on his family crest have no
Speaker 1: faith in Byron. No one knew Byron like Caroline Lamb,
Speaker 1: and so no one knew, like Caroline Lamb, exactly how
Speaker 1: to get under Byron's skin. When she showed up at
Speaker 1: his home unannounced one afternoon to find him out, she
Speaker 1: snuck up to his desk and flipped open the inside
Speaker 1: cover of the book Bathic by William Beckford. Remember Me,
Speaker 1: she wrote inside. The threat was implicit. Beckford was famously bisexual,
Speaker 1: and Caroline knew all about Byron's attraction to men. Byron
Speaker 1: responded with the poem he never published, Remember the Remember
Speaker 1: the till least quench life's burning stream. Remorse and shame
Speaker 1: still cling to thee and haunt thee like a feverish dream.
Speaker 1: When Caroline Lamb heard that Byron wanted to give one
Speaker 1: of his favorite portraits of himself to his new lover,
Speaker 1: Lady Oxford, she used her talent for mimicry once again.
Speaker 1: She forged a letter from Byron and brought it to
Speaker 1: his publisher, where they kept the portrait. They gave it
Speaker 1: to her. Byron was furious. He was less angry that
Speaker 1: the portrait was gone, although it had been a very
Speaker 1: good one of him, and far more outrage that Caroline
Speaker 1: Lamb had been good enough to imitate at his writing.
Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb agreed that you would give him his portrait
Speaker 1: in exchange for a lock of his hair in his scorn.
Speaker 1: Byron agreed, but he sent along a clipping knot of
Speaker 1: his hair, but of Lady Oxford's. Byron and Caroline's final
Speaker 1: confrontation occurred at a party. I assume I'm allowed to
Speaker 1: waltz now, Caroline said to her former lover, who was
Speaker 1: standing as he always did on the sidelines. Well, of course,
Speaker 1: Byron responded, you do it so well and with everybody.
Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb broke a glass in her hand and made
Speaker 1: as if she were to cut herself with one of
Speaker 1: the shards. They wrote about it in the papers the
Speaker 1: next day. Byron joked that, ever the lover of theatrics,
Speaker 1: she had performed the dagger scene from Macbeth. Eventually, even
Speaker 1: Lady Oxford would leave Byron's favor when Byron's half sister,
Speaker 1: Augusta Lee, came to town. The two were so inseparable
Speaker 1: that even polite society couldn't help. But murmur about possible incest.
Speaker 1: I mean they were inseparable. And then the murmurs became
Speaker 1: a little louder after Augusta Lee had a baby, but
Speaker 1: Byron needed to get married to an heiress. Caroline Lamb's rich,
Speaker 1: well behaved apple cheeks cousin, Annabella Millbank, agreed to marry
Speaker 1: him the second time he asked. It was a disastrous
Speaker 1: decision from the onset. Byron never really wanted to marry her,
Speaker 1: but the fact that she had once turned him down
Speaker 1: meant that she was irresistible. He had to get her.
Speaker 1: Even Annabella realized she had made a mistake when Byron's
Speaker 1: best man gave her a wedding gift and wished her
Speaker 1: many years of happiness. As he sent them off on
Speaker 1: their honeymoon, the new lady Byron replied, if I am
Speaker 1: not happy, it will be my own fault. On the
Speaker 1: way back from the ceremony, Byron had a panic attack.
Speaker 1: It's too late, now it's done, it cannot be undone,
Speaker 1: he snapped at his new bride. As they exited the carriage.
Speaker 1: He smacked her hand away from his. That night, he
Speaker 1: slept in the master bedroom with his half sister Augusta
Speaker 1: while his new bride slept on the couch in the
Speaker 1: dressing room alone. Byron became increasingly despondent, and his financial
Speaker 1: troubles mounted. He rejected all income from his writing as
Speaker 1: a gentleman. He believed it wasn't appropriate for him to
Speaker 1: be paid for his poetry. He was manic and sour,
Speaker 1: drinking heavily, and highly suspicious that his new wife was
Speaker 1: sneaking through his private things. Annabella told friend that she
Speaker 1: was afraid her husband had gone mad. Just after their
Speaker 1: one year anniversary, one month after their daughter, Ada was born,
Speaker 1: Annabella took Aida and left to stay with her parents.
Speaker 1: Neither Annabella nor Ada would ever see Byron again. In
Speaker 1: an effort to ensure that Aida didn't descend into her
Speaker 1: father's poetic madness, Annabella steered her daughter toward mathematics. It
Speaker 1: seemed to take Ada Lovelace, Byron's only legitimate child, is
Speaker 1: often credited as the world's first computer programmer, thanks to
Speaker 1: her work on the Analytic Engine computer alongside Charles Babbage.
Speaker 1: As for Caroline Lamb throughout all of this, love and
Speaker 1: hate are impossible to disentangle completely. She comforted Annabella during
Speaker 1: her separation proceedings, giving Annabella all of the information she
Speaker 1: could that she could settle the divorce on her terms.
Speaker 1: Caroline spread rumors of Byron's incestu his affair with his
Speaker 1: half sister, but at the same time she wrote to Byron,
Speaker 1: comforting him and claiming to be on his side through
Speaker 1: it all, even after he broke her heart. She couldn't
Speaker 1: allow herself to be hated by him. Byron, perhaps sensing
Speaker 1: her duplicity, pulled away, disgusted, and so in eighteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb played her final hand. In order to burn Byron,
Speaker 1: she would immolate herself and let them go up in
Speaker 1: flames together. She published a novel called Glenn Arvon, a
Speaker 1: thinly veiled account of her affair with Lord Byron, in
Speaker 1: which a scandalous rake named Lord Ruthven corrupts a young
Speaker 1: married woman named Calantha. It was an immediate sensation, with
Speaker 1: all of London society desperate to read such an intimate
Speaker 1: and scandalous reflection of their own lives. Caroline Into reputation
Speaker 1: was ruined, and she would never make her way into
Speaker 1: high society again. As for Byron's side of the story,
Speaker 1: will never read it at least not completely. Byron died
Speaker 1: young at the age of thirty six of an illness
Speaker 1: while he was in Greece, where he held the romantic
Speaker 1: fantasy of leading an army up against the Ottoman Empire.
Speaker 1: After his death, his friends assembled to read his memoirs.
Speaker 1: After they finished, they unanimously decided to burn them should
Speaker 1: they be made public, They said they would have damned
Speaker 1: him to everlasting infamy. If you're interested in learning more
Speaker 1: about Lord Byron, you can check out a book I
Speaker 1: wrote called The White Man's Guide to White Male Writers
Speaker 1: of the Western Cannon. It's exactly like this, only much
Speaker 1: less history and much more jokes. So almost nothing like this,
Speaker 1: but I think you'll like it. It's available now at
Speaker 1: your local bookstore. And if you want to hear about
Speaker 1: how Lord Byron inspired one of the most famous characters
Speaker 1: in all of literature, keep listening. After this brief sponsor break,
Speaker 1: scandalized by his separation and the incessant rumors of incest,
Speaker 1: Lord Byron left England for the final time in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixteen with his personal doctor, John Polidori. He settled for
Speaker 1: the summer at the Villa Diodati at Lake Geneva in Switzerland.
Speaker 1: Joining him was the poet Percy bish Shelley, his future
Speaker 1: wife Mary Shelley, and Mary's stepsister Claire Claremont, who had
Speaker 1: had an affair with Byron in London, was madly in
Speaker 1: love with him, and who had been the one who
Speaker 1: more or less forced Mary and Percy to spend the
Speaker 1: summer with Byron so she could tag along. It was
Speaker 1: a famous and scandalous group. Hotels from across the lake
Speaker 1: charged guests to look through telescopes for the chance to
Speaker 1: see them, but guests who paid up hoping to witness
Speaker 1: some orgy outside on the sand, were woefully unlucky. This
Speaker 1: summer was miserable that year, wet, cold reigning incessantly, and
Speaker 1: so the group of writers stayed inside and decided to
Speaker 1: engage in a contest to see who could write the
Speaker 1: best ghost story. Famously, the contest's winner was eighteen year
Speaker 1: old Mary Shelley, who wrote the beginnings of what would
Speaker 1: become Frankenstein. But that wasn't the only significant work that
Speaker 1: began with that little contest. In his short story, John
Speaker 1: Polidori wrote about a mysterious man who arrived in London,
Speaker 1: a man with impossibly pale skin, and dark hair, who
Speaker 1: seduced women and left a trail of bodies in his wake.
Speaker 1: Eighty one years before Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, Polo Doori
Speaker 1: wrote the first piece of Gothic literature ever to feature
Speaker 1: that folklore creature, the vampire, and in Polodori story, the
Speaker 1: vampire's name is Lord Ruthven you see, in case he
Speaker 1: had been too subtle. Polo Doori borrowed the pseudonym that
Speaker 1: Caroline Lamb had created for Lord Byron in her novel.
Speaker 1: It was the name she used for the man who
Speaker 1: took her blood, who took her heart, and who took
Speaker 1: whatever was left. Noble Blood is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Aaron Mankey. The show was written and
Speaker 1: hosted by Danis Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick,
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social
Speaker 1: media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more
Speaker 1: about the show over at Noble blood Tales dot com.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. M