WEBVTT - How Lord Byron Worked 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:14.000 Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.279 I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy, and Sarah and 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:19.759 I are solving a bit of a War's waldo today. 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.040 We keep doing podcast research and coming across the same 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.479 personage in places we never expected to find him. No, 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:30.440 and that's George Gordon Lord Byron. And first he pops 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:34.479 up in Frankenstein, which you know, that's obvious enough, he 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.680 was there when Mary Shelley was writing it. But then 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:41.160 he popped up in Lucrezia, Borgia, of all places, which 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.720 they don't live in nearly the same century. So it's 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:48.360 kind of an odd match. But perhaps it's not so 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:51.040 strange that we find him in all of these unlikely places, 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:55.120 because he had a variety of interests, from travel to 0:00:55.600 --> 0:01:00.080 his brilliant poetry to a menagerie of animals, and of 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.680 course he was the most famous poet in Europe, as 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:07.320 well as a fascinating public figure because of his utterly 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:13.040 bizarre social life and romantic life, yes, scandalous affairs and 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:17.720 cruel behavior towards variety of people. He was very good looking, 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.600 he was a nobleman, but on his worst behavior for 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.520 most of the time. And interestingly enough, while Byron is 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:29.600 this world famous poet and obviously um a titan of 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:34.160 poetry today, his literary contemporaries didn't really have much respect 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:38.479 for him. Keats had a particularly skating quote. He called 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:42.800 him a careless hectorer in proud bad verse. That's pretty cold, Keats. 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.600 But today he's appreciated for what he did with his work, 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.840 and Um, according to I pulled out my old romantic 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:55.040 literature book. My professors would be so proud. Katie was saying, 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.240 it's nice when you get to to use those the 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:00.520 books that you couldn't sell back. But according to Miller Matlock, 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.040 his unique expression of the consciousness and moods of early 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.960 modernity is what we so appreciate today. And on that note, 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:10.480 let's go back to his beginnings. He was the son 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.480 of Captain John Byron, who was known as Mad Jack, 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:16.040 which I think is pretty fabulous. He's a descendant of 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.680 William the Conqueror too, and his second wife Katherine Gordon, 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.760 who was a Scottish heiress and a descendant of James 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:25.600 the First. I like this family treat thing. It's very helpful. 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.880 Mad Jack liked to spend his money, so the Byron 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.520 fortune was somewhat diminished by the time Little Byron came 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:37.799 along January. He was born in London in a rented 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.520 room because Catherine couldn't afford anything else and mad Jack 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.079 had run off to France. And interestingly, he was born 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.760 with a call over his head, which some people think 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.920 that pretends second site or good luck or distinction. And 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.280 the call the call is actually sold to a naval officer, 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.119 which I just thought was so disgusting. Did it work 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.480 for him? No, it's supposed to if you own a call, 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.320 which if you buy it from a baby birthday, Um, 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:08.880 it's supposed to prevent drowning. But the guy who bought 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:12.280 it drowned twelve years later. So Byron's call not good luck, 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:16.160 not very helpful. His mom took him to Aberdeen when 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.440 he was young because that's where her people were, And interestingly, 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.240 George had a club of foot and a withered leg 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:23.800 when he was born, and for the rest of his 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:25.880 life he blamed his mother for this because she wore 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.040 a corset while she was pregnant. So we've got some 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.400 early mother hatred going on, which is always nice and 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.960 a grown man, and he's also he has a sort 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.280 of tough childhood. Um he's sexually abused and beaten by 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:42.600 his nanny who gives him these really strict Calvinist sermons 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.480 and then brings home men from the town. So it's 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:51.000 a very uncomfortable setting for Byron to grow up in 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:53.920 a bizarre mix with those very strict morals and then 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.640 the very lax behavior on the other hand. But he 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:02.840 inherits a title at ten and becomes Baron Byron of Rothdale. 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.520 And he inherits this, he's not in line for it. 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:09.400 He never thinks he's going to inherit this. He gets 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.560 it from a great uncle, the fifth Baron Byron, who's 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:18.520 known as William the Wicked Lord Byron. Um. He was 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.960 expecting his son to inherit it, of course, and disliked 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.120 his son so much that he trashes his estate, basically 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:29.640 chops down lots of trees. Um. His son dies before him, though, 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:32.920 and his grandson, and so it goes to this obscure relative, 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.960 Lord Byron. And because of this title, Byron also gets 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.320 an estate called Newstead Abbey, which is used to be 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.919 grand but at this point, as practically in ruins, and 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:44.919 of course they don't have the fortune to repair it, 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.479 and nor does the other Byron's estate. It's near Sherwood Forest, 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:53.040 to which I thought was so perfectly romantic. Um. So 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:56.920 Byron sent to school in London in eighteen o one, 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:01.400 and a little bit after that he has his for love. Um. 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.920 He falls in love with a cousin, Mary Chaworth, who 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:09.360 lives on an estate near near his own, and he's 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.159 so in love with her that he refuses to go 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.600 back to school at first. Um. And she's older than him, 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:20.800 she's a few years older, she's already engaged or about 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.960 to be, and um, he just he sets her up 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.760 as his ideal of unattainable love. This is where the 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.320 romantic streak environ begins to show itself. But also kind 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:34.800 of sad because he only gets over her when he 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:40.120 overhears her mocking his his lameness, of his foot, cruelty 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.919 and your children. It's also about the time when he 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:47.680 starts his homosexual love affairs, which for a long time 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:51.800 throughout history were somewhat suppressed. It's reported he has sexual 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:55.320 relationships with Newstead servants of both sexes. At this time, 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:57.599 he has a servant named William Fletcher who's by his 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.440 side from the age of sixteen until almost his death. 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.640 And William is a very good looking man. And he 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.680 also strikes up a this is his quote, violent though 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.240 pure love and passion for a guy named John Eddleston 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:15.680 who's a chorister, and Edelston gives him a Cornelian as 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:18.360 a present, and Byron wrote lots of poems about him. 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:20.320 And that's the person most people think of when they 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:24.599 think of Byron's bisexual reputation. That started with John and 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:29.880 also further fueling Byron's reputation. When he's a teenager, he 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.680 meets his half sister, Augusta Byron. They didn't know each 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.360 other's children at all. Um, they meet when he's about fifteen, 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:42.720 and it suggested that they later have their own sexual relationship. 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.240 So yes, Augusta will come back up. Yeah, we'll hear 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.840 about her some more. So you can see everything starting 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:54.760 starting to come together to make Byron this rascally character 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.359 he ends up being. When some of it's confusing, You 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:01.039 had mentioned something about the guy who was leasing new Stead. Yeah, 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:05.000 Lord Gray, who was leasing new Stead until Byron reached 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:09.000 his majority. Um, it's thought to have made some sort 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:13.400 of sexual advance at the young Byron that so shocked 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:18.080 him that the two break and don't don't talk to 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.280 each other again. Even though Byron's mother is very much 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.080 a fan of Lord Gray and tries to reconcile them, 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.560 Byron wants nothing to do with him. Well, and since 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:28.760 Byron sort of hates his mother and that would actually 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:30.480 make more sons, so at this point he's gonna mother. 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.200 He doesn't like a father who's abandoned him. Abusive relationships 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.760 and who commit suicide right, and some other confusing personal relationships. 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.720 But in eighteen oh five he's off to Trinity College 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.320 in Cambridge, where he seems to have a pretty good 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:50.040 time racking up lots of debt. He had what twelve 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.440 thousand pounds in debt before he even reached i't even know, 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:57.040 which I think is twenty one, So that's I mean, 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.240 there aren't credit cards. I don't know what Byron would 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.080 have done on a modern college campus. I have no idea. 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.360 But this is actually where he met John Edelston that 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:08.120 I mentioned, that I mentioned before, And this is also 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.800 when he starts writing his poetry. Yeah, he writes some 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.720 early poems and prints them in a volume called Fugitive Pieces. 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.960 And um. He also makes his best friend at Cambridge, 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:23.520 John cam Hobhouse, who gets him into politics, something that 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:28.920 as a future lord um he'll play a role in. 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:31.880 And hob House is his best friend for life truly 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.720 b FF. He's the best man at his wedding. He 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:36.559 travels with him all around the world and I have 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:38.320 a falling out for a while that he ends up 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.000 being loyal to the end and his diaries are part 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.240 of the reason we know so much about Byron. Yeah, 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.240 and my favorite Byron at Cambridge story that just shows 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.960 how how bad he was, but in kind of a 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.640 funny way. At this point at least um Cambridge bar 0:08:55.800 --> 0:09:00.520 students from having dogs on on campus, and so Byron 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.960 chooses to have a tame bear as his pet, and 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.040 Cambridge can't do anything about it because they don't have 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.439 any rules about it. And um he even suggests in 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.440 a letter to a friend that his bear companion should 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.920 sit for a fellowship. So Byron has a has a 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.320 long love for animals. He really likes dogs. He keeps 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:21.640 his bear with him when he moves back to Newstead. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.480 Um he actually has dogs companions almost until his death. 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:27.760 I really want to bear now, but I have a 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:31.040 feeling our boss did not go for that. No, as 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:33.079 come a little bit later. This is also around the 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.120 time his first volume of poetry gets published, House of Idleness, 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.280 in eighteen oh seven. Yeah, and this is obviously a 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.040 deeper work than the fugitive pieces that were published earlier. 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.439 This is actually a complete volume. And uh, we probably 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:50.240 wouldn't know much about the House of Idleness except that 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.840 he's mocked for them in the Edinburgh Review. And he 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:59.160 writes a comeback couplet satire called English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.959 which guests him his first recognition. Oh the cutthroat world 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:07.440 of poetry. In eighteen o nine, Byron reaches his majority 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:09.480 and takes his seat in the House of Lords. And 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.320 then he and Hobhouse go on their Grand tour. And again, 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.720 I have been deprived of my own grand tour, so 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:16.520 if someone would like to send me on one, please 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.679 let me know. But they go traveling all over the place. 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.319 They start in Portugal and moved to Spain, Greece and Albania. 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:27.679 And on their grand tour, Byron and Hobhouse get involved 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.280 in a little bit of political intrigue. The Ionian Islands 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.080 had been restored to the French, but the English wanted them, 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.640 and so did Ali Pasha, who was not known as 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.439 the greatest guy in Greek history. So Byron and Hobhouse 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:45.560 get used by a guy named Spirittian Forresty. He entertains 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:47.920 them and then mentions, you know, why don't you go 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.600 to Albania and see Ali Pasha. That would be lovely 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.320 because he wants to sweeten his own deal. So as 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.439 Byron and Hobhouse go off towards Albania, the English come 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.640 toward the Ionian Islands, and they were really upset I 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.640 think when they both realized that they were as they 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:06.120 thought they had done. You can just imagine them like 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:10.319 finishing Cambridge and thinking they're pretty pretty clever. Yeah, publish 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:14.200 their poetry satire and then go and get used by 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.640 some guy named Spiridion. And around the same time Byron 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.760 starts child Harold's Pilgrimage, which is one of the works 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:27.559 he's best known for. His UM, his Oriental Odyssey. UM 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:32.480 that's very much semi autobiographical. And I would like to interject, 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.000 with no segue whatsoever, that at this time he also 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:39.199 shoots an eagle, which is one of my favorite facts 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:40.720 I found, and there are so many of these we 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.199 could have researched him for that doesn't gell with my 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:47.000 animal lover point from earlier, Katie. He also decapitated a 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:50.360 goose at around this same time, so he loves them 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.360 with sometimes he kills them. Sometimes you do kill the 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.640 things you love. And during this trip Byron also has many, 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.120 many more affairs with both men and women, and he 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.240 meets Niccolo Giroux, who he later mentioned in a will 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.439 of his leaving his money, but it ends up being revoked, 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.720 and while they're gone, their friends back home are writing 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.719 both of them letters in code about what's happening to 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:13.280 gay men in England at the time. You could be 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:18.120 hanged for the quote unquote crime of homosexual behavior. So 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.160 it's possible that he and Hobhouse also had some sort 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:25.760 of intimate relationship, but whatever was going on, they were 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.160 kept abreast of the news in England. And this will 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.800 become important a little bit later with Byron's marriage, but 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:34.760 for now we'll head back to England. Yeah, So they 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.160 go back to London in July of eighteen eleven and 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.680 Byron just misses his mother's death. Um, but quickly gets 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:43.880 to work in the House of Lords and gives his 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:48.480 first speech in eighteen twelve, which was urging tolerance against 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:52.000 riotous nodding him weavers, um, you could get the death 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.240 penalty at the time for breaking your frames basically, And 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.520 his second speech is about Irish Catholic rights. So he's 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:03.440 got these very rowl sort of idea social reform and um. 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.800 One month after this first speech, the first two cantos 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.480 of Child Harold's Pilgrimage, which he was working on on 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:14.079 the Grand Tour, are published, and Byron later writes that 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.600 I awoke one morning and found myself famous, and that 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.080 is one of his most famous quotes about how one 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:24.480 day everything can just change. And after this he begins 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.920 an affair with a married woman named Lady Caroline Lamb 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.960 who is red Child Harold and decides she has to 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:34.120 meet this guy, and she writes some of this ultimate Yes, 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:36.240 she adores him, and he meets her, and he's not 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:39.360 too impressed by what he sees. She's really not his type, 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:43.760 but they end up carrying on this scandalous, torrid, passionate 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:47.319 affair and she almost leaves her husband for him. Yeah, 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:52.560 Byron's friend, John Hobhouse encourages him to not elope with 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:57.080 her and sort of narrowly prevents this enormous scandal, which 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.560 is probably a good idea because things were a little 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.240 too hot, heavy down toward the insane side. Yeah. When 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:06.680 he breaks it off with her, Lady Caroline organizes a 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:11.319 bonfire where the village girls congregate and burn an effigy 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.280 of Byron, and then they dance around the fire and 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.560 toss in copies of his letters to her and his 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:22.880 gifts little gold trinkets. And she's so worried that this 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.560 is going to make people think she's crazy, and even 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:29.320 writes some stuff about it. But I mean it kind 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.200 of does. I don't know, if you wanted to throw 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.720 a bonfire, I would probably come. I would even burn 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.920 people in effigy of Accessary ends up not looking very good, 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:44.640 but they continue a correspondence interestingly enough that turns increasingly literary, 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.840 and she even publishes a book, this real kiss and 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:54.520 tell novel called Glenn arvon Um, which just exposes the 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.160 character of Byron to the world. Well, and she's still 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.920 keeping up her crazy antics. She completely weeks out to 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:04.840 use scientific terminology, and she creates these really public scenes. 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.000 She suddenly shows up at his house, often in disguise, 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.760 and creates scenes there. She writes some crazy letters Hobhouse 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.320 rights and his diaries that once she came in disguise 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:17.560 to the house and then tried to grab a sword 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.640 and stab herself and they managed to stop her. And 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:22.960 she also is said to have sent her pubic hair 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.920 to him in a letter, which I don't reman something 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:27.920 I would want from an X in case any of 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.840 you were listening. She lost a bunch of weight, and 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:33.280 he had had a really mean quote about how he 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.320 was being haunted by a skeleton because she'd become very 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.320 emaciated by this time. And I kind of feel bad 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:41.880 for miss Lamb. And she's the one who had labeled 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:45.000 him mad, bad and dangerous to know, which is probably 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:48.760 the most famous description of him. So she really kicks 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.800 off the string of sort of unfortunate lovers he has 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.640 before his marriage. Though he takes up with Lady Oxford, 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:58.960 and this made me so angry. She's the mother of six, 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:00.800 which is not the part that made me angry. But 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:06.440 Byron shares Caroline's letters with Lady Oxford, so yeah, reading 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:08.880 the excess letters, and then even lets her respond to 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.040 some of them and sign her initials at the bottom, 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:15.640 which of course devastates or Caroline back home and he's 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:19.680 taking up with Lady Francis Webster, and around this time 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.760 probably also starting a love affair with his half sister Augusta, 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.960 who is married to Colonel George Lee, and some say 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:33.080 that her child, Elizabeth Maddoorali, is really Lord Byron's. So 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.920 during this he's writing all of these gloomy tales like 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:41.120 the cours Fair and the jour Um, these sort of 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:47.360 oriental um I guess escapes for him for his reckless 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.520 love life and what to do when you're having too 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.840 many affairs and you don't know what to do. Get married, 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:57.040 straight and narrow and go ahead and get married. It's 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.720 gonna work out really well. Maybe you can sense the sarcasm. 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.520 The person he decides to marry is Lady Caroline Land's cousin, 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:08.359 Annabella Millbank, who is absolutely nothing like him. He could 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.400 not have picked someone more understuded to him if he tried. 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:16.480 She loves math and she fancies herself, yes I have. 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.160 She likes math and morals and um. They get married 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.800 and things aren't good from the start. There's this sort 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.240 of bad Elman too, and Byron is a superstitious man, 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:29.679 so he really doesn't like this. He gives her a 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.640 wedding ring that was his mother's and it's too big, 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.879 so she ties it with a black ribbon, and um, 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.680 he's horrified by this and makes her take it off, 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.919 and he's also He also thinks he's spotted the Black 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:46.520 Friar of Newston, his ancestral home, a month before the wedding, 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:50.200 and the black Friar is supposed to portend bad luck 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.640 for the house Byron, and things just get even more bizarre. 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.240 Lady Byron has their daughter, his only legitimate child, Augusta 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:02.480 Aida and sister seen which I don't know about that, 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:07.320 and apparently he paced the hallways all night with loaded 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.040 guns when they were getting married, and when they have 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.199 the baby does something even weirder. He smashes bottles with 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:16.720 a poker while she's being born, which I just saw 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:21.280 that like alone, there was no explanation for it. Um, 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.440 So I don't know what was going through Byron's mind 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.200 during his marriage, but the two were not a good 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:31.040 match now and Annabella leaves sixteen months after they're married, 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.879 and then accuses him not only of incest with his 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:38.119 half sister Augusta and mistreatment, but also of annally raping 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.280 her two days after she had the baby. So his 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.399 reputation is officially shot. The shot that's too much for 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:48.440 Um for his British public to accept, so he goes 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:53.160 abroad in April eighteen sixteen, actually endever to return to England, 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:57.400 so self imposed exile starts in Switzerland and the Hobhouse 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:00.200 comes with him for the very beginning, and this is 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:04.840 when if you listen to our podcast. He ends up 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.560 in a ghost writing competition which Mary Shelley gets Frankenstein 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:12.280 out of, and also takes up with Claire Claremont, who 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:17.200 he had actually started an affair with in England. She um, 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:20.680 you want to say she followed him. She actually goes 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.439 ahead of him, knowing he'll he'll be there soon enough. Um. 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:27.480 He really has a low opinion of Claire Claremont. He 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:30.320 calls her a foolish girl. In a letter to a sister. 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.720 He basically makes it sound like he couldn't avoid her. 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.679 She was so into him there was nothing he could do, 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.840 which is ridiculous because this didn't keep him from sleeping 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.720 with her and conceiving a child with her, who is 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:47.720 born when they leave in January eighteen seventeen. She's born Alba, 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:50.560 and later her name is changed to Allegra, which is 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.520 always kind of a strange thing to do, but I 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:57.680 thinks so too, and her life is so sad. Things 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:01.000 don't go well for little Allegra. He says he will 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:05.240 not give Claire Claremont money to raise the child, which 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:07.000 he could easily have done he had the money to 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:08.720 do that. Then it probably has to do with his 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:11.159 low opinion of her. Yeah, so he's just not going 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:13.119 to do that. He doesn't trust her, so instead he 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:16.960 takes custody and he won't tell Claire anything about her, 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:20.240 and then he ends handing her off to a bunch 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:22.600 of other people, and she ends up any convent school 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.480 where she dies at age five, and no one visited her, 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:31.760 but not even her parents. So sad story there, and 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:35.280 another example of Byron's cruelty with women, which will be 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.679 a running theme for a little while. So at the 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:41.600 end of this Faithful Summer where Frankenstein is written and 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:47.480 um Claire is pregnant, the Shelleys leave for England and 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.040 Claire has her baby and Byron and hop House leeve 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.359 for Italy, and this is my favorite part of my notes. 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:56.800 They see a triple guillotining and they climb onto the 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:00.080 roof of St. Peter's gun sights again at any and 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.480 they're really but they had a great time. And Cophouse 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:05.800 wrote all about it in his diary, and Byron really 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:09.199 trumps up his life during this period. Um in his 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:12.080 letters to his friends he claims that he has made 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.879 love to a hundred or more women during Carnival of 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:19.400 eighteen seventeen. But if you think about the context this, 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.520 this is a bad time for Byron Um because of 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:27.240 his familial estrangement and his bad reputation, his growing debt. 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:29.600 If he was in that much debt as a minor, 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:34.000 imagine how bad it's gotten. Um. So he's trying to 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:37.360 make things seem better than they really are, and he 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.280 takes up with a woman named Marianna Segatti, who's his 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:43.480 landlord's wife, and then later he moves on to Margarita Kanye, 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:48.520 a baker's wife who he refers to as the gentle Tigress, 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:51.840 a detail I really liked. And those aren't the only 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:54.720 affairs that are going on, as being Byron, there are plenty, 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.560 but Newstead Abby is sold in eighteen eighteen, and that's 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:02.560 looking for a buggers for several years. He initially didn't 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.640 want to part with it, but finally is convinced that 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:09.240 it's the only way he can he can make it. 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:12.879 And he also writes the fourth canto of Child Harold 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.040 at about this time and Bepo, which is more of 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:20.959 a it's less of this gloomy sort of oriental epic style, 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.080 and which marks a change in his writing for a while, 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.960 and it sets him up for writing his most famous work, 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:31.040 which I keep thinking is Don Juan, and Sarah keeps 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:34.120 insisting because of the rhyme scheme, was Don Juan. That's 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.439 what I learned Don Juan, because he sets up the 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:41.720 rhymes in the poem so that you're forced to mispronounce 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:44.360 the foreign words. So I may just have shown myself 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:47.560 as the worst English major ever. I apologize to my 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.919 college professors. But he has a lot more fun writing 0:22:50.960 --> 0:22:53.840 this one than he does with his earlier work, and 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:57.800 like a lot of his earlier works, it has thinly 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:01.679 disguised people from his life. The the mother in the poem, 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:07.639 Donna Anaz, is a complete, a complete shadow for Annabella, 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:10.919 his wife. He even writes in short, she was a 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:16.480 walking calculation. Uh, somebody who's really smart and clever, but 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:19.679 that's kind of presented in a bad, a bad way. 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:22.479 And he also talks about a quarrel between a husband 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:25.280 and wife in the work and all the nosy people 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:28.479 who think they understand what the problem was, but they 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:30.560 don't really know what they're talking about. I guess he's 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:33.920