WEBVTT - Lady Caroline Lamb: “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know” 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.800 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:12.000 partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:15.880 second season of Criminalia. This season, we're exploring the lives 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.919 and motivations of some of the most notorious stalkers throughout history. 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:25.040 I'm Maria Tramrqui and I'm Holly Fry, and today we're 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:28.440 going to talk about a rather famous stalker in history, 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:33.040 Lady Caroline Lamb, who stalked George Gordon Byron. You probably 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:36.440 know him best as the poet Lord Byron. And Byron 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:41.720 was born into an aristocratic and dysfunctional family in and 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:43.479 he went on, of course to become one of the 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.520 most influential and celebrated poets of the Romantic Movement, along 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.360 with five other names that you will almost certainly recognize 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:54.360 William Blake, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who are 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:56.720 often grouped in as the early part of that, and 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.320 then with Byron, Percy Biss Shelley and John Keats. But 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:05.080 the sixth combined kind of make up the famous Romantic movements. Yes, 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:11.000 the considered most influential um the Romantic Movement was one 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:15.280 that believed that our inner world gives us endless creative possibilities, 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.399 as well as new ways of thinking and living and 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.440 um Today, even Byron continues to be an icon in literature. 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:24.400 You read him in high school, you read him in college. 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.800 Some might argue that he was made famous by his 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:33.480 autobiographical poem Child Harold's Pilgrimage, but others argue he's better 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.800 known for his satirical poem Don Juan. Most of us, 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:41.040 they'll probably know him from the iconic and beloved poem 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.880 she Walks in Beauty. I mean, everybody knows the first 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:47.720 two lines of them. But it wasn't just his poetry 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:51.400 that garnered everyone's attention. It was also his great many 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:55.640 sexual escapades. His passionately lived life made him kind of 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:58.760 a rock star for his day. He was notoriously handsome, 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:03.000 notorious for hadding many lovers, and many of them inspired 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.360 his works. And one of these lovers was a wealthy 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:10.959 aristocrat named Lady Caroline Lamb. Both she and Byron were 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.799 part of the literary circle scene, and they first met 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.000 at a society event in London in early eighteen twelve. 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.360 And some reports kind of indicate that Byron was not 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.480 really particularly fond of Caroline until they had spent a 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:27.480 little bit of time together. Others suggest that she got 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:29.800 together with him after she wrote him a fan letter 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:33.400 regarding one of those works. Maria just mentioned child Harold's 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.040 pilgrimage and that in response to that letter he visited her. 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.320 And that might have also been motivated because she had 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:42.840 a whole lot of money and the very high status 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.360 at society. I believe he looked upon that in a 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:51.440 very friendly ways. He was many things, but you know, 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.400 he was no fool. He knew how the latter work 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.000 he did, and he knew that his aristocratic family was 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.960 going down, not up. Uh, you know. Regardless of which 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.799 of those stories happens to be true, the two did 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.079 have an affair, and that was from March through August 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:11.079 twelve UM. That was the year that Holly was talking 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.240 about that they met, and the affair was really well 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.160 publicized and it was really passionate. They were both in 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.120 their twenties. Caroline was twenty six and Byron was twenty four. 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.120 He called her Carol, which she used as her public nickname. 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.720 It was for Byron who had said she coined the phrase, 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.600 and I'm quoting this mad, bad and dangerous to know, 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:34.000 and it said that she coined it after she read 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:38.360 Child Harold's pilgrimage Um, and that phrase actually became his 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:42.280 lasting epitaph. I think everybody associates that with Lord Byron. 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.080 I think so too, Yeah, right. I also love it 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.440 when people referenced that phrase and they don't know the 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:49.680 Byron and Caroline story at all. They're right, No, I 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:51.480 just thought it was a cool phrase you used to 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.000 describe people that were, you know, kind of jaunty players 0:03:55.200 --> 0:04:01.600 like not not yes, but no right, yes. However, there's content. 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:07.200 Here's the thing. At the time of this affair, Caroline 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:11.120 was married to William Lamb. William and Caroline's meeting in 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.800 courtship had actually been orchestrated by William's mother, and the 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.840 two were we quote mutually captivated by each other, so 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.719 it seemed like they started out quite well. They married 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:23.960 in eighteen o five, that is the year that Caroline 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.200 turned nineteen. That is also the year that William took 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.400 on the title Lord Melbourne. So the Lambs had one child. 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.440 His name was George Augustus Frederick and he was born 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.920 in eighteen oh seven, and they had him after they 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:41.400 experienced a few miscarriages. Augustus, as they called him, he 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.400 was born with mental health problems as well as epilepsy, 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.880 and he required constant care. Most aristocratic families would have 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.440 sent their relatives with any type of challenge, whether it 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.760 was physical or mental, to an institution. They would not 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.200 have kept them home, But William and Caroline cared for 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:01.400 Augustus themselves until his death in eighteen six. Yeah, that 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.320 is also one of those many cases we stumble across 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.720 in history where the exact nature of his problems is 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.280 not really clearly defined. It's not and often you come 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:16.080 across really outdated terminology and it's really difficult to sort 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.920 of discern. You know, do they mean that he was autistic? 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:21.279 We don't know as we're talking about all of this. 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:23.800 If the name Lord Melbourne rings a bell for you, 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:27.240 or if you know your Queen Victoria history like Holly does, 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.280 that's the same guy. William was a senior statesman, and 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.240 he also famously mentored Queen Victoria when she was very 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:41.920 young to its own scandal and gossip. And during that 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:46.320 same time, he of course became the husband unexpectedly involved 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:50.480 in one of the most scandalous affairs of the nineteenth century. 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:56.720 That summer, everyone I think, almost literally, I think in 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.400 their circle was talking about his wife's affair with the 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:04.680 poet Lord Byron. So this actually wasn't even the first 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.240 scandal that he had been through with his wife. Before 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.159 Caroline met Byron, she had had an affair with Sir 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:15.000 Godfrey Webster, who was an English politician. That she confessed 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.640 this affair to William, it wasn't nearly as public as 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.960 her affair with Byron, and William forgave her. So it's 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:25.360 worth noting here that William also is not necessarily like 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.279 a saint of monogamy any of this. It is very 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.320 possible that he had affairs of his own throughout their marriage. 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.520 Sources disagree on it, but it's entirely possible. As we said, 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.720 Sources also disagree on whether or not William was inclined 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:42.080 to what some people at the time would have considered 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:46.400 more deviant sexual desires and behaviors. This is all personal 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.120 private stuff, so there's no real way to know what 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.080 his preferences were or weren't. You can even ask questions 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:54.800 as to whether or not that's our business or relevance exactly. 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.159 But what we do know is that Caroline once wrote 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.880 in a letter that and we quote he called me prudent, 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.640 said I was straight laced. But whether or not her 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.400 husband found her prudish, her reputation in London society was 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:12.400 anything but. And Caroline's involvement with Lord Byron was very 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.960 public knowledge, as we've been saying this whole time, and 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:19.880 the public found it shocking. We're going to take a 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.800 quick break right now, and when we return, we're going 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:26.480 to talk about things that aren't prudish or straight laced. 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:43.000 Welcome back to Criminalia. We're going to talk about that affair. 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.400 But first we're gonna go back and talk a little 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.960 bit about Caroline's childhood. Yeah, so let's take a minute 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.400 to get to know who Caroline was and how she 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:57.520 grew up. So she was born on November into as 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.560 we've said earlier, Uh, the aristocratic leaked. So her life 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:08.600 has actually been described as insular, inbred, and superficial. Uh 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.160 sorry for three words. I just don't want my life 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:17.520 to be described an everything you want exactly. But she herself, 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.520 she was considered graceful and pretty, and she had reddish 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.920 blonde hair and freckles across her cheeks. She was portrayed 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.160 by one biographer as more like a fairy than a 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.440 human being. Another biographer referred to her and I'm going 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:35.080 to quote on this small kittenish ways of showing her 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:39.320 affection with kisses that touched the cheek and tiny intimate caresses, 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.320 and he continued that theme by saying that quote her 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.200 mouth could spit venom as well as list endearments. And 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:54.240 that part sure seems to be true. So it was rumored, 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:56.400 and by rumored, what we mean is that some modern 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.920 historians do acknowledge this and believe it. Others do not. 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.719 Unt that Caroline had grown up as a tomboy, considered 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.920 being able to wash a dog of most satisfying accomplishment, 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:10.079 and that she was unable to read or write until 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.560 she was a teenager. However, we also know that most 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.040 of this is probably just hearsaying. Not only was she 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.680 very well educated at home, with an extensive curriculum and 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.199 a governess to ensure that she adhered to that curriculum, 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:28.560 she also attended elite schools in London, and so those 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.960 characterizations that suggest that she was less than an ideal 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.760 lady may have simply been born from idle gossip in 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.920 response to what you might call her very free spirit, 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:43.120 right exactly, Um, And sometimes things just catch on in 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.480 the historical record. Yeah, I was. You can't do anything 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.959 bad there. Um. While she was still a young adult, 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.880 Caroline began writing prose and poetry, and she also really 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.640 enjoyed music and drama. She was interested in and she 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.160 got to be pretty good at sketching portrait. She spoke 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:05.160 French and Italian fluently, and her knowledge of both Greek 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.280 and Latin were at the very least passable. So not 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:12.160 the uneducated fool that people may have wanted to paint 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:14.280 her as at all. No, unless she was speaking in 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:16.720 French to her dog as she washed him, I don't 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:24.280 she might, but even so, still a different language. She 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.920 also began writing, and she started doing this as a 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.920 way to escape from her mental and emotional problems, which 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:33.920 allegedly made her prone to temper tantrums and angry outbursts 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:39.560 something I don't have any knowledge of it all. Never 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:44.040 have a tantrum. Ever, She was considered we quote volcanic, 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:49.280 and later she was described by Byron as an exaggerated woman. 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:55.200 Her behavior was unsurprisingly troublesome to her aristocratic family. She 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:59.000 also experimented with sedatives such as laudanum, and eventually her 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.160 parents hired a special governors just to look after her. 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:07.679 So during her affair with Byron, Caroline was also considered 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:12.480 volcanic um. For instance, upon seeing him speaking and this 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:16.800 is just speaking, he wasn't getting handsy to another woman, 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:19.640 Caroline broke a glass in her hand. Because she was 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.520 so upset, she often dressed up as a page boy 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.360 so she could sneak in and gain access to Byron's rooms, 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:29.040 which spoiler alert, is a trick that she also tried 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.720 after the affair ended, and that affair is said to 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.680 have concluded rather abruptly. Byron basically cut it off and 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.720 then quickly found new paramours to occupy his time. And 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:45.679 when Byron ended the affair, that didn't end well for Caroline. Unsurprisingly, 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.120 not only was she still super into him. There's no 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.960 caps for that word super like, there's no big caps 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:55.520 in the world for how super into him ship. It's 0:11:55.559 --> 0:12:00.360 like billboard level. But the thing is her reputation London 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:05.319 society was also completely trashed. Yeah, so William took her 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.120 to Ireland in an effort to put some distance between 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.760 themselves and the affair and to sidestep the whole hotbed 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.760 of gossip that never seemed to end. But distance really 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.640 didn't change anything about Caroline's interest in obsession with Byron. 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.560 In fact, the two actually continued to correspond while she 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.720 was away from home. But when Caroline returned to London 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.360 in eighteen thirteen, Byron made it clear that he had 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:34.160 no intention of continuing a romantic relationship with her. He said, quote, 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.400 she is a good study for a couple of years 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.120 at best. When he was speaking to his longtime friends 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:43.640 Sir James Webster about his relationship with Caroline, which is 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.800 kind of a callous jerk. Yeah, that you like, even 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:48.880 if he said it like to his best friend, which 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:51.880 one is but too like now we all know it 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:57.840 like I can't Yeah, Byron, he has his reputation. Byron 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:02.800 adventured and woman I and Caroline continued to send him letters. 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.400 All of this was happening. Uh. He stopped responding to 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:10.040 her correspondence, but she didn't give up, And it was 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.280 two years after their affair ended and she was still 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:15.800 writing to him. And I can quote from one of 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.480 her letters which goes, I loved you as no woman 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.400 ever could love because I'm not like them, but more 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.360 like a beast who sees no crime in loving and 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:28.720 following its master. You became such to me, master of 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:34.520 my soul more than anything else. Yeah, very kind of 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:39.440 a you know, very tepid sort of after two years, 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.240 I mean, my goodness was getting no reply. And this 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.320 is just with letters, just with letters. So while we 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.320 consider all of that, we're going to pause and have 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.240 a quick break, and when we return, we're going to 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.800 talk about all of the different ways that Caroline stalked 0:13:53.880 --> 0:14:11.360 Lord Byron. Welcome back to Criminalia. Letters. It turns out 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.880 weren't actually the only way that Caroline tried to get 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.880 Byron's attention, right, We talked before about all of the 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:23.000 various things. She did so in a creative sense, so 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.040 she kind of turned that same creative energy to this. 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:28.920 While she was writing him all of these love letters, 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:33.240 she was also bad mouthing him to everyone. Did you 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:37.360 have ears? You were going to hear um? When she 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:41.320 was caught sneaking into his house, she threatened to kill 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.360 herself with a knife. She burned his effigies, gifts, and 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:48.160 copies of his letters in a bonfire while having a 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.040 group of local kids recite a poem that she had 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:56.360 written about him. Deep ritualistic situation going on there. Just 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:01.680 got to move on from that, right enterprising? But yes, 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.160 that is a true story. And if you're not already 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:09.240 thinking about the eighties movie Fatal Attraction, well, she also allegedly, 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:11.920 and this is rather lud yes, take a pause for 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:17.760 this one, she sent him clippings of her pubic hair. Yeah, 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:21.920 and it continues, all right, that didn't end with pubic hair. Also, 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:26.240 I never thought i'd be discussing that stalker show. However, 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:31.520 here we are. Another time, when she was unable to 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.480 gain access to his home, she wrote the words remember 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:37.800 me on a blank page in one of Byron's books. 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:43.160 He did respond to that, but not how she had hoped. 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.240 In fact, he wrote what you could consider a hate 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:49.800 poem to her, which I have a little snippet of 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.440 this stands and went like this, remember THEE. I doubt 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.240 it not? Thy husband too shall think of THEE? By 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.120 neither shalt thou be forgot thou falls to him? Thou 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:05.200 fiend to me? Hate poem. Caroline had also become really 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.760 good at impersonating Byron's work, which is really creepy to me. Yeah, 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.920 this included his handwriting, so she was signing his name 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.240 to work that she was writing. And on top of 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.760 impersonating him as a poet, she also wrote letters in 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:23.040 his style. One interesting little fact that was uncovered about 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.200 her letters is that she sent one as Byron to 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:30.120 Byron's publisher. So at that point it's beyond creepy and 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.920 messing with someone's livelihood. And in that letter, she actually 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:38.320 deceived the publisher into sending her a portrait of him, 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.000 because that's what she needed, a portrait of Byron at 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:45.120 his point in her life, because her obsession just continued. 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.920 So when Byron publicly bad mouthed her at a ball, 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.680 she smashed a wineglass and tried to cut her wrists, 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:56.560 to which Byron reacted by describing her act as nothing 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:00.760 more than the theater and commenting quote Lady Lynn performed 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:05.440 the dagger scene in reference to the Shakespeare play Macbeth callous. 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.520 Nobody is doing it right at this point, right now, 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:14.880 this is a train wreck. Caroline plunged into a depression 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:18.040 after this and started to drink a great deal as 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.600 a way to cope with her heartbreak. She also, at 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:24.040 this time wrote a book Glenarvon, which was a satire 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.000 that was released in eighteen sixteen, only a few weeks 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:32.200 after Byron's permanent departure from England. That book was published anonymously, 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:36.280 but the intimate details of her romance with Byron, details 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.600 about her husband, and scathing commentary about other aristocrats made 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:44.480 it absolutely easy to guess who had written that particular 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.040 piece of literature. If she any more gossip about herself, 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:51.600 this book did it? Everybody knew that she wrote this book. 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:53.840 I'm not sure she was welcome in any of her 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.560 circles at this point. Byron responded to the novel, which 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.280 he actually did read it, and he said it and 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:05.680 we quote, I read Glenarvan by Carol Lamb goddamn. And 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.560 when he wrote his famous poem John Juan, it was 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:12.600 published about three years after Caroline's book, he actually included 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.879 some passages that alluded to her, and one line really 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:19.359 can't be mistaken. He wrote some play the Devil and 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:23.280 then write a novel. Caroline replied to Byron's taunts with 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.119 her own poem, which was titled a New Canto, but 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.480 Byron never responded to it. And actually historians believe it 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:35.200 is because he likely never even read it, and most critics, 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.399 to be honest, or many of them at the time, 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:41.600 considered Caroline's book to be and this is harsh, unreadable 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:46.160 pulp fiction. It was so controversial that her in laws 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:50.120 tried to have it banned from further publication. They were unsuccessful. 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.800 They also tried to have her diagnosed, as we quote 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.960 because as a term at the time certified insane. Again unsuccessful. 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:03.439 Embarrass and disgraced by his wife's indiscretions, William decided that 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:05.880 it would be best for the pair to separate, but 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.000 at the end of the day neither of them went 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:12.199 through with that. Really, like to make very clear, this 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:16.639 would be like a very high profile politician today having 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:20.400 a spouse very publicly having affairs, but then also very 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:25.399 publicly obsessing over someone like picture, someone married to a 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.679 politician having had an affair with a famous actor. That 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.280 actor takes off, moves on with his life, and that 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:37.200 person continues to publicly obsess over them for years, wildly embarrassing, 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:41.160 particularly in Victorian England. I believe actually through a lot 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:43.520 of their marriage they weren't actually living together. I might 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:45.480 be wrong on that, but it seems like he would 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:47.399 travel a lot and live in different places because of 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:51.679 his various roles in politics. So um, you know there's there. 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.359 There's that too. You know we're never together, so why 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:59.160 bother actually going through the divorce? Right? And Caroline died 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.960 four years later on January in London. She had, as 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.960 we said, taken to drinking very heavily. Apparently she favored 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:11.280 sherry if you believe reports, and it is said that 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.560 her death at a mere age forty two, was accelerated 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:18.280 by alcohol and laudan amuse. William, who at this point 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.119 was Chief Secretary for Ireland, traveled to be at her bedtime. 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:27.120 So during the time that she lived in Caroline's behavior 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:31.240 might not have actually been called stalking. The behavior was there, 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.639 but the terminology necessarily wasn't um. But what she was 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.480 doing she was absolutely engaging in stalking behavior. She was 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:42.280 not only persistent, she was confusing reality with fantasy. And 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.080 these are things we know that can happen when someone 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.560 is stalking. Some have written of her that she was 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.959 behaving as though she were and this was a quote 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:54.919 that that I came across the heroine of a melodrama. 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.919 At one point Byron remarked very similarly that she was 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:02.680 and I'm gonna quote him here, heated by novel reading, 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.679 which made her fancy herself the heroine of romance and 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:10.240 led her into all sorts of eccentricities. And Caroline's obsession 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:14.240 with Lord Byron defined the last roughly fifteen years of 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.600 her life. But if you are aching to find a 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:22.479 positive out of all of this turmoil, just one, just 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:25.879 just one minor one, you could make the case that 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.840 her behavior and this affair also influenced both her and 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.600 Byron's writing. So if you enjoyed Byron's work, know that 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:36.600 some of that came out of going through this very 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:40.439 strange affair and having this person never really get over him. 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:43.320 But instead of being remembered in history as a serious 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:46.800 writer and a poet, because remember, Caroline did have her 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:50.560 own literary talents, despite those scathing reviews of Glenn Arvan, 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:55.520 and she wrote three more novels. And so the interesting 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:59.320 twist here is that while she coined that phrase to 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.560 describe iron is mad, bad and dangerous to know it 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:06.520 really is more appropriate probably for her. I agree, I 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:15.480 completely agree. Are you projecting? Are you feeling okay today? Caroline? Um? 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:18.639 So for anybody who's familiar with Downton Abbey. This is 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:23.959 definitely an appropriate moment to remember the words of the 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:28.720 Dowager Countess. The only poet Pierre I am familiar with 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:32.000 is Lord Byron, and I presume we all know how 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:37.840 that ended. I'm sure we are all imagining Maggie Smith 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:42.800 saying Lord Byron, the poet Pierre likely died of malaria 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.160 in Greece in four He was only thirty six years old, 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:50.920 so before she passed, certainly, and another you know, incidents 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:56.200 of life taken rather quickly. This isn't a super fun 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.920 ending for this episode. This isn't a super fun episode. 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:03.199 Like the fun thing about it is if you remove 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:05.800 yourself from you know, knowing that they're actually real people 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:08.680 who were involved in this. It sounds like a crazy 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:12.639 Hollywood script, but it's not. It's real and she really 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:17.200 did have these problems and Byron was not particularly kind 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:20.959 and like this whole this a whole script, the whole 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:24.560 life that they had. It doesn't seem like it was 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:28.800 fifteen years. It seems like it was an entire lifetime. Right. 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:35.920 So Holly, now that we've gone through Lady Lam and 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:39.640 Lord Byron, what would we toast them with if we 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:45.280 were to have some sort of drink in there, who yeah, 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:49.720 in their honor. So as I was reading this, what 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:52.520 I kept thinking was, I want a drink that feels 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:56.120 very comforting after all of this as well. I mean, 0:23:56.119 --> 0:23:57.800 we have to acknowledge we are living in a very 0:23:57.840 --> 0:24:01.320 strange time, So a comfort cocktail sounded great to me 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:04.560 for that reason as well. UM And so I came 0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:08.600 up with something called I Think I'm in love, which is, 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:12.720 you know very much about um, a person who is 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:15.640 obsessed in this manner. They're not actually in real love. 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:18.160 They are in obsession, but they think they're in love. 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:22.040 But also my thing is that if you shared similar 0:24:22.160 --> 0:24:24.240 taste to me, when you sip this, you will go, oh, 0:24:24.240 --> 0:24:26.800 I think I'm in love with this drink. So it's 0:24:26.840 --> 0:24:30.879 super easy. It starts with hot chocolate. Oh, I'm actually 0:24:30.960 --> 0:24:37.439 really surprised by that. So I do your hot chocolate 0:24:37.480 --> 0:24:39.800 however you do it. If you like instant hot chocolate, 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:43.320 go crazy. I like to make hot chocolate, you know, 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:46.520 with cocoa powder and milk. That way I can control 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:49.320 the sweetness level myself. And sometimes I also throw a 0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:52.199 little vanilla extract in there too. Just make it a 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:55.560 little warmer. However, you like your hot chocolate, you just 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:57.679 want to start with a mug of hot chocolate and 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:01.320 then you add an ounce of brandy and two ounces 0:25:01.359 --> 0:25:05.320 of white chocolate liqueur and it just makes a nice, warm, 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:10.239 cuddly cup of alcohol. I wish that Caroline had just 0:25:10.280 --> 0:25:15.600 stayed home and made that drink, right, although she had 0:25:15.600 --> 0:25:18.080 a drinking problem, so maybe not so much. Well that 0:25:18.160 --> 0:25:20.040 was you know, she turned to it for Byron, so 0:25:20.200 --> 0:25:22.119 maybe if she stayed home with her hot chocolate, she 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:26.320