At first she refused him, assuring him that her violent temper would make for unhappiness in married life, but suggested that she should adopt boy’s clothes and act as his secretary. That arrangement did not commend itself to him, and so he waited in patience, and after a short space, proposed again and was accepted. The marriage excited great interest among Lady Caroline’s friends and relations. They found her looking prettier than ever, and though sometimes nervous, she appeared to be very happy, and William Lamb quite devoted to her. The wedding took place between seven and eight on the evening of 3rd June 1805. Lady Elizabeth Foster, who was present, wrote to her son that Lady Caroline “was dreadfully nervous, but his (i.e. Lamb’s) manner to her was beautiful, so tender and considerate.” A passionate scene, however, occurred when the time came for the bride and bridegroom to go away, Lady Caroline never having contemplated that marriage meant leaving her parents and her girlhood’s home.
The first year of married life was spent chiefly in London, where the young couple had a suite of apartments in Lady Melbourne’s house in Whitehall; there were visits to Brocket Hall (where the honeymoon had been passed) and to Panshanger, William Lamb’s sister Emily having married Lord Cowper in July 1805.[5]
In January 1806 Lamb entered Parliament as Whig member for Leominster. Lady Caroline led a gay, irresponsible life. She lacked concentration, and her versatile talents caused her to occupy herself with too many things. A little painting, a little music, a little reading, some writing of verses, playgoing, acting in private theatricals, with a large amount of riding and dancing, filled the days and nights. Her friends still found her “the same wild, delicate, odd, delightful person, unlike everything,” as she had been before her marriage.
Life at Melbourne House was certainly gay. Waltzes and quadrilles, then new dances, were daily practised there, among the learners being Lady Jersey, Lady Cowper, the Duke of Devonshire, Miss Milbanke, who was later to become the wife of Byron, and a number of foreign notabilities whose diplomatic appointments made it necessary for them to live in London. Forty or fifty young people, all gay and noisy, would dance from noon until dinner-time, and afterwards there would be suppers and balls and routs to attend. Lady Caroline would give “immense assemblies” at Melbourne House in the evening, the guests often having to walk to their carriages, and some not getting away till 3 a.m. A few choice spirits would be invited to supper in Lady Melbourne’s apartments below, and would stay till 6 a.m. Among them were the Prince of Wales and Sheridan; the latter got completely drunk. In 1807 in the midst of all this life of excitement, a son was born to Lady Caroline, and it was hoped that motherhood would tend to sober her and help her to lead a quieter life. But unhappily the child, though healthy in body, was feeble in mind. He was not actually imbecile, but never developed mentally. He outlived his mother, but died before his father[6] on 27th November 1836.
In the autumn of 1811 Byron returned from his travels with the first two cantos of “Childe Harold” in his pocket. Some early proofs were given to private friends, among them to Rogers, who lent them to Lady Caroline. She was enchanted, and determined to get to know the poet about whom every one was talking, and about whom she talked freely with extravagant praise. But nothing did Lady Caroline do in an ordinary way. At a party at Lady Westmoreland’s, the hostess brought up Byron to introduce him to Lady Caroline. She, though dying to know him, looked earnestly at him and turned away, and recorded in her journal that he was “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” A day or two later she was calling on Lady Holland when Byron was announced. Lady Holland said, “I must present Lord Byron to you.” He reminded her of her refusal to be introduced to him, and asked the reason, and begged permission to go to see her. Next day he called at Melbourne House. Rogers and Moore were there. Lady Caroline had just come in from riding and was, in her own words, “filthy and heated.” She flew out of the room to wash herself. When she returned, Rogers said, “Lord Byron, you are a happy man; Lady Caroline has been sitting in all her dirt with us, but when you were announced she flew to beautify herself.” Then Byron asked if he might come and see her when she was alone; she gave permission, and so the acquaintance was begun.
After the publication of “Childe Harold” Byron leapt into fame. He was the one subject of conversation. All the women, as Lady Caroline elegantly phrased it, threw up their heads at him. She herself absolutely besieged him, and wrote him the most imprudent letters. In the first she assured him that if he needed money all her jewels were at his service. When she met him at a party, a frequent occurrence, she insisted on being taken home by him to Melbourne House in his carriage; and if he was at an entertainment to which she was not invited, she would wait for him in the street outside the house until he left. Byron was of course attracted by her, and described her as “the cleverest, most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing, dangerous, fascinating little being that lives now, or ought to have lived two thousand years ago,” and was at first flattered by her bold attentions. He became an habitué of her circle, and even stopped the dancing so loved of the young people at Melbourne House, because it was a pastime in which his lameness would not permit him to join. But much as Byron admired Lady Caroline she never realised that he admired other ladies as well. In May 1812, when the report got about that he was going back to Greece, it was popularly said that husbands were greatly relieved and felt that then they could sleep in peace. There was fear, however, in some minds that Lady Caroline would insist on going with him, “she is so wild and imprudent.” Byron seems to have teased and played with her and to have gone as far as she allowed him. They went about together in public, or retired from the crowd to read poetry together. Byron complained that she loved her husband better than she did him, and she was deeply grieved when she was told that Byron thought her heartless. The infatuation lasted about nine months, and then Byron grew tired of her. In the beginning he had certainly been flattered by the attentions of one so highly placed. They both liked to talk about themselves, a circumstance that did not make for peace; Lady Caroline imprudently read him her verses, a fatal error, for though he praised them mildly, he was much more anxious that she should praise his. Her attempts to monopolise him in public bored him and he grew cold. In the early days of their acquaintance, Byron had made her promise not to waltz; but later on, at a ball given by Lady Heathcote, she said to Lady Caroline, “Come, you must begin.” She replied bitterly, “Oh yes, I’m in a merry humour,” and whispered to Byron, who was standing by her, “I conclude I may waltz now?” He answered sarcastically, “With everybody in turn—you always did it better than any one. I shall have a pleasure in seeing you.” So she danced, and afterwards, feeling ill and fatigued, she entered a small inner room where supper was laid. Byron and some ladies happened to come in after Lady Caroline, and Byron said to her, “I have been admiring your dexterity.” Infuriated by his manner, she took up a knife. Byron continued his untimely and unwise jesting, saying, “Do, my dear, but if you mean to act a Roman’s part, mind which way you strike with your knife; let it be at your own heart, not at mine, for you have struck there already.” She ran away, still clasping the knife, but without the slightest intention of injuring either herself or him. The ladies very naturally screamed and followed her, and in the struggle to get the knife away from her, her hand got cut and the blood went over her gown. Of course the rumour went about that she had tried to murder Byron and commit suicide.
Her husband does not seem to have attached much importance to his wife’s escapades. He knew her craving for excitement, how short a time, as a rule, her fancies lasted, how, as soon as anything ceased to be new and rare, she grew tired of it, and therefore thought her infatuation for Byron would die a natural and speedy death, and that it was better to laugh at it or ignore it than to treat it seriously. And in spite of her strange behaviour she was really fond of her husband, and if he had taken her in hand and brought discipline into her life, it would have been better for her and for him.
Her mother and her mother-in-law grew seriously alarmed, and the former carried her daughter off to Ireland, where they remained for three months. Byron then wrote her the following letter:
“My dearest Caroline,—If tears, which you saw, and know I am not apt to shed; if the agitation in which I parted from you—agitation which, you must have perceived through the whole of this most nervous affair, did not commence till the moment of leaving you approached—if all I have said and done, and am still but too ready to say and do, have not sufficiently proved what my feelings are, and must ever be, towards you, my love, I have no other proof to offer. God knows I never knew till this moment the madness of my dearest and most beloved friend. I cannot express myself, this is no time for words—but I shall have a pride, a melancholy pleasure, in suffering what you yourself can scarcely conceive, for you do not know me. I am about to go out, with a heavy heart, for my appearing this evening will stop any absurd story which the spite of the day will give rise to. Do you think now that I am cold and stern and wilful? Will ever others think so? Will your mother ever? That mother to whom we must indeed sacrifice much more, much more on my part than she shall ever know, or can imagine. ‘Promise not to love you?’ Ah, Caroline, it is past promising! But I shall attribute all concessions to the proper motive, and never cease to feel all that you have already witnessed, and more than ever can be known, but to my own heart—perhaps, to yours. May God forgive, protect, and bless you ever and ever, more than ever. Your most attached
Byron.
“P.S.—These taunts have driven you to this, my dearest Caroline, and were it not for your mother, and the kindness of your connections, is there anything in heaven or earth that would have made me so happy as to have made you mine long ago? And not less now than then, but more than ever at this time. God knows I wish you happy, and when I quit you, or rather you, from a sense of duty to your husband and mother, quit me, you shall acknowledge the truth of what I again promise and vow, that no other, in word or deed, shall ever hold the place in my affections which is and shall be sacred to you till I am nothing. You know I would with pleasure give up all here or beyond the grave for you; and in refraining from this, must my motives be misunderstood? I care not who knows this, what use is made of it—it is to you, and to you only, yourself. I was, and am yours, freely and entirely, to obey, to honour, to love, and fly with you, when, where, and how yourself might and may determine.”
It is difficult to know what to make of this letter. It shows, however, that the relationship between them had not overstepped the bounds of friendship, and it is probable that Byron, like most men in a similar position, had had enough of platonic affection. But recognising the dangers and inconveniences of going further, and desiring to withdraw without unduly hurting Lady Caroline’s feelings, he adopted the soothing tone suitable to a tiresome child who, in spite of her faults, still held something of his affection. He deplored the difficulty, nay the impossibility, of any solution except that of parting, and yet, as is also the way of men with women in these cases, left the decision on her shoulders. He is hers to obey, honour, love, and fly with as she herself may determine. We cannot help suspecting that Byron well knew that Lady Caroline would not run away with him. This is not the attitude of a man sincerely in love, and ready to dare all for love’s sake. However, Lady Caroline seems to have been satisfied, and Byron continued to write to her while she was in Ireland “the most tender and most amusing” letters. But Byron was thinking of matrimony, and had fixed his choice on Lady Caroline’s cousin, Miss Milbanke, a project furthered by Lady Melbourne; and when he heard that Lady Caroline was returning to England he took the bull by the horns and addressed to her at Dublin the letter that put a real end to his connection with her, a letter in which he told her he was no longer her lover, that he was attached to another, that he was, however, grateful for her favour, and in proof of his regard advised her to correct her vanity, “which is ridiculous,” to exert her absurd caprices on others, and to leave him in peace.[7] This “cruel letter” threw her into such a fever that fears were entertained for her mind, but thanks to the careful nursing of her mother, she recovered and was brought home.