Byron: The Last Phase

by Richard Edgcumbe

Such was Trelawny’s opinion of Byron in April, 1824. From all that the present writer has been able to gather, both from Trelawny’s lips and from his ‘Recollections,’ published thirty-four years after Byron’s death, such was his real opinion to the last.

Mrs. Julian Marshall, having called attention[24] to the fact that, four months after Byron’s death, Trelawny, in a letter to Mary Shelley, spoke in contemptuous terms of Byron, we feel bound to refer to it here. It must be remembered that the letter in question was of a strictly private nature. In making it public, Mrs. Marshall unintentionally dealt a severe blow at Trelawny, which, in justice to his memory, we will endeavour to soften.

To anyone acquainted with the character of this remarkable man—the fearless soul of honour—such a volte-face seems absurd, except on the hypothesis that something had transpired, since Byron’s death, sufficient to destroy a long-tried friendship. The fact is that during those four months the whole situation had changed. Trelawny, no longer a free-lance, was practically a prisoner in a cave on Mount Parnassus. His friend Odysseus went about in daily fear of assassination, and was persecuted by the active hostility of a Government which both Odysseus and Trelawny thought was inspired by Mavrocordato. Trelawny’s opinion of the latter, whose cause Byron had espoused, may be gathered from his letter to Mary Shelley:

‘A word as to your wooden god Mavrocordato. He is a miserable Jew, and I hope ere long to see his head removed from his worthless and heartless body. He is a mere shuffling soldier, an aristocratic brute—wants Kings and Congresses—a poor, weak, shuffling, intriguing, cowardly fellow; so no more about him.’

It will be seen that Trelawny, when fairly warmed up, did not mince his words. It is indeed a pity that these heated adjectives were served up to the public. It was only because Byron had consistently supported Mavrocordato as the Governor of Western Greece that Trelawny, in his indiscriminative manner, assailed his memory. But his letter was evidently only the peevish outburst of an angry man, and closed with these words:

‘I would do much to see and talk to you, but, as I am now too much irritated to disclose the real state of things, I will not mislead you by false statements.’

The state of things at the time may be gathered from a letter addressed to Colonel Stanhope by Captain Humphreys, who was then serving the Greek cause as a volunteer.

‘I write, not from a land of liberty and freedom, but from a country at present a prey to anarchy and confusion, with the dismal prospect of future tyranny.... Odysseus is at his fortress of Parnassus; bribery, assassination, and every provocation, have been employed against him. An English officer, Captain Fenton, who is with Odysseus, as well as Trelawny, has been twice attempted to be assassinated, after refusing to accept a bribe of 10,000 dollars, to deliver up the fortress. Mavrocordato’s agents principally influence the Government; the executive body remains stationary; and part of the loan has been employed to secure their re-election.’

There is enough in this letter to account for Trelawny’s irritation; but he was entirely wrong in thinking that Byron was in any sense subservient to the man whom he then regarded as the real author of his misfortunes. Trelawny had made the mistake of joining the faction of Odysseus, but Byron was never connected with any faction whatever. Odysseus seems to have persuaded Trelawny that Byron had become a mere tool of Mavrocordato, and it was under that erroneous impression that his letter to Mary Shelley was written.

If, as Mrs. Julian Marshall says, ‘Trelawny’s mercurial and impulsive temperament—ever in extremes—was liable to the most sudden revulsion of feeling,’ it would surely have been wiser, and certainly fairer, to have withheld the publication of opinions which were not intended for publication, and which he had, in later life, openly disavowed. In his estimate of the character and policy of Mavrocordato, he was also mistaken. It would be quite easy to show that Mavrocordato was perhaps the only man of his nation, then in Greece, who united in an eminent degree unadulterated patriotism with the talents which form a statesman. Millingen, who knew him well, tells us that it was fortunate for Greece that Mavrocordato was so well acquainted with the character of those with whom he had to deal. That knowledge preserved Missolonghi, until the arrival of reinforcements enabled it to hold out against Omer Pacha’s assault. Mavrocordato, he tells us, never pursued any other object than the good of his country, and never sacrificed her interests to his own ambition. He alone was capable of organizing a civil administration; in fact, he created a stable form of government from the ashes of chaos. So far from his having been a coward, as Trelawny asserts, Mavrocordato, in his intense desire to serve his country, often placed himself at the head of troops and fought bravely. Having held the position of Governor-General of Western Greece in very trying times, he relinquished his command in 1825, in compliance with the orders of his Government, which recalled him to Anapli, there to fill the post of Secretary of State. He sacrificed the whole of his fortune in the service of Greece. According to Millingen, he was occasionally so distressed for money as to be unable to provide for his daily expenses.