Lady Caroline Lamb

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This article is about the Ango-Irish novelist. For the Chief Executive of NHS Scotland, see Caroline Lamb. For the film, see Lady Caroline Lamb (film).
For other people named Lamb, see Lamb (surname).

Lady Caroline Lamb
Sir Thomas Lawrence
Born(1785-11-13)13 November 1785
Died25 January 1828(1828-01-25) (aged 42)
Spouse
​
(m. 1805)​
ChildrenStillborn child
George Augustus Frederick
A daughter
Parents

Lady Caroline Lamb (née Ponsonby; 13 November 1785 – 25 January 1828) was an

Gothic novel. In 1812, she had an affair with Lord Byron, whom she described as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". Her husband was the Honourable William Lamb, who after her death became 2nd Viscount Melbourne and British prime minister
.

Family background

Lamb was the only daughter of

Annabella, Lady Byron. She was related to Sarah Ponsonby, one half of the Ladies of Llangollen, and Diana, Princess of Wales.[2]

She was never Viscountess Melbourne because she died before Melbourne succeeded to the peerage.

Youth and education

Lady Caroline's mother, Henrietta, Countess of Bessborough, by Angelica Kauffman in 1793

As a small child, Lamb was considered delicate and for her health spent much time in the country. She travelled with her mother and other family to Italy, where she recovered from an

George Lamb. During childhood, she became particularly close to Lady Harriet, who was only three months older than her.[4] Her behaviour reportedly grew increasingly troublesome to her family, and she experimented with sedatives like laudanum and had a special governess to control her.[3]

Lady Morgan reported in her memoirs that Lady Caroline told her that she had grown up as a tomboy and was unable to read or write until adolescence.[5]
As a child, Lady Caroline considered being able to wash a dog one of her most satisfying accomplishments.[citation needed] While many scholars have accepted that (and other melodramatic claims made by Lady Morgan),[6] published works of correspondence about her family members make it extremely unlikely. The grandmother she shared with her Cavendish cousins, the Dowager Lady Spencer, was zealously dedicated to promoting education and later employed their governess as her own companion. The governess was Miss Selina Trimmer, the daughter of Mrs Sarah Trimmer, a well-known and respected author of moral tales for children. She taught them an extensive curriculum, considerably beyond mere literacy. There is a published letter that Lady Caroline wrote on 31 October 1796 (just before her eleventh birthday) that not only demonstrates her literacy but also shows a merciless wit and talent for mimicry.[4]

Lady Caroline was exceptionally well educated at home. She also attended a school in

Frances Arabella Rowden. Rowden was not only a published poet, but also, according to another pupil, Mary Russell Mitford, "she had a knack of making poetesses of her pupils".[7]

In her early adult years, Lady Caroline not only wrote prose and poetry, but also took to sketching portraiture. She spoke French and Italian fluently, was skilled at Greek and Latin and also enjoyed music and drama.

Marriage and family

Lady Caroline Lamb, née Ponsonby

In June 1805, at the age of nineteen, Lady Caroline Ponsonby married

George
married her namesake cousin Caroline St Jules.

Caroline gave birth to a stillborn child in January 1806, and she and William later had a son, George Augustus Frederick, born on 11 August 1807,[8] and a premature daughter, born in 1809, who died within 24 hours.[9] Lady Caroline suffered long recovery periods after each birth.

Her son was born with severe mental problems. Although most aristocratic families typically sent such relatives to

institutions, the Lambs cared for their son at home until his eventual death in 1836,[8] eight years after Lady Caroline's death. The stress of their son's ill health, combined with William Lamb's consuming career ambitions, drove a wedge between the couple.[3] A further difficulty was that William's siblings all detested Caroline, whom they called "the little beast", and she and her mother-in-law had hated each other from the start. Their lifelong enmity was reportedly a great cause of unhappiness to Caroline.[10]

Relationship with Lord Byron

From March to August 1812, Lady Caroline embarked on a well-publicised affair with

fan letter. His response was to visit her because of her high social status and then to pursue her passionately.[11][12]

Portrait of Lord Byron in 1813, by Thomas Phillips

Lady Caroline and Lord Byron publicly decried each other as they privately pledged their love over the following months.

Duke of Wellington when Byron publicly insulted Lady Caroline, who responded by breaking a wine glass and trying to slash her wrists.[15] She did not seriously injure herself, and it is most unlikely that she had any suicidal intentions, but her reputation was damaged and her mental stability was questioned. Byron himself referred to it as a theatrical performance: "Lady Caroline performed the dagger scene" (a reference to Macbeth
).

Lady Caroline's obsession with Byron would define much of her later life, as well as influencing both her and Byron's works. They would write poems in the style of each other about each other and even embed overt messages to one another in their verse.[13] After a thwarted visit to Byron's home, Lady Caroline wrote "Remember Me!" into the flyleaf of one of Byron's books. He responded with the hate poem: "Remember thee! Remember thee!; Till Lethe quench life's burning stream; Remorse and shame shall cling to thee, And haunt thee like a feverish dream! Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not. Thy husband too shall think of thee! By neither shalt thou be forgot, Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!"[14]

Her cousin Harriet (now Lady Granville) with whom Lady Caroline's relationship had deteriorated after childhood, visited her in December 1816 and was so incredulous at her unrepentant behaviour that she ended her description of the visit in a letter to her sister, "I mean my visits to be annual".[16]

Literary career

Lady Caroline Lamb was noted to have been involved in a few different literary circles that met in the Holland House, Lady Charleville's, Lord Ward's, Lord Lansdowne's and others of similar repute.

Emily Lamb, Countess Cowper, got Lady Caroline readmitted to Almack's in 1819, her reputation never fully recovered.[3]

Byron responded to the novel; "I read Glenarvon too by Caro Lamb….God damn!" The book was a financial success that sold out several editions but was dismissed by critics as

Goethe deemed it worthy of serious literary consideration.[20]

In 1819, Lady Caroline mimicked Byron's style in the

Don Juan I and II". Lady Caroline was most concerned with the allusions Byron had made about her; for example, the line "Some play the devil—and then write a novel" from "Don Juan II".[4][14] In "A New Canto", Lady Caroline wrote – as Byron – "I'm sick of fame; I'm gorged with it; so full I almost could regret the happier hour; When northern oracles proclaimed me dull." Byron never publicly responded to the poem. A reviewer of the time opined, in part; "The writer of this lively nonsense has evidently intended it as an imitation of Lord Byron. It is a rhapsody from beginning to end."[4][21]

Lady Caroline published three additional novels during her lifetime: Graham Hamilton (1822),[22] Ada Reis (1823), and Penruddock (1823).[23]

Later life and death

Illustration of Lady Caroline from In Spite of Epilepsy (1910) by Matthew Woods,

Byron's confidante and close friend was his wife's maternal aunt, William Lamb's own mother, the colourful Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne.[10] Lady Melbourne had been instrumental in bringing about the politically-advantageous marriage of her son to Lady Caroline, despite disliking both her and her mother.

However, once Lady Caroline had begun her affair with Byron, her mother-in-law began a long and blatant campaign to rid her son of his wife. As Lord David Cecil remarks, she had long since concluded that Caroline deserved all her misfortunes. William Lamb refused to submit and regretted that his mother had conspired against his wife with Byron. Calling Byron treacherous, William Lamb was supportive of his wife to her death.[24]

Ultimately, it was Lady Caroline who prevailed on her husband to agree to a formal

oedema). William Lamb was now Chief Secretary for Ireland and made a perilous crossing to be by her side when Lady Caroline died on 25 January 1828.[3][10]

Lady Caroline was buried in the graveyard of St Etheldreda's Church in Hatfield; her husband was later buried within the church.

In popular culture

The 1905 novel The Marriage of William Ashe by Mary Augusta Ward was based on Lady Caroline and her husband.

The 1964 historical novel This for Caroline by Doris Leslie is based on her life.

In the 1971 novel Flash for Freedom! by George MacDonald Fraser, the lead character Harry Flashman names an African woman, taken as a slave, "Caroline Lamb."

Tom Stoppard's 1993 play Arcadia features a character, Hannah Jarvis, who is an author of a best-seller on Lady Caroline Lamb.

In 1972, the film Lady Caroline Lamb was released with Sarah Miles in the lead role and Richard Chamberlain as Byron.

In 2003, the BBC broadcast Byron[citation needed] with Jonny Lee Miller in the title role and Camilla Power as Lady Caroline Lamb.

The New York City band Glenarvon took their name from Lamb's novel of the same name.

References

  1. ISBN 1-4039-6605-2
    .
  2. ^ Dickson, Leigh Wetherall (September 2006). Beyond Byron, Legitimising Lamb: The Cultural Contexts of Caroline Lamb's Life and Works (PDF) (PhD thesis). Sheffield Hallan University.
  3. ^
    ISBN 1-4039-6605-2
    .
  4. ^ a b c d e Leveson-Gower, Sir George (Ed.), Hary-O: the Letters of Lady Harriet Cavendish 1796–1809, London: John Murray (1940).
  5. ISBN 0-404-56793-2
    .
  6. ^ "Lady Caroline Lamb," The Literary Encyclopedia,
  7. ISBN 978-3039110971
    .
  8. ^ a b "Melbourne, Viscount (I, 1781 – 1853)". cracroftspeerage.co.uk. Heraldic Media Ltd. Retrieved 2 March 2014.
  9. JSTOR 1316621
    .
  10. ^
    ISBN 1-84212-497-8
    .
  11. ^ a b c Sunday Times: Property (17 November 2002). "Ireland: Poetic justice at home of Byron's exiled lover". The Times. Dublin, Ireland. Retrieved 21 February 2010. Mad, bad and dangerous to know" has become Lord Byron's lasting epitaph
  12. ^ a b Castle, Terry; Grosskurth, Phyllis (13 April 1997). "Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know". The New York Times. NYC, USA. Retrieved 21 February 2010. A biography that sees Lord Byron as a victim of circumstances
  13. ^ a b c d Millstein, Denise Tischler (May 2007). BYRON AND "SCRIBBLING WOMEN": LADY CAROLINE LAMB, THE BRONTË SISTERS, AND GEORGE ELIOT (A Dissertation). Shreveport, LA, USA: Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Department of English.
  14. ^ a b c Wu, Duncan. "Appropriating Byron: Lady Caroline Lamb’s A New Canto". Wordsworth Circle. 26.3 (1995): 140–46.
  15. ^ Paul Douglas (2004) Lady Caroline Lamb (Macmillan) pp.152-153
  16. ^ Leveson-Gower, F. (Ed.), Letters of Harriet Countess Granville 1810–1845, London: Longmans, Green, and Co. (1894).
  17. hdl:2027/miun.aan5995.0001.001
    .
  18. ^ Dickson, Leigh Wetherall and Douglass, Paul (Eds.)"The Works of Lady Caroline Lamb." Pickering & Chatto (2009) Volume 1: Glenarvon: lii + 451; Volume 2: Graham Hamilton and Poems xxx + 229; Volume 3: Ada Reis, A Tale xx + 222.
  19. ^ Weinreb; Gronow (21 February 2010). "Almack's Assembly Rooms". London, UK: The Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos. Archived from the original on 13 August 2009. Retrieved 21 February 2010.
  20. ^ Hennig, John "Goethe's Klaggesang. Irisch." Monatshefte, Vol. 41, No. 2" University of Wisconsin Press (1949) pp. 71–76
  21. ^ Monthly Review New Series v. 94 (1821), 329. London, UK
  22. ISBN 978-1-4039-6605-6
    .
  23. ISBN 978-1-4039-6605-6
    .
  24. ^ Cecil, David, The Young Melbourne & Lord M, p. 178.

Further reading

  • Douglass, Paul (2004). Lady Caroline Lamb: A Biography. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Douglass, Paul (2006). The Whole Disgraceful Truth: Selected Letters of Lady Caroline Lamb. Palgrave-Macmillan.
  • Douglass, Paul; Dickson, Leigh Wetherall (2009). The Collected Works of Lady Caroline Lamb. Pickering & Chatto.
  • Normington, Susan (2001). Lady Caroline Lamb: This Infernal Woman. House of Stratus.

External links

Media related to Lady Caroline Lamb at Wikimedia Commons

Library resources about
Lady Caroline Lamb
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