LADY BYRON’S DEMAND FOR A SEPARATION—RUMOURS THAT “GROSS CHARGES” MIGHT BE BROUGHT, INVOLVING MRS. LEIGH

Hobhouse, as we have seen, had an early inkling of the trouble which was to come; and it is not to be supposed that the brief entries in his Diary chronicle the whole of his knowledge. He had observed, indeed—or so he says—that it was “impossible for any couple to live in more apparent harmony”; but he also had reason to believe that the appearances did not reflect the realities with complete exactitude. He had heard Byron talk, though “vaguely,” of breaking up his establishment, of going abroad without Lady Byron, of living alone in rooms; and he had noticed that Byron’s complaints of his poverty led up to disparaging generalisations about marriage.

Speaking of his embarrassments, Byron had said that “no one could know what he had gone through,” but that he “should think lightly of them were he not married.” Marriage, he had added, “doubled all his misfortunes and diminished all his comforts.” He summed the matter up, with apparent anxiety to do equal justice to Lady Byron’s feelings and his own by saying: “My wife is perfection itself—the best creature breathing; but mind what I say—don’t marry.” Having received these confidences, and knowing Byron well, Hobhouse must have been at least partially prepared for the subsequent developments; but their suddenness nevertheless surprised him, as they surprised everyone.

The crisis came shortly after Lady Byron’s confinement, in the early days of 1816. Augusta, Byron’s cousin, Captain George Byron, and Mrs. Clermont, a waiting woman who had been promoted to be Lady Byron’s governess and companion, were all in the house at the time. They had witnessed some of the scenes of which we have spoken—scenes which appear to have included, if not to have been provoked by, irritating references to “the women of the theatre.” Byron is said to have been aggressive in his allusions to them; and there is no evidence that Lady Byron was conciliatory on the subject. The state of his liver and of her general health would naturally have tended to accentuate any differences that arose. Things came to such a pass that, for a few days, they communicated in writing instead of by word of mouth; and Byron sent a note to Lady Byron’s room.

He spoke in this note of the necessity of breaking up his establishment—a necessity of which, in view of the frequent invasions of the bailiffs, she can scarcely have then heard for the first time. He asked her to fix a date for accepting an invitation to stay with her mother at Kirkby Mallory. He proposed that that date should be as early as was compatible with her convenience, and added: “The child will, of course, accompany you.” Whereto Lady Byron replied, also in writing: “I shall obey your wishes and fix the earliest day that circumstances will admit for leaving London.”

Neither letter is particularly amiable. On the other hand, neither letter suggests that Lady Byron was leaving, or being asked to leave, as the direct consequence of any specific quarrel. There was no question of a separation—only of a visit to be paid; and the dread of more “men in possession” sufficiently explains Byron’s wish that it should be paid without delay. Lady Byron would obviously be more comfortable at Kirkby Mallory than in a house besieged or occupied by minions of the law. Her husband would have time, while she was there, to turn round and reconsider his position. The temporary estrangement—the interchange of heated recriminations—did not make the execution of the plan any the less desirable. On the contrary, it might afford opportunity for tempers to cool and for absence to make the heart grow fonder.

It seemed, at first, as though Lady Byron saw the matter in that light. She did not sail out of the house with indignation—she left it on ostensibly cordial terms with everybody who remained in it. She wrote to Byron in language which seemed to express fond affection, sending him news of his child, and saying that she looked forward to seeing him at Kirkby. One of the letters—there were two of them—began with the words “Dear Duck,” and was signed with Lady Byron’s pet name “Pippin.” That was in the middle of January. There was an interval of a few days, and then it became known that Lady Noel[8] and Mrs. Clermont were in London, “for the purpose,” as Hobhouse states, “of procuring means of providing a separation.”

Nothing, Hobhouse insists, had happened since Lady Byron’s departure to account for this sudden change of attitude. There had, in fact, hardly been time for anything to happen. That intrigue with a “woman of the theatre” which Cordy Jeaffreson believed to have been Lady Byron’s determining grievance did not begin until a later date. The one thing, in short, which had happened was that Lady Byron—and Mrs. Clermont, who had accompanied her—had talked. Byron’s conduct had been painted by them in lurid colours—the more lurid, no doubt, because they found listeners who were at once astounded and sympathetic. Sir Ralph and Lady Noel had, naturally, been indignant. Their daughter, they vowed, was not to be treated in this way; and they were, no doubt, the more disposed to indignation because they and Byron had not got on very well together.

Sir Ralph is commonly described in Byron’s letters to his intimates as prosy and a bore. “I can’t stand Lady Noel,” was the reason which he gave Hobhouse for declining to visit her house. A very small spark, in such circumstances, may kindle a fierce conflagration; and it appeared to do so in this case. There was no manoeuvring for position, no beating about the bush. Byron received no intimation, direct or indirect, of the plans which were being laid for his confusion. What he did receive—on February 2—was a stiffly worded ultimatum from his father-in-law.

The charges contained in the ultimatum were mostly vague; in so far as they were precise, they were untrue. “Very recently,” Sir Ralph began, “circumstances have come to my knowledge”; the circumstances, so far as he disclosed them, relating to Lady Byron’s “dismissal” from Byron’s house, and “the treatment she experienced while in it.” He went on to propose a separation and to demand as early an answer as possible. He got his answer the same day. It was to the effect that Lady Byron had not been “dismissed” from Piccadilly Terrace, but had left London “by medical advice,” and it concluded: “Till I have her express sanction of your proceedings, I shall take leave to doubt the propriety of your interference.”

Mrs. Leigh wrote simultaneously to Lady Byron to inquire whether the proposal made by her father had her concurrence. The answer, dated February 3, was that it had, but that Lady Byron, owing to her “distressing situation” did not feel “capable of stating in a detailed manner the reasons which will not only justify this measure, but compel me to take it.” She referred, however, to Byron’s “avowed and insurmountable aversion to the married state, and the desire and determination he has expressed, ever since its commencement, to free himself from that bondage, as finding it quite insupportable”; and she added in a subsequent letter, written on the following day:

That was the stage which the discussion had reached when Hobhouse, calling on Byron on February 5, heard what had happened and was taken into council. The whole thing was a mystery to him, and a mystery on which Byron could throw but little light. In the light of the few facts before him, Lady Byron’s conduct was absolutely unaccountable, inconsistent, and incoherent. The transition from the “Dearest Duck” letter to the “avowed and insurmountable aversion to the married state” letter seemed inexplicably abrupt; and, indeed, it seems so still, though later disclosures enable us, in some measure, to trace its history; the facts now known, but not then known either to Byron or to his advisers, being as follows:

These facts, which gave Lady Byron’s conduct a certain superficial coherence, were gradually elicited. For the moment, however, the only fact which Hobhouse had before him was the ultimatum and Lady Byron’s endorsement of it. Of Lady Byron’s reasons he knew nothing; and he had no grounds for suspecting any other motives than the word “tantrums” would cover. He proceeded, as did all Byron’s supporters, on the assumption that the word “tantrums” did, in fact, cover them; and a fusillade of letters ensued. One cannot quote them all, but their contents can easily be summed up. From Byron’s side there issued appeals for reconciliation, for explanations, for specific charges, for personal interviews; from Lady Byron’s side there came refusals either to give reasons or to parley, and reiterated statements that her mind was unalterably made up.

“I must decline your visit and all discussion,” was what Lady Byron wrote to Hobhouse on February 7; and on the same day she wrote to Byron himself: “I have finally determined on the measure of a separation.... Every expression of feeling, sincerely as it might be made, would be misplaced.” The letter apparently crossed one from Byron to Sir Ralph Noel, in which he said that his house was still open to Lady Byron, that he must not debase himself to “implore as a suppliant the restoration of a reluctant wife,” but that it was her duty to return, and that he knew of no reason why she should not do so. On the following day Byron addressed a further appeal to Lady Byron herself: “Will you see me—when and where you please—in whose presence you please?” and, almost as he was writing, he received another communication from Sir Ralph Noel, threatening legal proceedings “until a final separation is effected.”February 13 brought the letter in which Lady Byron stated that she had excused Byron’s conduct in the belief that he was mad, but that she could not excuse it now that she had received assurance of his sanity. She added: “I have consistently fulfilled my duty as your wife; it was too dear to be resigned till it was hopeless. Now my resolution cannot be changed.” Byron rejoined on February 15: “I have invited your return; it has been refused. I have requested to know with what I am charged; it is refused.”

He had, in fact, made, and was still to make, attempts, through several channels, to pin Lady Byron and her supporters to a specific allegation. Hodgson had been appealed to by Mrs. Leigh to come and help. He came, and, on the strength of the information supplied to him, wrote to Lady Byron. Two of her letters and one of his are published in his life by his son, the Reverend James T. Hodgson. Hers may be analysed as a very thinly veiled threat to bring mysterious and abominable charges unless she got her way. There is an air about the letters of conscious virtue and of consideration for the feelings of others, but the threat is unmistakably contained in them. “He does know—too well—what he affects to inquire,” is one sentence; and another is: “The circumstances, which are of too convincing a nature, shall not be generally known whilst Lord B. allows me to spare him.”

Hanson, the lawyer had, in the meantime, been sent to call on Sir Ralph Noel. He had asked for explanations, and been refused any. He had also met Lushington who had, by this time, been definitely retained by Lady Byron, and addressed some inquiries to him. “Oh, we are not going to let you into the forte of our case,” had been Dr. Lushington’s reply.

It was, no doubt, a reply in strict conformity with his instructions. Lushington, as we know from a published letter from him to Lady Byron, was, at this date, personally in favour of an attempt at reconciliation. On the other hand, as is equally clear from the letters quoted in preceding paragraphs, Lady Byron had announced her intention of going into Court unless she could get her separation without doing so. Whether she had, at this date, any case—any case, that is to say, which a lawyer could take into Court with any confidence of winning it—may be questioned. The weaker her case, of course, the less likely her counsel would be to reveal the nakedness of the land prematurely by talking about it. Professional etiquette and zeal for the interests intrusted to him account quite adequately for his reticence; and there is no other influence to be drawn from it.

A little later, at an uncertain date towards the end of February, Lushington, as his letter to Lady Byron sets forth, received a visit from Lady Byron, had “additional information” imparted to him, changed his mind, and said that, if a reconciliation were still contemplated, or should thereafter be proposed, he, at any rate, should decline to render any help in bringing it about. The original “Byron mystery” was: What was the nature of that “additional information” which so suddenly altered Lushington’s attitude towards the case? That mystery has, as we shall see in a moment, been solved by Lord Lovelace. The questions left unsolved relate, not to the nature of the information but to its accuracy. Byron, Hobhouse, and Hodgson, however, were unable to dispute its accuracy because they were left uninformed as to its nature, and could only guess the charges to be met.

The awkwardness of the situation is obvious. On the one hand, Byron could not be expected to desire, for his own sake, the society of a wife who wrote him such letters as he was now receiving from Lady Byron—to separate from her would, at any rate, be the least uncomfortable of the courses open to him. On the other hand, he could not afford to let it be said that he had consented to a separation under the threat of gross, but unspecified, accusations. The charges might be specified afterwards, whether by Lady Byron herself or by the irresponsible voice of gossip, and he would be held to have pleaded guilty to them.

That, as Byron’s friends impressed upon him, could not be allowed. It could the less be allowed because rumour was already busy, and charges of a very monstrous and malignant character were being whispered. The name of Mrs. Leigh was being mixed up in the matter, and there was some reason to suppose that the stories implicating her emanated from Lady Byron; for Lady Byron, according to Hobhouse, had intimated to Mrs. Leigh that “she would be one of her evidences against her brother.” That might mean much, or might mean little; but it meant enough, at any rate, to make it imperative for Byron to show fight until the air was cleared. So his friends urged, and he agreed with them, and waited for the next step to be taken by the other side.

What the other side did, in these circumstances—we are still following Hobhouse’s account—was simultaneously to appeal for pity, to bluff, and to spy out the land. They “talked of the cruelty of dragging” Lady Byron into a public Court. They sent Mrs. Clermont to Captain Byron to try to induce him to dissuade Byron from fighting. They threatened that, if he did fight, they would carry the case from Court to Court, and bury him alive under a heap of costs. But all this without effect. Sir Ralph Noel wrote to Hanson to inquire whether Byron had “come to any determination” on the proposal to separate. The reply was to the effect that “his Lordship cannot accede.”

At the end of February, that is to say, Byron still meant fighting. He said that, if Lady Byron did not proceed against him, he should proceed against her, and commence an action for the restitution of conjugal rights. His friends approved of his determination; but, at the same time, desiring to know what sort of a case would have to be met, they begged Byron to be quite candid with them and inform them, not, of course, of the nature of Lady Byron’s charges, of which he had not himself been informed, but of any good grounds of complaint which he knew himself to have given her.