"GROSS CHARGES" DISAVOWED BY LADY BYRON--SEPARATION AGREED TO
How far Byron was candid with his friends it is, of course, impossible to
say. We know neither what he told them nor what he left untold. All that
is on record is their opinion, reproduced by Hobhouse, that "the whole
charge against him would amount merely to such offences as are more often
committed than complained of, and, however they might be regretted as
subversive of matrimonial felicity, would not render him amenable to the
laws of any court, whether of justice or of equity."
That was either at the end of February or the beginning of March. Early in
the latter month Byron and his friends opened further negotiations. Byron
once more asked his wife to see him, and she replied: "I regret the
necessity of declining an interview under existing circumstances." Then
Lady Melbourne urged her to return to her husband, but only elicited an
expression of wonder "that Lord Byron had not more regard for his
reputation than to think of coming before the public." Then Lord Holland,
who had already offered his services as a negotiator, submitted to Byron
the proposed terms of a deed of separation; but Byron rejected the terms,
describing the proposal as "a kind of appeal to the supposed mercenary
feelings of the person to whom it was made."
There next followed interviews between Lady Byron and Mrs. Leigh, and
between Lady Byron and Captain Byron. To these intermediaries Lady Byron
represented that "something had passed which she had as yet told to no
one, and which nothing but the absolute necessity of justifying herself in
Court should wring from her." Whereto Byron replied that "it was
absolutely false that he had been guilty of any enormity--that nothing
could or would be proved by anybody against him, and that he was prepared
for anything that could be said in any Court." He allowed Hobhouse to
offer on his behalf "any guarantees short of separation"; but he made it
quite clear that he was not frightened, and would not yield to threats.
Upon that Lady Byron changed her tone. Her next letter did not so much
claim a separation as beg for one. "After your repeated assertions," she
wrote, "that, when convinced my conduct has not been influenced by others,
you should not oppose my wishes, I am yet disposed to hope these
assertions will be realised." There, at last, was an appeal to which it
was possible for Byron to respond--on terms; not on Lady Byron's terms, of
course--but on his own. He had begun the negotiations by declining to
"implore as a suppliant the return of a reluctant wife." Nothing had
happened in the course of the negotiations to persuade him that he
would live more happily with Lady Byron than without her. Indeed, it was
now more evident than ever that to separate was the only way of making the
best of a bad job.
[Illustration: _Lady Byron._]
At the same time it was equally evident that he must stand out for terms.
Mud had been thrown; and while there had been no specific charges, there
had been dark hints of monstrous crimes. It was necessary, therefore, to
insist that Lady Byron should give "a positive disavowal of all the
grosser charges" which had been suggested without being positively
preferred; and Hobhouse proceeded to continue the negotiations on those
lines.
There were, in fact, two "gross" charges to be faced. One of these
concerned Mrs. Leigh, and the other did not. On the nature of the latter
charge it is quite superfluous to speculate. Whatever it may have been, no
evidence was offered in support of it at the time, and no evidence bearing
on it has since been brought to light. It was not maintained; it was not
revived; it has been forgotten. The rules of controversy not only warrant
us in passing it over, but bid us do so. The Byron mystery, wherever it
may be, is not there. Though all the "gross" charges had, at the moment,
to be dealt with collectively, the only charge which mattered was the
charge in which Mrs. Leigh was involved.
Lady Byron, when challenged with the charges, at first equivocated. She
was quite willing, she said, to declare that the rumours indicated "had
not emanated from her or from her family." That, naturally, was not good
enough for Byron and his friends. What they required was that Lady Byron
should state "not only that the rumours did not originate with her or her
family, but that the charges which they involved made no part of her
charges against Lord Byron." A statement to that effect was drawn up for
her to sign, and she signed it. The signed statement, witnessed by Byron's
cousin, Wilmot Horton, was shown to Hobhouse, and was left in Wilmot
Horton's hands until the settlement should be completed. The Byron
mystery, such as it is, or was, only exists--or existed--because Byron and
Wilmot Horton fell out, and the latter, withdrawing from the negotiations,
mislaid or lost the document.
That Lady Byron did sign the document, however, and that its contents were
as stated, no doubt whatever can be entertained. Hobhouse's subsequent
evidence on the subject is supported by the correspondence which passed at
the time. He referred to the document, with full particularity, in a
letter which he wrote Lady Byron, and which has been published; and Lady
Byron, in her answer, did not deny either that she had signed, or that she
was bound by its contents. The trouble arose because, after having signed
it, she behaved as if she had not done so, and, by her conduct, gave the
lie to her pledged word that "neither of the specified charges would have
formed part of her allegations if she had come into Court."
This trouble, however, was not immediate. Lady Byron did not begin to
talk till some time afterwards: and at first she only talked to people who
had sense enough to keep her secret, if not to rate it at its true value.
Not until some years after her death did a foolish woman in whom she had
confided publish her story to the world in a book filled from cover to
cover with gross and even ludicrous inaccuracies. When that happened, the
old scandal which the book revived was mistaken for a new scandal freshly
brought to light; and there was a great outcry about "shocking
revelations" and much angry beating of the air by violent
controversialists on both sides. All that it is necessary to say on that
branch of the subject shall be said in a moment. What we have to note now
is that Byron did not, and could not, foresee that that particular battle
would rage over his reputation.
He admitted to his friends, and he had previously admitted to Lady Byron,
that "he had been guilty of infidelity with one female." He was under the
impression that she had given him "a plenary pardon"; but the offence
nevertheless gave her a moral--if not also a legal--right to her
separation, if she insisted on it. Of the "gross" charges he only knew
that they had never been formally pressed, and that they had been formally
repudiated. So far as they were concerned, therefore, his honour was
perfectly clear; and there remained no reason why he should not append his
signature to the proposed deed of separation, as soon as its exact terms
were agreed upon. The details still awaiting adjustment were mainly of
the financial order. They were adjusted, and then Byron signed.
It may be that he signed the more readily because the rumours had been
tracked to another source, and disavowed there also. Lady Caroline Lamb
has often been accused of putting them in circulation. She heard, at the
time, that she had been so accused, and wrote to Byron to repudiate the
charge. "They tell me," she wrote, "that you have accused me of having
spread injurious reports against you. Had you the heart to say this? I do
not greatly believe it." Very possibly the receipt of that letter
strengthened Byron's resolution to sign. At all events he did sign, and
then a storm burst about his head:
"I need not tell you of the obloquy and opprobrium that were cast upon
my name when our separation was made public. I once made a list from
the Journals of the day of the different worthies, ancient and modern,
to whom I was compared. I remember a few: Nero, Apicius, Epicurus,
Caligula, Heliogabalus, Henry the Eighth, and lastly the ----. All my
former friends, even my cousin George Byron, who had been brought up
with me, and whom I loved as a brother, took my wife's part. He
followed the stream when it was strongest against me, and can never
expect anything from me: he shall never touch a sixpence of mine. I
was looked upon as the worst of husbands, the most abandoned and
wicked of men, and my wife as a suffering angel--an incarnation of
all the virtues and perfections of the sex. I was abused in the public
prints, made the common talk of private companies, hissed as I went to
the House of Lords, insulted in the streets, afraid to go to the
theatre, whence the unfortunate Mrs. Mardyn had been driven with
insult. The _Examiner_ was the only paper that dared say a word in my
defence, and Lady Jersey the only person in the fashionable world that
did not look upon me as a monster."
"I was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and private
rancour; my name which had been a knightly or a noble one since my
fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for William the Norman, was
tainted. I felt that, if what was whispered, and muttered, and
murmured was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was
unfit for me."
The former of these passages is from Medwin's "Conversations"; the latter
is written by Byron's own hand. There is very little to be added to the
picture which they draw. Byron discovered that, for a man of his
notoriety, there was no such thing as private life. His business was
assumed to be everybody's business. In his case, just as in the Dreyfus
case, at a later date, all the world took a side, and those who knew least
of the rights of the case were the most vehement in their indignation.
Broadly speaking one may say that his friends were for him but his
acquaintances were against him, and the mob took the part of his
acquaintances. Hobhouse, Hodgson, Moore, Rogers, Leigh Hunt, and Scrope
Davies never faltered in their allegiance. On the other hand, many social
leaders cut him; the journalists showered abuse on him as spitefully as if
they felt that they had "failed in literature" through his fault; the
religious seized the opportunity to punish him for what they considered
the immoral tone of his writings; the pit and gallery at Drury Lane
classed him with the villain of the melodrama who presumes to lay his hand
upon a woman otherwise than in the way of kindness. It was a combination
as irresistible as it was unforeseen, and he had to yield to it.
Lady Jersey, as he told Medwin, did her best for him. He and Mrs. Leigh
were both present at a reception specially given in his honour--a
demonstration that one social leader at least attached no importance and
gave no credence to the scandals which besmeared his name. Miss Mercer,
afterwards Madame de Flahault and, in her own right, Lady Keith, made a
point of greeting him with frank cordiality as if nothing had happened.
Probably the specific scandal which Lady Byron had been compelled to
disavow was never taken very seriously outside Lady Byron's immediate
circle. Certainly it was not the scandal which aroused the indignation of
the multitude. For them, the _causa teterrima belli_ was Mrs. Mardyn, the
actress, whom Byron hardly knew by sight; and the gravamen of their charge
against him was that he had treated a woman badly.
That was enough for them; and their indignation was too much for him. Now
that the deed of separation had been signed, it was too late for him to
fight. The "grosser charges" against him were charges of which he could
not prove publication--charges which had been withdrawn. Sneers and
innuendoes did not, any more than hoots and hisses, furnish him with any
definite allegation on which he could join issue. The whispered charge
involving his sister was not one which he could formally contradict unless
it were formally preferred. _Qui s'excuse s'accuse_ would have been quoted
against him if he had done so; and Mrs. Leigh's good name as well as his
own would have been at the mercy of the mud-slingers. All things
considered, it seemed that the best course open to him was to travel, and
let the hostile rumours die away, instead of keeping them alive by
argument.
He went, and they died away and were forgotten. We will follow him to the
continent presently, and see how nearly persecution drove him to
degradation, and how, under the influence of the blow which threatened to
crush him, his genius took fresh flights, more hardy than of old, and more
sublime. But first we must turn back, and face the scandal in the form in
which Mrs. Beecher Stowe and Lord Lovelace have successively given it two
fresh leases of life, and see whether it is not possible to blow it into
the air so effectively that no admirer of Byron's genius need ever feel
uneasy about it again.