WIVES OF
THE PRIME MINISTERS
WIVES OF THE
PRIME MINISTERS
1844-1906
BY
ELIZABETH LEE
AUTHOR OF “OUIDA: A MEMOIR” ETC.
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY
MRS. C. F. G. MASTERMAN
[Illustration]
London
NISBET & CO. LIMITED
22 BERNERS STREET, W. 1
_First Published_ _January 1918_
_Reprinted_ _August 1918_
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
NOTE
My most cordial thanks are due to Mrs. Drew for permission to print the
extracts from Mrs. Gladstone’s manuscript diary, and to reproduce the
portrait which forms the frontispiece to this book; to Mr. Wilfrid W.
Ashley, who most kindly invited me to Broadlands and gave me permission
to print extracts from some of the letters of Lady Palmerston in his
possession; to Lady Battersea for a similar permission in regard to
letters from Mrs. Disraeli; and to the Hon. George Peel for information
about Lady Peel’s family and her early childhood. Thanks are also due
to Mr. Stuart M. Ellis for information concerning Bulwer and Lady
Caroline Lamb. It would be impossible to acknowledge separately the
published sources consulted, but I have done so wherever possible.
E. L.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. LADY CAROLINE LAMB 1
II. LADY PEEL 44
III. LADY JOHN RUSSELL (COUNTESS RUSSELL) 63
IV. LADY PALMERSTON 99
V. MRS. DISRAELI (VISCOUNTESS BEACONSFIELD) 131
VI. MRS. GLADSTONE 156
VII. LADY SALISBURY 218
VIII. LADY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN 233
INDEX 249
INTRODUCTION
Few, we take it, would deny the influence that women, through the ages,
have wielded in political life. Kings and potentates, Ministers of
State and priests, have been guided by their counsels. Although such
influence was indirect, it was nevertheless powerful, and produced
both good and bad results. The published and unpublished diaries and
letters of women of high position in the nineteenth century show their
deep interest in political matters and their large knowledge of affairs
from the inside. That knowledge was, of course, obtained from the
communications of the men who were their relatives and friends, but the
method of using it was determined by the woman herself. Doubtless the
gain and loss of such influence neutralised each other. Whether, when
women come to exercise direct influence through the vote, the gain will
preponderate, remains to be proved.
Throughout the nineteenth century those women who were the wives of
Ministers of State, or in other ways closely connected with them, could
be counted on at elections to give as canvassers the most important
and valuable assistance, and their help was often instrumental in
securing their friends’ return. Sometimes they even acted as the party
whips. In 1805 Charles James Fox wrote from the House of Commons to
the Duchess of Devonshire: “Pray speak to everybody you can to come
down or we shall be lost on the Slave Trade. Pray, pray, send anybody
you see.” Members of Parliament on their way home from the House would
call on their lady friends to give the result of the debates and
divisions, and if these had already gone upstairs to bed, would send
up a written statement by the servant. Lady Holland, as is well known,
aspired to exercise great influence on politics. Holland House was
the headquarters of the Whig party. During the progress of the Reform
Bill, Cabinet Ministers constantly dined with her and openly discussed
the political situation during the meal. It is said that in 1828 she
asked Lord John Russell to make her husband Foreign Secretary. “Why,
they say, ma’am,” replied Lord John, “that you open all Lord Holland’s
letters, and the foreign Ministers might not like that.” Her diary
is stuffed full of politics, and it is clear that she was in the
confidence of all the men of her party in high office. It may be worth
while to record here the impression that the interest in politics of
highly placed English ladies made on a German lady of similar position.
Gabriele von Bülow, the daughter of Wilhelm von Humboldt and the wife
of the German ambassador to England, wrote to her sister in 1833: “The
other day I was nearly frantic when the Marchioness of Salisbury said
she did not in the least care whether the sun was shining or not; it
was of far greater importance whether the Parliamentary sun was shining
on the Whigs or the Tories!”
Every one cannot be a Lady Holland, but it is not only the women who
are most in the public eye who exercise influence on affairs and on
the actions of public men. Sometimes where it may seem, to an outside
observer, that a woman is overshadowed by her husband, she may, as a
matter of fact, have helped more to his success than the world will
ever know. Nor is it necessarily the women of the highest intellectual
endowments who possess the finest judgment and the best insight into
the rightness and wrongness of actions. When a woman possesses such
gifts by nature, they form an invaluable aid to all who in her circle
seek her counsel.
The Prime Ministers of England in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries have, with the exception of Lord Melbourne,--and his wife
died before he became Prime Minister,--been fortunate in their wives.
They married women who, often beautiful, and always intelligent,
devoted themselves to furthering both the political interests and
the domestic happiness of their husbands. Their influence on public
affairs varied in degree and kind, for their rôle was passive rather
than active, and personality was their main asset. Now personality is
an elusive thing and can never be absolutely reconstructed. Living
witnesses can help us somewhat to form a mental picture that now and
then gets near the truth; but to paint a portrait without the aid of
such evidence, and without that of the written word in the form of
diaries or letters, is no easy task. In the case of the wife of a
great man it is rendered yet more difficult by the fact that in the
care taken to preserve everything relating to his reputation, little
survives about the wife whose career is naturally merged in that of her
husband.
Most of the husbands of the women whose lives are sketched in this
volume were men who would have been socially important if they had
never entered politics or become Ministers of State. Some of them were
peers of the realm, and members of great families like the Russells,
Stanleys, Gordons, and Cecils. With the exception of Disraeli, they
all had their roots deep in English soil. They were men of culture for
the most part, and often had literary and artistic ability and tastes.
Politics and Society were closely bound together in the nineteenth
century, especially during the earlier part of it; it was not only at
the dinner-tables and in the drawing-rooms of Ministers that political
topics held the lion’s share in the conversation. Public life was less
of a trade or profession than it has since become, and the interest
of the general family circle in the fate of a Bill, or in the doings
of the House, was strong and intense. Disraeli’s novels afford an
admirable picture of the social side of the political life of his time.
As the memoir of Mrs. Gladstone in this volume amply proves, a wife’s
influence can keep her husband in power when he himself would be
glad to relinquish it; and it has been said over and over again, by
those in a position to judge, that had Lady Rosebery lived, Lord
Rosebery’s political career would have been very different. In every
case in which we have the published letters of the husbands to the
wives here commemorated, and wherever also we have been privileged to
see unpublished letters of the kind, we realise how the wife was the
confidante of all details concerning the high matters of State in which
the husband was interested. The memoir of Lady Palmerston well brings
out the important use a clever woman could make of such information,
and it is quite certain that outside the Cabinet and the great
Government Departments no one knew more about what was going on in the
world than the wives of the Prime Ministers. A looker-on can see more
of the game than one actively engaged in it, and a statesman’s wife
in the Victorian age was sufficiently removed from the excitement of
the arena to be able to bring calm and reasoned judgment to bear on the
issues involved.
The wives of Lord Melbourne,[1] Lord Aberdeen,[2] and Lord Rosebery[3]
died before their husbands actually attained the Premiership; therefore
they can scarcely be logically called wives of Prime Ministers. But
it has been thought well to include a memoir of Lady Caroline Lamb,
because the facts of her picturesque and agitated career are not
accessible in any one complete account, and because it throws a good
deal of light on the social and domestic aspects of political life in
the early nineteenth century.
With regard to Lord Aberdeen, it is abundantly clear that his
first marriage had a lasting effect on his heart and mind. He fell
passionately in love when only twenty-one years of age with Lady
Catherine Hamilton, eldest daughter of the first Marquis of Abercorn.
She was a beautiful girl, and worshipped him as much as he worshipped
her. They were married on 28th July 1805. Their domestic life was so
happy that Lord Aberdeen cared little for public affairs. He considered
his wife to be “the most perfect creature ever formed by the power
and wisdom of God.” Three daughters were born in 1807, 1808, and
1809. A son, born in 1810, died soon after his birth. From that time
Lady Aberdeen’s health, never robust, drooped, and she died on 29th
February 1812. Her husband, who survived her for nearly fifty years,
married secondly, in 1815, Harriet Douglas, the widow of Viscount
Hamilton. Lord Abercorn seeing his granddaughters on the one hand, the
children of his daughter, deprived of their mother, and on the other
his grandsons, the children of his son, deprived of their father,
thought it would be an admirable arrangement to marry the widower to
the widow. Although Lord Aberdeen never forgot his first wife, he had
a strong affection for his second, and his letters to her are full
of loving tenderness. Unhappily his daughters all died young, and
Lady Aberdeen herself on 26th August 1833. Lord Aberdeen’s political
career can scarcely be said to have begun in real earnest until 1834,
but the gentle melancholy that was so marked a characteristic of his
temperament may well be traced to his early experiences of love and
marriage.
Lord Rosebery married in 1878 Hannah de Rothschild, only child of Baron
Meyer de Rothschild and his wife Juliana Cohen. She was an accomplished
woman, loving art and music. She assisted her father in collecting
objects of art for Mentmore, the house he began to build in 1857,
and there she had unique opportunities for intercourse with the best
minds in English and continental society. She learned to judge things
in the large spirit usually associated with the masculine mind alone.
She had always taken a great interest in politics, and at once set
herself to assist and second her husband in his political interests.
She instituted at Lansdowne House a salon for the Liberal party, which
became the focus of social liberalism and an important element in the
organisation of the party. Lansdowne House was also a general centre
of hospitality, for Lady Rosebery believed in bringing together in
social intercourse men of widely divergent views, so that the edges of
their differences, so to speak, might gradually be rubbed smooth.
Her activities were not solely political. She was keen for the
improvement of female industrial conditions, and took part in various
public philanthropic enterprises to that end. Her private charities
were at once generous and discriminating.
Lady Rosebery died of typhoid fever at Dalmeny Park, 19th November 1890.
It has not been possible to include any memoir of Lady Derby, wife
of the “Rupert of debate.” Information, without which any sketch
must perforce be inadequate, has not been obtainable from the only
source whence it could be drawn. Lady Derby was the second daughter
of the first Lord Skelmersdale, and was married on 31st May 1825. It
was a romantic attachment on the part of young Stanley, who was only
twenty-four years of age. His father did not approve, and sent him away
for a year, hoping that absence might cure him of his affection, but
on his return the young man went first to Miss Wilbraham, who was a
girl of twenty, obtained her consent to be his wife, and then reported
himself to his family. Lady Derby died on 26th April 1876; her husband
pre-deceased her in 1869.
Sainte-Beuve has said that a woman “quand elle est restée femme par
les qualités essentielles,” is, even after she is dead, “un peu notre
contemporaine toujours.” This statement seems especially to apply to
the women whose lives I have here attempted to sketch, and I venture to
think that their share in shaping the history of their country, through
the great men whose companions they were, claims from the present
generation a grateful recognition of their qualities of head and heart.
Women are expecting in the future to play a much more prominent and
important part in public life. Therefore it is perhaps a fitting moment
to put on record how their sisters of an earlier epoch performed their
allotted part on life’s stage.
E. L.
WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS
I
LADY CAROLINE LAMB[4]
“A creature of caprice and impulse and whim, her manner, her
talk, her character shifted their colours as rapidly as those
of a chameleon.”
Lady Caroline Ponsonby, daughter of the third Lord Bessborough, was
born on 13th November 1785. When she was three years old, her mother, a
daughter of the first Earl Spencer and sister of the famous Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire, fell ill and was ordered to Italy. She took the
little girl with her, but being obliged to return to England herself,
as her condition became worse, she left the child in Italy for some
years, chiefly in charge of a servant. Caroline was then sent to her
aunt, the Duchess of Devonshire, to be brought up with her cousins at
Devonshire House. The life of the children there was a curious one.
Their meals were served on silver plate, but if they wanted more than
was sent up, they had to carry their plates down to the kitchen, where
the servants were too busy quarrelling to attend to them. They were
quite extraordinarily ignorant. They thought that all people were dukes
or beggars, that bread and butter grew ready-made, so to speak, and
that horses were fed on beef. Even when Lady Caroline grew up and was
married, she was singularly ignorant of the habits of people not of her
own class, although she associated with men and women of genius whose
incomes were small and who lived in a simple fashion. The first time
she called on Lady Morgan in London--Lady Morgan was Sydney Owenson,
the novelist, and wife of Sir Charles Morgan, a physician--she was
announced by a footman in livery. As she was leaving, Lady Caroline
said:
“My dear Creature, have you really not a groom of the chambers with
you? nothing but your footman? You must let me send you something,
you must indeed. You will never get on here, you know, with only one
servant--you must let me send you one of my pages. I am going to
Brocket, to watch the sweet trees that are coming out so beautifully,
and you shall have a page while I am away.” Later, as will be seen,
notwithstanding Lady Morgan’s modest household, the two ladies became
fast friends.
[Illustration: LADY CAROLINE LAMB IN HER PAGE’S DRESS
_From a miniature in the possession of Mr. John Murray_]
When Caroline was ten years old she was transferred to the care of
her grandmother, Lady Spencer, whose household consisted of seventy
servants, and who herself had always lived among clever people
and possessed brilliant conversational powers.--Her marriage was
unconventional and romantic. Mr. Spencer had, as a minor, become
attached to her; and with her father, Stephen Poyntz, a well-known
diplomatist, and her mother and sister, she was invited to Althorp to
celebrate the coming of age of the heir, where a large party of about
fifty persons was assembled. Young Spencer informed Mr. Poyntz that
now he was his own master he intended to marry his daughter the very
next day. Only Lord and Lady Cowper were told besides Mr. and Mrs.
Poyntz, and they and the bride and bridegroom stole away during the
dancing that was going on to Lady Cowper’s dressing-room, and the young
couple were there duly married. They then rejoined the dancers; and it
is further related that after supper everybody retired as usual to
their different apartments, and that Louisa Poyntz, who had shared her
sister’s room, gave up her place on this occasion.
Caroline thus had no systematic education, but she possessed natural
gifts of a high order. She became a good linguist, knowing well French,
Italian, Greek, and Latin. She loved music and painting, devoting many
hours all through her life to water-colours, and had a great talent
for caricature. She was original in her conversation, in her dress,
indeed in everything. At one period of her childhood her grandmother
became alarmed at her originality, which bordered on eccentricity,
and consulted a doctor as to the state of her mind. He decreed that
her brain ought not to be overtaxed with lessons, and that she should
not be too strictly disciplined. Consequently she really ran wild.
Until she reached her teens she could neither write nor spell, but
nevertheless she composed verses. She declared later, speaking of her
childish days, “I preferred washing a dog, or polishing a piece of
Derbyshire spar, or breaking in a horse”--she was a fearless rider and
could ride bareback--“to any accomplishment in the world.”
When she was thirteen, William Lamb, who was then twenty, saw her at
Brocket Hall, where she had accompanied her cousins on a visit to his
mother, Lady Melbourne, and was greatly attracted to her. She had
already heard of him as a “friend of liberty,” and was quite ready to
admire him. Later on he used to see her at Lord Bessborough’s villa at
Roehampton, and became more and more fascinated by her, and she was
equally delighted with him. But he was a second son, and his prospects
at the Bar did not seem brilliant, and so neither family took any
notice of the young couple. Lady Caroline at nineteen was slight and
graceful, not tall, with small regular features, dark hazel eyes, and
golden hair. She was not a beauty, but possessed the charm that is even
more alluring. She was full of ideas and endowed with the power of
expressing them gracefully; she had, moreover, a low, musical voice.
Her friends gave her a variety of nicknames--such as sprite, Ariel,
squirrel, bat, young savage--and they show the general impression she
made on them. Her strong imagination coloured everything, and it is
doubtful if at any time of her life she saw things as they really were.
A girl so accomplished and attractive and with such distinguished
connections seemed far removed from William Lamb, a younger son with
his way to make in the world. But in 1805 his elder brother died, and
he became the heir, and then he felt justified in offering himself to
Lady Caroline.
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.
She became more eccentric, unmanageable, and uncertain in temper
than ever. One day she actually called on Byron. He was out, but she
insisted on being shown to his room. On the table she found Beckford’s
_Vathek_, and wrote in the first page: “Remember me!” Byron on his
return wrote under her words these stanzas:
“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! Aye, doubt it not.
Thy husband too shall think of thee;
By neither shalt thou be forgot,
Thou _false_ to him, thou _friend_ to me.”
Lady Caroline marked the end of her connection with Byron by burning
him in effigy one winter’s day at Brocket with elaborate ceremonial,
not omitting a poem specially written for the occasion, of which these
lines will serve to show the quality:
“Ah! look not thus on me, so grave, so sad;
Shake not your heads, nor say the Lady’s mad.
Judge not of others, for there is but one
To whom the heart and feelings can be known.
Upon my youthful faults few censures cast;
Look to the future--and forgive the past.
London, farewell, vain world, vain life, adieu!
Take the last tears I e’er shall shed for you.
Young tho’ I seem, I leave the world for ever,
Never to enter it again--no, never--never!”
She was in a terrible state of uncertainty as to what she should now
do with her life, and in discussing the matter with Lady Morgan makes
all sorts of wild suggestions. Should she live a _good_ sort of a half
kind of life in some cheap street, or above a shop, or give lectures to
little children and keep a school and so earn her bread? Or should she
write a sort of quiet everyday sort of novel, full of wholesome truths,
or attempt to be poetical; or if she failed, beg her friends for a
guinea apiece and their name to sell her work “on the best foolscap
paper”; or should she fret and die?
But Lady Caroline, with all her cleverness, was no artist in life, and
did not realise that true wisdom and happiness resided in making the
most of what she possessed, and that the thing for her to do was to
occupy herself with her husband and child.
All sorts of stories about her eccentricities got about. It was said
that she beat a maid and turned her out of doors without clothes in the
night, and tried to murder her page. The latter report she explains
herself:
“One day I was playing ball with him; he threw a squib into the fire.
I threw the ball at his head; it hit him on the temple, and he bled.
He cried out, ‘Oh, my lady, you have killed me!’ Out of my senses, I
rushed into the hall and screamed, ‘O God, I have murdered the page!’
The servants and people in the street caught the sound, and it was soon
spread about.”
William Lamb saw that this sort of thing could not go on, and his
family, who realised the harm it was doing to his career, insisted on
a separation. While the instruments were being drawn up, Lady Caroline
wrote her novel _Glenarvon_. Here is her own account of the proceeding:
“In one month I wrote and sent _Glenarvon_ to the press. It was written
at night, without the knowledge of any one but a governess, Miss
Walsh. I sent for a copyist, and when he came she pointed to me seated
at a table and dressed in boy’s clothes. He would not believe that
a schoolboy would write such a thing. In a few days I received him
dressed as usual. I told him the author, William Osmond, was dead.” She
always declared that her husband was delighted with the book. It was
not shown to him till it was printed.
However that may have been, the deed of separation was ready for
signing. As Lady Caroline put it: “If I will but sign a paper, all
my rich relations will protect me, and I shall, no doubt, go with
an Almack ticket to heaven.” All the parties whose signatures were
required were assembled, and Lamb went first to the room where she was,
in order to speak to her about their son. The others waited and waited;
at length, growing impatient, her brother went to see the cause of the
delay. He found her seated beside her husband feeding him with tiny
scraps of transparent bread and butter.
And so for a time things remained as they were.
Byron had married in 1815, and the next year was separated from his
wife, and left England for ever. To her credit it must be said that
Lady Caroline never forgot Byron. With all her caprice, the episode
made a lasting impression on her mind. In November 1816 she wrote to
John Murray, evidently considering she had every right to do so, asking
him to let her see Byron’s new poems before publication. The conclusion
of her note proves that her old sprightliness had not abandoned her:
“Believe me, therefore, sincerely thankful for what I am going
to receive--as the young lady said to a duchess when she was
desired by her parents to say ‘Grace.’”
Murray did not answer, so Lady Caroline wrote again, repeating her
request with the adjuration:
“Let me entreat you to remember a maxim I have found very
useful to me, that there is nothing in this life worth
quarrelling about, and that half the people we are offended
with never intended to give us cause.”
In August 1818 Lady Morgan, calling one day on Lady Caroline at
Melbourne House, was received in her bedroom, and found her lying on a
couch, wrapped in fine muslins, full of grace and cordiality. In the
bow window of the room there stood fastened to the ground the chair
in which Byron had sat to Sanders for the picture painted by Lady
Caroline’s desire.
But Lady Caroline could not live without some sort of interest outside
the more or less humdrum events of family and social life, and now set
herself to captivate William Godwin. In 1819 her brother-in-law, George
Lamb, was contesting Westminster, and she wrote to Godwin to ask him
to vote for Lamb. He replied that he did “not mix in the business of
the world,” and was too old to alter his course “even at the flattering
invitation of Lady Caroline Lamb.” She conceived a great admiration for
Godwin’s works, and evidently read them with care and appreciation,
and was much disappointed and vexed that the two children and the
four young women to whom she endeavoured to read them did not choose
to attend. Glad to have some one again to whom she could lay open her
mind, for Lady Caroline was ever ready to confide her woes and her
thoughts to any one who would listen, she entered into correspondence
with Godwin. She further hoped that he, with his wisdom, might be able
to advise her how to deal with her son, whose intellect showed no
signs of developing. Godwin paid a visit to Brocket, saw the boy, but
could suggest no means of improving his mental health. All the same,
Lady Caroline in a while took Godwin for her guide, philosopher, and
friend, and wrote him long letters about herself. They belong to the
years 1821-23, and the following passages serve to illustrate the
curious mixture of sense and sensibility contained in them:
“For what purpose, for whom should I endeavour to grow wise?
What is the use of anything? What is the end of life? When we
die, what difference is there here between a black beetle and
me?”
“BROCKET, 1821.
“You would not say, if you were here now, that nature had
not done her best for us. Everything is looking beautiful,
everything in bloom. Yet do not fancy that I am here in rude
health, walking about, and being notable and bountiful. I am
like the wreck of a little boat, for I never come up to the
sublime and beautiful--merely a little gay merry boat which
perhaps stranded itself at Vauxhall or London Bridge--or
wounded without killing itself, as a butterfly does in a tallow
candle. There is nothing marked, sentimental, or interesting in
my career. All I know is, that I was happy, well, rich, joyful,
and surrounded by friends. I have now one faithful kind friend
in William Lamb, two others in my father and brother--but
health, spirits, and all else is gone--gone how? Oh, assuredly
not by the visitation of God, but slowly and gradually by my
own fault!”
“1823(?).
“My own faults are so great that I can see and remember nothing
beside. Yet I am tormented with such a superabundance of
activity, and have so little to do, that I want you to tell me
how to go on.
“It is all very well if one died at the end of a tragic scene,
after playing a desperate part; but if one lives, and instead
of growing wiser, one remains the same victim of every folly
and passion, without the excuse of youth and inexperience, what
then? Pray say a few wise words to me. There is no one more
deeply sensible than myself of kindness from persons of high
intellect, and at this period of my life I need it.
“I have nothing to do--I mean necessarily. There is no
particular reason why I should exist; it conduces to no one’s
happiness, and, on the contrary, I stand in the way of many.
Besides, I seem to have lived five hundred years and feel I
am neither wiser, better, nor worse than when I began. My
experience gives me no satisfaction; all my opinions, and
beliefs, and feelings are shaken, as if suffering from frequent
little shocks of earthquakes. I am like a boat in a calm, in
an unknown and to me unsought-for sea, without compass to
guide or even a knowledge whither I am destined. Now, this
is probably the case of millions, but that does not mend the
matter, and whilst a fly exists, it seeks to save itself.
Therefore excuse me if I try to do the same.”
In these letters we have Lady Caroline almost at her best. In another
of them there is pertinent criticism of Godwin’s books. She tells
him, “There is a brevity which suits my want of attention, a depth of
thought which catches at once, and does not puzzle my understanding,
a simplicity and kindness which captivates and arouses every good
feeling, and a clearness which assists those who are deficient, as I
am, in memory.”[8]
But unhappily the unstable and eccentric side of Lady Caroline held
its own, and overshadowed her more sober and serious moods. The news
of Byron’s death was brought to her at Brocket and introduced with the
remark, “Caroline, behave properly. I know it will shock you. Lord
Byron is dead.” A fever ensued, and the first day she was well enough
to drive out in an open carriage she met a funeral procession. Her
husband, who was riding on in front, asked whose funeral it was, and
was told Byron’s. Lamb was much shocked and affected, and naturally
forbore to tell his wife. But as she kept on asking where and when
Byron was to be buried, she had to be told. A fresh bout of illness was
brought on, and she became more unmanageable than ever, more reckless
and unaccountable. Once in the country she wished to drive out to call
on an acquaintance. There was no one to accompany her, so she insisted
on occupying the seat beside the coachman. On arriving at the house,
the footman waited to help her down, but she exclaimed, “I am going
to jump off and you must catch me.” Before the man could prevent the
catastrophe, he found her in his arms. She then proceeded to pay her
visit in a perfectly calm, decorous, and dignified manner. Another
time, when the butler was laying the table for a dinner-party, she
chanced to go into the dining-room, and not liking the decorations,
leaped into the middle of the table amid all the epergnes and china and
glass to demonstrate by her attitude the way in which the centrepiece
should be arranged, leaving the servant open mouthed with astonishment.
Her husband was equally subject to the annoyance of her vagaries.
After a worse outburst than usual during dinner at Melbourne House, as
soon as Lady Caroline had left the room, Lamb ordered the horses and
drove off to Brocket. He sat up very late, but soon after he had gone
to bed he heard sounds in the corridor. He got up to investigate what
they might be, and found his wife lying on the doormat outside his
room, convulsively sobbing.
Meantime Lady Caroline had formed a friendship with Lady Morgan
and entered into correspondence with her when either was away from
London. The details of the Byron affair are given in these letters,
but they are interesting and amusing on other counts. In one Lady
Caroline asks that the curious stories that get about as to her
actions shall be contradicted, and proceeds to explain them away with
great plausibility. In another she refers to a governess whose chief
recommendation is that “she is attached to an old mathematician in
Russia--a Platonic attachment,” and they are not to marry or meet for
ten years. “Now,” Lady Caroline continues, “as every one must, will,
and should fall in love, it is no bad thing that she should have a
happy, Platonic, romantic attachment to an old, mad mathematician
several thousand miles off. It will keep her steady.” And the young
lady was ready for eighty guineas a year to dedicate all her time to
the children after ten in the morning to six at night, would also
play on the harp of an evening, read to the lady if she were ill, or
write her letters for her. Her spelling and grammar seem to have been
somewhat wanting, but before the matter was concluded she caught a bad
cold, and Lady Caroline fears her would-be mistress will not care to
wait till she is recovered. She again repeats that the girl has every
good quality under the sun, but “she has a cold and cough, and is in
love--I cannot help it; can you?” Another time she confesses to Lady
Morgan, “The loss of what one adores affects the mind and heart; but
I have resigned myself to it, and God knows I am satisfied with all I
have and have had. My husband has been to me as a guardian angel. I
love him most dearly.”
But by 1825 things had come to such a pass that separation was
inevitable. Everything was done to make the conditions as little
irksome as possible to Lady Caroline. It was arranged that she
should spend most of her time at Brocket with her old father-in-law,
Lord Melbourne. She corresponded with her husband and retained her
affection for him, such as it was. Soon after the separation became a
fact she sent Lamb these verses:
“Loved one! No tear is in my eye,
Though pangs my bosom thrill,
For I have learned when others sigh
To suffer and be still.
Passion and pride and flatt’ry strove,
They made a wreck of me,
But oh! I never ceased to love,
I never loved but thee.
My heart is with our early dream,
And still thy influence knows,
Still seeks thy shadow on the stream
Of memory as it flows:
Still hangs o’er all the records bright
Of moments brighter still,
Ere love withdrew his starry light,
Ere thou hadst suffered ill.
’Tis vain! ’tis vain! no human will
Can bid that time return;
There’s not a light on earth can fill
Again love’s darkened urn.
’Tis vain--upon my heart, my brow,
Broods grief no words can tell,
But grief itself more idle now--
Loved one, fare thee well.”
But notwithstanding her grief and sorrow, Lady Caroline could not live
without admirers, and for a space young Bulwer came under her spell.
His first acquaintance with her commenced in his childhood. A poor
man was injured in a crowd, and with her usual impulsiveness she had
him placed in her carriage and took him to his home. Bulwer heard of
the incident, and touched by it wrote some childish verses on it, and
sent them to Lady Caroline. Brocket, it should be remembered, was not
far from Knebworth, where the boy was living with his mother. Lady
Caroline, pleased with the verses, asked Mrs. Bulwer to bring the child
to see her. Lady Caroline took a fancy to him, and painted his portrait
as a child nearly nude, seated on a rock in the midst of the sea, with
under it the motto, “Seul sur la terre.” Such a visit was made once or
twice a year in the time that followed.