"Lady Melbourne the best and kindest female I ever knew" ~ Lord Byron. Educated, attractive and with a talent for ambition Elizabeth Milbanke would soon move away from provincial Yorkshire and by 1769 had married Peniston Lamb, a wealthy, foolish and easy going lawyer and as she worked hard to advance the fortune and the prestige of her family, she would become became one of the most celebrated Society Hostesses on behalf of the Whig Party...
In November 1812 and 207 years after Guy Fawkes had been denied his dream of a glorious Catholic emancipation, the disgruntled and disgraced "barrel of gunpowder" Lady Caroline Lamb was participating in her own unique celebration at Brocket Hall...
The astonishment expressed by Lady Caroline Lamb in October 1814 to the news that her beloved Byron had not only proposed to her cousin Annabella Milbanke but that she had accepted him.
Given that Caroline had once promised to 'buy a pistol at Mantons & stand before the Giaour & his legal wife & shoot myself' upon hearing the rumour of Byron's betrothal in September 1814 - her reaction to this news was anticipated with some concern...
On the evening of Monday July 5 he attended a 'Small Waltzing Party - 10 o'clock at the home of Lady Heathcote despite his intense dislike for the 'fashionable Waltz' on account of his lameness and for his disdain for anything remotely fashionable. That he had attended a party only days before that had all 'the refuse of the Regent & the Red book - Bedfords - Jerseys - Ossulstones - Greys & the like' also did very little to deter him! And that he might bump into Lady Caroline Lamb, his aggrieved and furious former lover whom he had been anxiously avoiding several days earlier was yet another futile deterrent. Byron's most recent paramour Lady Oxford had sailed out of his life with her husband at the end of June and although he had been reunited with his half- sister Augusta Leigh, he was making plans to go abroad AGAIN...
January 25 is the celebration of Burns Night and having enjoyed a fabulous supper of Haggis - I had to refuse the 'wee dram' of fine Scotch whiskey on offer. However, had I done so, I could have raised a glass in honour of the character in this post - Lady Caroline Lamb who died on this day in 1828 at the age of forty two AND it's probably fair to say that even with the passage of time, opinion remains as divided about her in death, as it was in life!
