Wikipedia Deep Dive

Lady Caroline Lamb

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"Mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

These five words have echoed through two centuries of literary history, attached forever to the poet Lord Byron. But the woman who allegedly coined them—Lady Caroline Lamb—was herself every bit as wild, brilliant, and self-destructive as the man she described. Their affair lasted only five months. The wreckage it left behind lasted the rest of her life.

A Childhood Among the Aristocracy's Most Glamorous

Lady Caroline Ponsonby was born in November 1785 into the glittering upper reaches of Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Her father was Frederick Ponsonby, who would become the third Earl of Bessborough. Her aunt was Georgiana Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire—one of the most famous women in England, a political hostess, fashion icon, and notorious gambler whose debts and scandals regularly made headlines.

Caroline was a sickly child. Her family sent her to Italy to recover from an illness caused by intestinal worms—a condition that nearly killed her. When she returned to England, she joined a chaotic household of cousins at Devonshire House and Roehampton, the children of the Duke of Devonshire's complicated domestic arrangement. The Duke had children by his first wife Georgiana, and also by his mistress Lady Elizabeth Foster, who would later become his second wife. All the children were raised together.

This was the Regency aristocracy at its most unconventional. Mistresses and wives coexisted. Children from different mothers shared nurseries. The rules that governed ordinary English society bent and sometimes broke entirely when you were wealthy and titled enough.

Later in life, Lady Caroline told the Irish novelist Lady Morgan that she had been a tomboy who couldn't read or write until adolescence. She claimed that one of her proudest childhood accomplishments was learning to wash a dog.

This makes for a colorful story, but it's almost certainly not true.

Her grandmother, the Dowager Lady Spencer, was passionately devoted to education. The governess she employed, Selina Trimmer, was the daughter of Sarah Trimmer, a well-known author of children's moral tales. Young Caroline and her cousins received an extensive curriculum that went far beyond basic literacy. We have a letter Caroline wrote in October 1796, just before her eleventh birthday, that demonstrates not only that she could read and write perfectly well, but that she possessed a sharp wit and a talent for mimicry.

By her early adulthood, Caroline was exceptionally educated. She spoke French and Italian fluently. She was skilled in Greek and Latin. She wrote poetry and prose, sketched portraits, and loved music and drama. She also attended a school in Knightsbridge run by Frances Arabella Rowden, a published poet who, according to one of her other pupils, "had a knack of making poetesses of her pupils."

So why did Caroline later spin stories about being an illiterate wild child? Perhaps because she understood something about narrative. A duchess's niece who received classical tutoring is interesting. A half-feral creature who taught herself to write becomes a legend.

A Love Match with Political Ambition

In June 1805, at nineteen, Caroline married William Lamb. He was a rising politician, the heir to the first Viscount Melbourne, and destined for great things. He would eventually become Prime Minister of Great Britain and mentor to the young Queen Victoria.

The match had been shrewdly orchestrated by William's mother, Lady Melbourne. But despite the political calculations behind the introduction, the marriage itself was genuine. William and Caroline had met at Brocket Hall in 1802 and become, as contemporaries described it, "mutually captivated." For many years, they were happy.

Then tragedy struck, as it so often did in an age before modern medicine.

Caroline's first child was stillborn in January 1806. A son, George Augustus Frederick, arrived in August 1807. A daughter followed in 1809 but survived only twenty-four hours. Each birth left Caroline with long, difficult recoveries.

But the greatest blow was George. He was born with severe intellectual disabilities—what the era would have called mental problems. Most aristocratic families in this period quietly sent such children to institutions, removing them from public view and family life. The Lambs did not. They cared for George at home until his death in 1836, eight years after his mother died.

The stress of George's condition, combined with William's consuming political ambitions, drove a wedge between the couple. Making matters worse, William's siblings despised Caroline, calling her "the little beast." And Caroline and her mother-in-law Lady Melbourne had hated each other from the very beginning. This mutual loathing would have catastrophic consequences.

Byron Arrives

In March 1812, Lord Byron was twenty-four years old and the most famous poet in England. His narrative poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" had just been published. "I awoke one morning and found myself famous," he later said. Women threw themselves at him. His dark good looks, his club foot, his aristocratic background, his hints of exotic adventures and forbidden passions—all of it combined into an irresistible package.

Lady Caroline Lamb was twenty-six. Her marriage was strained. Her son was severely disabled. Her in-laws despised her. And here came this magnetic, dangerous poet whom all of London was discussing.

They first met at a society event at Holland House. According to Lady Morgan, Caroline spurned Byron's attention at that first meeting—a classic bit of social gamesmanship that only inflamed his interest. The phrase "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" supposedly dates from around this time, though there's no contemporary evidence she actually said it when they met. It may have been something she crafted later, burnishing the legend of their affair.

Caroline wrote Byron a fan letter. His response was to visit her—her high social status made her worth cultivating—and then to pursue her passionately.

What followed over the next five months was one of the most public affairs in English history.

The Affair and Its Aftermath

The lovers seemed determined to destroy each other's reputations while simultaneously declaring undying devotion. They publicly denounced one another while privately pledging eternal love. Byron called her "Caro," a nickname she adopted for the rest of her life. London society watched, gossiped, and was thoroughly entertained.

By August 1812, it was over. Byron ended the affair. William Lamb took his wife to Ireland, hoping distance would cool her obsession with the poet. It did not. Caroline and Byron corresponded constantly during her Irish exile.

When Caroline returned to London in 1813, she expected to resume the relationship. Byron made it clear he had no such intention. This is when things spiraled out of control.

At a ball honoring the Duke of Wellington, Byron publicly insulted Caroline. She responded by breaking a wine glass and attempting to slash her wrists. The wounds were not serious—she almost certainly had no genuine suicidal intention—but the damage to her reputation was severe. Byron himself dismissed it as theatrical performance, comparing it to the dagger scene in Macbeth.

Her cousin Harriet, now Lady Granville, visited Caroline in December 1816. She was so appalled by Caroline's unrepentant behavior that she ended a letter to her sister with the acid remark: "I mean my visits to be annual."

Byron would haunt Caroline for the rest of her life. They wrote poems in each other's style about each other, embedding overt messages in their verse. After a thwarted visit to Byron's home, Caroline wrote "Remember Me!" in the flyleaf of one of his books. He responded with a poem dripping with contempt: "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!"

And yet—perhaps the cruelest irony of all—Byron's closest confidante during much of this period was Lady Melbourne. Caroline's own mother-in-law. The woman who had arranged Caroline's marriage and then spent years trying to destroy it.

Glenarvon: Revenge in Three Volumes

In 1816, Byron left England forever, fleeing scandal and debt. Within weeks, Caroline published her first novel.

"Glenarvon" was nominally a Gothic novel. In practice, it was an act of literary revenge. Though published anonymously, everyone immediately knew who had written it. The book featured a thinly disguised portrait of Caroline herself and of Byron, whom she reimagined as a war hero who betrays the cause of Irish nationalism.

The novel is historically significant for an unexpected reason: it contains the first Byronic hero written by someone other than Byron himself. Before Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights," before Rochester in "Jane Eyre," there was Caroline Lamb's version of her former lover—dark, passionate, morally ambiguous, fatally attractive.

But Caroline didn't stop at Byron. She included scathing caricatures of prominent society figures. The Countess of Jersey was so offended that she cancelled Caroline's vouchers to Almack's—the exclusive assembly rooms that served as the social heart of Regency London. To be barred from Almack's was to be cast out of fashionable society entirely.

Byron's reaction was characteristically terse. Upon reading the novel, he wrote simply: "I read Glenarvon too by Caro Lamb….God damn!"

Critics dismissed the book as pulp fiction. It sold extremely well anyway, going through several editions. Interestingly, the German literary giant Johann Wolfgang von Goethe considered it worthy of serious critical attention—a verdict that has aged better than the contemporary English reviews.

The Art of Literary Forgery

In 1819, Caroline demonstrated a skill that could have made her an excellent con artist: she could write exactly like Byron.

Years earlier, she had forged a letter to Byron's publishers, perfectly mimicking his style, and successfully tricked them into sending her a portrait of the poet. Now she used this talent for a more ambitious project.

Byron had just published the first two cantos of "Don Juan," his satirical masterpiece. The poem contained thinly veiled references to Caroline, including the line "Some play the devil—and then write a novel"—an obvious jab at "Glenarvon."

Caroline responded with "A New Canto," a narrative poem written in Byron's voice. She captured his style so precisely that the poem reads like a genuine Byron work: "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."

A contemporary reviewer noted: "The writer of this lively nonsense has evidently intended it as an imitation of Lord Byron. It is a rhapsody from beginning to end." Byron never publicly responded. Perhaps he recognized that responding would only give her what she wanted—confirmation that she still occupied space in his mind.

Caroline published three more novels in quick succession: "Graham Hamilton" in 1822, "Ada Reis" and "Penruddock" both in 1823. None achieved the notoriety of "Glenarvon."

The Complicated Matter of William Lamb

Throughout all of this—the affair, the suicide attempts, the scandalous novel, the social exile—William Lamb stood by his wife.

His mother had been instrumental in bringing about his marriage to Caroline, despite despising both her daughter-in-law and her daughter-in-law's mother. Once the Byron affair began, Lady Melbourne launched what Lord David Cecil described as "a long and blatant campaign to rid her son of his wife." She had long since concluded that Caroline deserved all her misfortunes.

But William refused to submit. He called Byron treacherous for conspiring with Lady Melbourne against the marriage. He supported Caroline until her death.

In the end, it was Caroline who pressed for separation. By 1825, both had been unfaithful numerous times. They formally parted, and Caroline took up permanent residence at Brocket Hall.

A Decline, Not a Quiet Fade

Caroline's final years were difficult. Her struggles with mental illness—whatever their precise nature, they were never clearly diagnosed by contemporary medicine—became more pronounced. She abused alcohol and laudanum, the opium tincture that served as the all-purpose sedative of the age.

Her body, always described as frail, began to fail. By 1827, she was under the care of a full-time physician. She developed dropsy—what we now call oedema—a condition where the body retains fluid, causing painful swelling.

William Lamb was in Ireland, serving as Chief Secretary, when Caroline's condition became critical. He made a dangerous winter crossing to be at her bedside. Lady Caroline Lamb died on January 25, 1828. She was forty-two years old.

She was buried in the graveyard of St Etheldreda's Church in Hatfield. William was later buried inside the church itself—a separation that seems fitting for a couple who remained bound together despite everything that had torn them apart.

The Long Shadow

William Lamb did eventually become Viscount Melbourne after his father's death, and then Prime Minister. He is perhaps best remembered today as the mentor who guided the young Queen Victoria through the early years of her reign. Caroline never held the title of Viscountess Melbourne—she died before her husband inherited it.

Her tangled family tree connects her to other famous figures. She was related to Sarah Ponsonby, one half of the "Ladies of Llangollen"—a pair of Irish women who eloped together in 1778 and lived as a couple in Wales for over fifty years, becoming celebrities in their own right. More surprisingly, Caroline was an ancestress of Diana, Princess of Wales.

There's an almost novelistic symmetry to this genealogical connection. Diana was another aristocratic woman whose passionate nature and troubled marriage played out on the public stage. Another woman whose relationship with a man she couldn't have—or couldn't keep—defined her public image. Another woman who died young, having lived through scandal and breakdown.

Caroline herself became the subject of fiction. Mary Augusta Ward's 1905 novel "The Marriage of William Ashe" drew on her story. Doris Leslie wrote "This for Caroline" in 1964. In 1972, Sarah Miles played her in a film simply titled "Lady Caroline Lamb," with Richard Chamberlain as Byron. The BBC dramatized Byron's life in 2003, with Camilla Power in the role of Caroline.

But perhaps the most enduring fiction about Caroline Lamb is the one she created herself. "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know"—whether or not she actually said it—has become Byron's permanent epitaph. Every time someone quotes those words, they're quoting her.

She was, after all, exceptionally good at writing like Byron.