Lady Caroline Lamb’s whole disgraceful truth… Part two – affairs of the heart

Today I will share some more about Caroline’s childhood, only because considering she was from the one of the most elite and rich families in England I was really surprised to discover some of the facts about how girls were brought up in the 1700s. We are frequently led to believe they were kept at home with minimal education but that was not true for Caroline…

Now it is time to set up an introduction to this series of posts, for anyone who joins it after the commencement. Here it is – if you did not read the post last week you may want a quick recap of the history for this series of posts, if not then you can jump straight to the point where I restart with a little bit of bold type.

I was drawn to Lady Caroline Lamb, who lived in the Regency era, because Harriette Wilson the courtesan who wrote her memoirs in 1825, mentions the Ponsonby and the Lamb family frequently. Also the story of Caroline’s affair with Lord Byron captured my imagination. Caroline was also a writer, she wrote poems, and novels in her later life. I have read Glenarvon.

Her life story and her letters sucked me further into the reality of the Regency world which is rarely found in modern-day books. Jane Austen wrote fictional, ‘country’ life as she called it, and I want to write fictional ‘Regency’ life rather than simply romance. But what I love when I discover gems in my research like Caroline’s story is sharing the real story behind my fiction here too.

Lady Caroline Lamb was born Caroline Ponsonby, on the 13^th November 1785. She was the daughter of Frederick Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, and Henrietta (known as Harriet), the sister of the infamous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

Caroline became an official lady when her grandfather died, and her father became Earl of Bessborough earning her the honorific title ‘Lady’ and she grew up in a world of luxury, even Marie Antoinette was a family friend. Caroline was always renowned as being lively, and now it is suspected she had a condition called bipolar. As a child she earned herself a title as a ‘brat’, by such things as telling her aunt Georgiana that Edward Gibbon’s (the author of The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire) face was ‘so ugly it had frightened her puppy’.

And when she grew up Byron once described Caroline as “the cleverest most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing, dangerous fascinating little being that lives now or ought to have lived 2000 years ago.”

Last week I wrote about ‘The mist’ the group of children Caroline was brought up among who travelled with her mother, Harriet, and her aunt Georgiana; a group of charitably adopted and illegitimate children who lived with the family. One of these children was the child of Bess and the Duke of Devonshire’s (Georgiana’s husband) illegitimate child. This girl was the same age and also named Caroline.

But it was not only Georgiana’s husband who was disloyal in marriage, it was extremely common in the aristocracy of the 1700s and particularly the set Caroline’s aunt and mother favoured. Caroline’s mother, Harriet, had several affairs, and one of the men she had a relationship with, Sheridan, began his affair with Harriet three years before Caroline was born, and when Caroline was three years old, her mother was caught with Sheridan. Her father then wanted a divorce. Georgiana’s husband, the Duke of Devonshire, returned from a spa in Belgium (which he had been visiting with Georgiana and Bess, with an aim to get a son) to persuade Caroline’s father not to progress the divorce.

At one point in Caroline’s youth, her father is recorded as having regularly added sedatives to her mother’s food, to stop her infidelity.

The cousin who Caroline became closest to, Hart, the Duke of Devonshire’s son, was born to Georgiana in 1970, in a house they were temporarily staying at in France, after being evicted from Paris, due to the commencement of the revolution.

But then Caroline’s mother became ill, following the collapse of a business in which Harriet had shares, she lost as much as £50,000 an enormous sum at the time, and it was her lover Sheridan who had persuaded her to invest. Once again the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire came to her aid, promising to cover all of Harriet’s debt and taking Harriet along with all the children, including Caroline, to Bath, and along with them went Lord Charles Grey. But when the Duke left bath, Charles Grey remained, and Georgiana was with him constantly. She became pregnant.

There is a record of Caroline at this time, in the confusing life of debauchery which she grew up in. Mrs Burney wrote about visits to the Duchess of Devonshire’s home in Bath, she states she was extremely uncomfortable when Bess came into a room during Hario’s sixth birthday party. Mrs Burnley states she did not like being trapped in a room with the Duke’s concubine, and then she notes young Caroline, who was five, but nearly six herself, ran to Bess’s side to show her a prize she had won, and ‘cast herself in a thousand affected attitudes’ on Bess, saying “precisemenet ce qu’elle avoit la plus souhaite” (precisely what she had wished for the most). Bess then kissed Caroline affectionately and Mrs Burnley records being disgusted by Caroline’s intimacy with a fallen woman.

It was after this that Georgiana planned, with Harriet and Bess, to go away to Cornwall to bear Charles Grey’s child, with the excuse that Harriet still needed to recover from her illnesses. But the Duke found out and returned to Bath then insisted Georgiana must give up Charles Grey and go abroad to bear the child, disguising her situation under the rouse of Harriet needing to take care of her health, and on the understanding once born the child could not become part of the mist, but would be adopted.

It added more pressure on Caroline’s mother Harriet, who was completely financially reliant on her sister’s husband the Duke of Devonshire. So at the age of six, Caroline travelled through France, during the period of the revolution, with a mother so ill she was suffering frequent short bouts of partial paralysis and at one point walking with crutches and a father who travelled with them but was unhappy with the situation and financially insecure. They had to leave Georgiana in Montpellier because she was too heavily pregnant to continue. She bore Charles Grey’s child there, with Bess, and then the child was sent back to England, to Charles Grey’s parents, with a wet nurse.

The sisters together again, with the children, but now minus Caroline’s father, travelled on to Switzerland where the women wrote letters to the Duke of Devonshire urging him to be forgiving, and calling him a ‘brute and a beast’.

While they lived in Lausanne, just before Caroline’s seventh birthday, Georgiana wrote of Caroline, ‘she is very naughty and says anything that comes into her head’. They were living there with Mr Gibbon, and this is the time when Caroline said he had frightened her puppy, she also used to order the footmen to bounce her on their knees, and also bounce Mr Gibbon on their knees.

They then travelled on to Italy. Caroline’s father rejoined them at Pisa, then they journeyed via Florence and Sienna, San Lorenzo, Vitebro and then on to Rome, it was in Rome that they heard that Louis XVI had been guillotined and following this, in March 1973, they heard that the 2nd Lord Bessborough, Caroline’s grandfather had died, and now Caroline’s father at the age of thirty-five became the Earl, and Caroline then held the honorary title, Lady.

They reached Naples and then in May heard from that the Duke of Devonshire, who said he would allow Georgiana to return. So the family packed everything again to travel back, but Harriet, Caroline’s mother became more ill on the way home, and so Georgiana, desperate to see her children, left Harriet and Caroline behind, and travelled on alone.

And so this constant travelling, illicit affairs and family feuds created the first foundations of young Caroline’s life, but despite such an unsettled life, even by seven under the tuition of Dr Drew she was said to be able to speak and write in three languages, English, French and Italian…

Next week I will share some stories which tell a little of what Caroline’s life was like when she lived abroad with her mother.

P.S. If you would like to see some pictures of Florence, Sienna and Rome, some of the place Caroline visited, there are pictures on my Facebook page

The Lost Love of Soldier

The prequel to The Illicit Love of a Courtesan

is available to pre-order just click on the cover in the side bar

Go to the index

For

the story of the real courtesan who inspired The Illicit Love of a Courtesan,
another free short story, about characters from book #2, A Lord’s Scandalous Love,
the prequel excerpts for book #3 The Scandalous Love of a Duke

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional Historical and New Adult Romance stories, and the author of a No.1 bestselling Historical Romance novel in America, ‘The Illicit Love of a Courtesan’.

Click here to find out more about Jane’s books, and see Jane’s website www.janelark.co.uk to learn more about Jane. Or click ‘like’ on Jane’s Facebook page to see photo’s and learn historical facts from the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras, which Jane publishes there. You can also follow Jane on twitter at @janelark

Jane’s books can be ordered from most booksellers in paperback

Courtesan’s portrayal of a real Regency villain

As Harriette’s memoirs draw to a close, they become an odd clutter of short targeted attacks on those who she held grudges with, but there a couple more little stories to be captured and shared…

Before I do though, as ever, here’s the history to this series of posts for anyone joining today. For those who have been following Harriette’s story skip to the end of the italics, and I’ll mark the place to start reading again with bold type.

In 1825 Harriette Wilson, a courtesan, published a series of stories as her memoirs in a British broad sheet paper. The Regency gentleman’s clubs were a buzz, waiting to see the next names mentioned each week. While barriers had to be set up outside the shop of her publisher, Stockdale, to hold back the disapproving mob.

Harriette was born Harriette Debochet, she chose the name Harriette Wilson as her professional name, in the same way Emma Hart, who I’ve blogged about previously, had changed her name. Unlike Emma, it isn’t known why or when Harriette changed her name.

She was one of nine surviving children. Her father was a watchmaker and her mother a stocking repairer, and both were believed to be from illegitimate origin.

Three of Harriette’s sisters also became courtesans. Amy, Fanny and Sophia (who I have written about before). So the tales I am about to begin in my blogs will include some elements from their lives too.

For a start you’ll need to understand the world of the 19^th Century Courtesan. It was all about show and not just about sex. The idle rich of the upper class aspired to spending time in the company of courtesans, it was fashionable, the thing to do.

You were envied if you were linked to one of the most popular courtesans or you discovered a new unknown beauty to be admired by others.

Courtesans were also part of the competitive nature of the regency period too, gambling was a large element of the life of the idle rich and courtesans were won and lost and bartered and fought for.

So courtesans obviously aspired to be one of the most popular, and to achieve it they learnt how to play music, read widely, so they could debate, and tried to shine in personality too. They wanted to be a favoured ’original’.

The eccentric and outspoken was admired by gentlemen who liked to consort with boxers and jockeys, and coachmen, so courtesans did not aim for placid but were quite happy to insult and mock men who courted them, and demand money for any small favour.

Before telling us the story I am going to share today, Harriette detours to mention dining with a lawyer called Brougham, who she says advised her to pursue both Lord Worcester (her former lover) and his father the Duke of Beaufort to restore the income he said he would give her, and then tricked her out of. You will hear more of Brougham again, when I tell you some of the things Harriette did not put in her memoirs.

Then her next little dig is at the Duke of Wellington, a man who refused to pay her bribe to keep his name out of her memoirs extremely bluntly, I shan’t share the full interlude, but just this – she says she met him in a street, and he asked to call on her. She agrees, and then records mocking him like this…

‘The ladies here tell me you make a bad hand at Ambassadorship,’ said I to him.

‘How so?’

‘Why the other day you wrote to ask a lady of rank if you might visit her a cheval? What does that mean, pray?’

‘In boots, you foolish creature! What else could it mean?’

‘Why the lady thought it just possible that the great Villainton, being an extraordinary man, might propose entering her drawing-room on the outside of his charger, as being the most warrior-like mode of attacking her heart.’

See what I mean, she seems to be grabbing at last chances to have a stab at the ego’s and reputations of the men she disliked most… So now you know that, when I tell you the next story, perhaps read it with a pinch of salt, because I don’t know what Prince Esterhazy had done to her, but it would seem it is definitely an attempt to damage his character, and it may or may not, be true.

This story she relates as taking place after she’s returned to London. Napoleon has escaped his prison on the island of Elba, and was progressing across France and returning to Paris, and so the British fled.

In London, she says that Prince Esterhazy had tracked her down, it was no chance meeting, and he asked to come and visit her. Harriette agreed…

‘A few days later the Prince entered and, throwing off his large German cloak, shook hands with me.

‘Prince,’ said I, ‘I know you don’t come here to make love to me, which knowledge renders me the more curious to learn what you do come here for.’

The Prince explained, ‘In short, I have great confidence in you, and I am going to point out to you how we may serve each other very effectively. I want a friend like you. It is what I was always accustomed to in Paris. In short, I want to make the acquaintance of some interesting young ladies. I hate those which are common or vulgar; now you could make a party here in this delightful cottage; and invite me to pay my court to any young lady of your acquaintance, perhaps your sister!’

‘Do you allude to an innocent girl, Prince?’ said I, ‘and do you really imagine that, for all your fortune, paid to me twice over, I would be instrumental in the seduction of a young lady of education? And, if I would, would you not yourself scruple, as a married man, to be the cause of misery to a poor young creature?

‘There are many girls who determine on their own fall,’ said Esterhazy. ‘All I want is that, when you see them going down, you will give them a gentle push, thus,’ said he.

‘Prince,’ said I, ‘I will never injure a woman while I breathe, and I will assist and serve those of my own sex wherever I can, as I always have done. No innocent girl, however inclined she may be to fall, shall receive the push you suggest from me. On the contrary, I will always lend my hand, as I did to my sister Sophia, (who was now a respectably married woman who Harriette hated – another little dig to remind Sophia of her origins – and more truth to come on this too) to try to prevent her from falling, or to lift her up again. If I knew a poor young creature, deserted by her friends and her seducer, and you would make a provision for her during her life, I would for her sake, not yours, perhaps present her to you.’ (Mmmm more truth on this too after Harriette’s memoirs).

‘Perhaps I would make a settlement on her,’ said Esterhazy; ‘but mind, she must be very young, very fair, and almost innocent.’

‘Why, Prince, you are like the ogre in Tom Thumb. And all the while you have the enjoyment of the most beautiful wife in Europe!’

‘Oh Harriette! a wife is altogether so very different from what is desirable, no sort of comparison can be made with them,’ replied His Excellency, taking up his cloak.

In two days, he came to me again, in a dirty greatcoat, all over wet and mud, just at my dinner-time. He placed himself before my fire so that I could not see a bit of it, with his hat on, and declared he was much disappointed at not having heard from me…’

‘I saw two of the most lovely sisters, walking with their mothers today. They would not measure around the waist more than so much’ describing to me the circumference with his hands. ‘I watched them home, to…… Do pray contrive to get acquainted with them.’

‘You had better leave my house,’ said I, beginning to be truly disgusted at the very honourable employment which his princely representative of imperial dignity, morality, disinterestedness and humanity wished to force upon me.’

Harriette claims she did throw him out, and then immediately moved to another story… Like I say, the end of her memoirs are a clutter… I shall share her next story, next week…

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional Historical and New Adult Romances, and the author of a No.1 bestselling Historical Romance novel in America, ‘The Illicit Love of a Courtesan’.

Book 3 in the Marlow Intrigues series, The Scandalous Love of a Duke, will be published on the 7th April, and is now available for pre-order, click on the cover on the right-hand side to order. Jane’s novels, The Passionate Love of Rake and I Found You, will also be available in Paperback on 17th April and are available to pre-order.

Why not also read A Lord’s Desperate Love the story of two of the characters from The Passionate Love of a rake which Jane is telling for free here, there is a link to each part in the index of posts.