Lady Caroline Lamb’s whole disgraceful truth… Part Twenty-one ~ The scandal of waltzing parties

It has been a little while since I wrote a post on the real life of Lady Caroline Lamb, so you’ll have to forgive me, I have been busy. I will continue with the story but probably slowly 🙂 just to warn you.

In my last post I told you of Caroline’s first intrigue, with a true Regency rake, who had an appalling reputation and was band from gentlemen’s clubs, Sir Godfrey Vassal Webster… But even though she had written both to her mother-in-law and her husband protesting that she would end the affair, she was still inclined towards him.

For anyone beginning to read this series of posts about Caro Lamb today, here’s the background, but for anyone who has already read it (and remembers it, as it’s been so long since I posted 😉 ) then pick up reading from where I have marked the text in bold.

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.”

Caroline’s affair with Godfrey Webster was supposed to have ended in April 1810 but in June she wrote to her mother-in-law begging her to allow Caroline to have a final meeting with Godfrey “If I may see him tomorrow & if you will not tell my mother the Dss of Devonshire or Frederick Ponsonby (as if any of them could talk ) what passed tonight I will be as gentle as docile as a Lamb, I will try & conquer feelings which are now too strong for my reason to command…I have faults but I am not a brute or a beast without a heart… if the 8th of June would not do the 14th shall-& if I cut my hands off I will give up writing…”

According to opinion their affair did end after this but it did not mean that Caroline suddenly became content in her marriage, instead she discovered a new way to escape it. The waltz. It was considered extremely scandalous at the time, and the women who danced it were considered scandalous, so of course Caro danced it, and, like anything else banned, what happened was a separate society of people began meeting solely to waltz. They had waltzing parties, where they just danced waltzes all night, and the Prince Regent was a part of this group of people so it was a very elite group.

Caro recorded her opinion on discovering the waltz, and those who criticized it, in a letter to her mother-in-law on the 29th May 2011

“After dinner what occurred? ruin to the character of the young & innocent – waltzing was the subject of discussion – Princess Sophy agreed with me that we had better stick to the dance of our own country – but the Duke insisted on one turn – the Band playd O mein Liebe augustein & off we went – an extra step o his Highness put me out. vainly I remonstrated round & round we turned & I never thought waltzing so criminal in my life tho’ I have always been of the opinion & still am that those who like it like it because it is doubtful – thus unco good young Women who shudder at the thought of vice like to venture to the edge of the precipice down which so many of their frail companions have been thrown – they simper over an improper Book – ride & flert as Lady Ossulstone calls it in Rotten Row…

I too am much inclined to Flert

but then tis with a Gentleman

I ride – but you ride in the dert

With all the black legs that you can –

now I do keep in Rotten Row –

Though that displeases little O –

I likewise walze & think no wrong

Lord O sees harm but I see none

for if you do not walze too long

& turn the same with every one –

How can there be the least of evil

if the Man turnd out the devil

then I will walze let who say no

For who cares much for little O –

& let her Walze & Flert with all the Courtly finikee witless things that call themselves Gentlemanlike…”

She had now truly fallen in love with waltzing, so much so that when she went out with William on the sixth anniversary of their marriage in June 1811, she stayed at a party waltzing rather than leave when he did. Again in a confession to her mother-in-law, she writes…

“William Lamb for the first time last night witnessed what he never before believed – it was our Wedding day & as he left me Walzing at 2 o’clock he reminded me of it & of the vows and protestations I had then made – & are they all changed in a few years – no believe me – I remained however till 1/2 past 5 & as I drove home my heart reproached me & tho tired to death I could not sleep…”

But in July she was again discovered to be continuing her affair with Godfrey Webster. This time her mother caught Caroline with a letter from him and drew out a confession after Caroline sought to deny it. They had been passing letters through his brother (But let us remember how many years Caroline’s mother had an affair with a young army officer for, bearing him illegitimate children – he, by the way, had now produced his first legitimate child with Caro’s relation whom he’d been married off to). Anyway what followed was another long letter of confession to her mother-in-law, and then the following morning an apology for that letter.

Caroline then made another effort to be a “Pattern wife” to William and asked him to help her learn Greek, only at the same time, she made friends with another dubious woman of Britain’s elite society, Lady Oxford, whose children were known to have been sired by several men, (a little like Caro’s hollier-than-thou mother-in-law). Lady Oxford fostered Caroline’s friendship and desire for recklessness and turned Caro’s education in Greek into a discussion on how learning Greek might excite the passion.

At this point in Caro’s life the Duke of Devonshire died, leaving her cousin, and former beau, Hart, to take on the dukedom – which meant of course that revenge could be had on his father’s long-standing mistress who’d then usurped his mother. Hart threw her out of the Devonshires’ properties. I laughed at his reply to his sister who begged him for some leniency, commenting on the fact that the Duchess did not look well, “I see she wears no rouge.”

Caroline continued her efforts be the perfect wife throughout the summer of 1811 and in October writes to her cousin Georgiana, “this House is beautiful but there are no dogs & to me that is unpleasant – Wm Lamb chases the Fox & pheasants – I ride a great deal & see much of the Neighbours – Augustus is my bosom friend…he is also Wm Lambs delight – we are united like 3 flames or 3 oaks or what you will…”

But in another letter she expressed a different opinion, “no time will ever bring me back the perfect innocence & enjoyment I once possessed nor shall I ever hear William’s name or meet his eyes without feelings of bitter reproach.”

These sentiments lead us into the next post on Caroline which will be about her meeting Lord Byron… I shan’t make any promises on when it will be posted though, I am still really busy, so to not miss it, follow my blog via email.

If you would like to read my historical romance story that’s inspired by Caroline’s life it’s available now The Dangerous Love of a Rogue.

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the story of the real courtesan who inspired The Illicit Love of a Courtesan,

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Lady Caroline Lamb’s whole disgraceful truth… Part Nineteen ~ The pressures that open the cracks in the Lambs ill-fated marriage

Caroline gave birth to her child, Augustus, in my last piece on Caroline Lamb but unfortunately for Caroline fate liked to play cruel games with her life…

Read the history to this series of posts if you are new to my blog, but if you’ve read it before as always skip to the end of the italics where I have marked the font bold.

Caroline loved her new son Augustus, and from her letters she took an active part in his life. She often mentions things that imply she did not simply leave Augustus in the hands of servants. She wrote a letter to William on one occasion stating ‘After Dear boy was gone to bed‘ and to her mother she wrote, ‘My little boy has had the Cow pocks very effectively I hope for it has pitted him sadly and made him look thin & pale. He really is a beautiful Baby but feverish as he has been these four days past. William is growing very fond of him- but of course is less so than I in outward demonstrations.‘

But when Augustus was nine months old something happened to distress her, Augustus had a convulsive fit. Yet fits are common in small children and there was no reason to assume it might be anything more than a response to a high temperature. Doctors at the time also said it might be due to Caro’s regular fainting spells when she was pregnant.

Caroline fell pregnant again and she continued to write to her family both of Augustus and of her own condition. ‘my little boy is really grown as blooming stout and lively as your little Georgiana which is saying everything he has more colour in his lips than he did when quite a baby…’ ‘Augutus continues well while I am roundelete…’ ‘I have a little pain in my chest, they think from taking too much exercise & carrying the dear heavy boy, who improves a vue d oeil… ‘

But Caroline had given birth at the same time as others in her family and in William’s family and comparisons were constantly made. I found that mothers at the school gate could be very gloating about a child who had achieved something yours had not, and I used to fight like hell not to care because I didn’t want to put any pressure on my child, and I can hear in Caro’s words above a mother who is trying to ensure her cousin that her child is just as good, but then she goes on to say, ‘though a year and a month old tomorrow he can neither walk alone nor speak a word – but laughs like a Lamb and grows very like me...’ 13 months would be young to walk and talk so she could not have been worried too much, and yet some children can walk at nine months, and perhaps she was comparing her son to her cousin’s child, or perhaps simply trying to brag that Augustus laughed.

Yet by the time Augustus was seventeen months old he was still neither walking nor saying and words, and Caro then lost another child, she gave birth to a premature little girl on the 29th January 1809, the child lived for a day, then died on her grandmother’s lap, and after this, Caroline’s and Williams marriage endured still more trials when Augustus began to have regular fits. It could not then be swept a way as something unusual and minor, it was clear that all was not well with Caro’s and William’s child, and in that era, in a family in high society, that was an embarrassment.

While William’s parents called Caro ‘the beast‘ behind her back, Caroline’s and William’s marriage began to develop cracks. He had the power to leave the house and travel, while she was left at home to mourn the loss of another child whom she had carried for months seen into the world and then lost, and to try to understand and support the only child she did have with an illness which in those days would have parents choosing to lock a child away out of sight and out of mind, and yet Caro loved him.

Caro wrote to William on the 14th September 1809, ‘I have been playing all day with that pretty little Augustus of yours, he is the dearest child I ever saw & shows where you are gone by pointing to the sea… God Bless you love, your own faithful Wiffins.’

But I think beneath her bright words and her hopefulness, she was beginning to feel distance because at this time, she started writing numerous letters to her cousin Hart, the heir to the Duke of Devonshire, though he did not often write back, and considering he had thought of himself as Caro’s future husband for most of his life, her letters were very flirtatious. ‘Caroline George is the delight of Brocket Hall give her 3 kisses for me & mind I never will give you another while you live – you are a bad good for nothing boy..’

Caro’s and William’s marriage splits into infidelity in my next post – follow my blog to make sure you don’t miss it and if you would like to read my historical romance story that’s inspired by Caroline’s life it’s available now The Dangerous Love of a Rogue.

Or grab any one of my books, with free novellas and full novels in the UK from 99p and in the USA from $1.99

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