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.

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 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.

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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.

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

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