The Queen and Lord M (8 page)

In the year 1805 his future had been decided for him, for his eldest brother, Peniston, had died. Lady Melbourne, though devoted to her other children – Frederick, George and Emily – and eager to see them all well placed in the world – more than that, determined that they should be – could not be completely bowed down with sorrow because the removal of poor Pen, who was so much like his father, made the way clear for her favourite second son, William. He would now inherit title, wealth and what was more important, the power to do without a lucrative career, which would make life so much more interesting for him. William could do what she had always hoped he would, and what she was well aware he wanted himself, for no doubt with his personality and fluency he had an aptitude for the life – he could go into politics.

So she drowned her sorrow in poor Pen’s death by making plans for William.

As for William, now that he was no longer a second son he would inherit Lord Melbourne’s title and most of his wealth; he would doubtless make a brilliant career in Parliament. He would also marry, he told his mother, and his chosen bride was Lady Caroline Ponsonby, the daughter of the Earl of Bessborough.

Lady Melbourne was not displeased. In fact, apart from the fact that Lady Caroline was a little wild, he could not have made a better choice, politically speaking. William had always been a Whig; he had admired Charles James Fox to idolatry; and of course Caroline’s aunt was the Duchess of Devonshire, who had been one of the most ardent Whig supporters of all time. William would be well received with open arms in Whig circles, for there could be no doubt of his cleverness, and once Lady Bessborough and the Earl realised what a brilliant son-in-law they had there would be no obstacles to his advancement.

‘Prime Minister, no less,’ declared Lady Melbourne, and later years proved her to be a true prophetess.

But that had been years ahead. Life with Caroline came in between and the battle uphill had to be won. He was not a great fighter; he was a better observer; he liked to stand outside the conflict and look on, finding the right moment to seize an advantage. He was too fastidious for the battle. Indeed, it was his aloof insouciance which had brought him through trials which would have finished a more sanguinary man.

Lord Melbourne had been less helpful than his wife. Such a stupid man! commented Lady Melbourne. He could not see what a credit their son William would be to them. Her husband’s rise in society had been due to her. She had pulled him up with her. And on the occasion of William’s marriage and his entry into politics with the whole force of the Whigs behind him one might say, the first Viscount Melbourne declared that William should have only £2,000 a year on which to set up house with the daughter of the Earl of Bessborough.

‘How was that possible?’ demanded the irate Lady Melbourne; and she had some high words with her husband in which the Earl of Egremont’s name was mentioned.

But the result was that Lord Melbourne would not budge from that £2,000 and all that Lady Melbourne could do was offer the young couple a floor in Melbourne House as their home. She began to feel almost immediately that this was not such a bad idea as she could keep an eye on them; and as she was one of the most popular hostesses in society and entertained people of such fame as Fox, Sheridan and of course the Prince of Wales, what could be better for William’s advancement than to live in such an environment?

She proved to be right. William began to advance. Even Lady Bessborough changed her opinion about her son-in-law and was delighted with his performance in the House of Commons (he had won the seat of Leominster); and with the death of Fox, it was realised that fresh blood was needed to stimulate the party and eyes were turned on William Lamb, who with his energetic mother and connections with the Devonshires, plus his own erudition and obvious talent, was indeed a man to watch. Society was soon watching him for another reason.

Oh, Caroline, he thought, as the carriage jogged onwards, what a dance you led me! And what an indication of his feeling for her that he should still remember her so vividly although it was nine years since she had died.

He was thinking of her now because of that other young girl; yet their only similarity was their age. Caroline had been nearly twenty when they married; Victoria was eighteen. He laughed aloud and murmured an oath. Victoria, somewhat prim, an innocent knowing little of the world and determined to be good, and Caroline, outrageous in word and deed, knowing so much of the frailties of human nature, except her own ungovernable temperament, and determined to be bad.

Yet he had thought he would mould Caroline into the perfect woman just as now he was thinking of moulding Victoria into the perfect queen. Did he see himself as a Pygmalion?

‘I hope, William,’ he said (he had a habit of addressing himself), ‘that you will make a bigger success of creating a queen than you did a wife.’

Certainly he would. The material was so different. Victoria would be so sweetly docile, whereas Caroline was a wild, irresponsible creature at the mercy of her illogical instincts. Victoria would be predictable; it would only be a matter of understanding how that clever little mind worked; and how could one ever be sure what went on in Caroline’s disordered one. ‘There you were doomed from the start, William. Oh, no, it was not you who were doomed. It was Caroline.’ And he thought of her living as she did with their poor tragic Augustus, their only child who had survived to live out his life in his own childish world, poor defeated Caroline waiting for the end in Melbourne Hall, while he, William Lamb, went on to become Lord Melbourne and Prime Minister of his country.

Caroline was unfaithful. How could it ever have been otherwise? Lady Melbourne, keeping a watchful eye on her daughter-in-law from the floor above in Melbourne House, was censorious.

‘Dear Mamma-in-law,’ Caroline had cried, ‘can you really blame me for liking the society of gentlemen? Surely
you
understand how alluring that can be.’

And Lady Melbourne, who was well aware that her own name had been linked with men like the Earl of Egremont and the Prince of Wales, tried to instil into Caroline something of the nice distinctions of adultery. She had been married to a fool, a man who would have been nothing without her. Caroline was married to William Lamb, a future Cabinet Minister. And who knew what rank awaited him? Romantic attachments enhanced some while they destroyed others. Caroline must learn.

As if Caroline would ever learn!

And he himself, how had he felt? It was hard to say. She had exasperated him, but he had begun to know himself and the superficiality of his emotions. He began to realise that he could never mould Caroline into the perfect wife; and that she was unfaithful to him had ceased to disturb him greatly. He had accepted her infidelity, for afterwards she would be contrite, devoted, swearing that she loved him only. ‘Always first with me will be William Lamb,’ she had told him. And in spite of his cynicism, he was still attracted by her. That very strangeness which was to destroy her and would undoubtedly have destroyed a weaker man had been clear to him. He had seen the dangers; and his mother was constantly calling his attention to them. But in his calm detached way he was fascinated. So he always forgave and was ready to start again.

Then Lord Byron, the wicked fascinating poet, had limped into society and set Caroline firmly on the road to madness.

What a romantic figure Byron had been! Three years younger than Caroline, he was not only a famous poet (
Childe Harold
was being discussed everywhere) but he had possessed great personal beauty. His grey eyes had been set off by enormously long dark lashes and his dark brown hair was a riot of curls over a high forehead; his teeth had been white and perfect; but it had been his expression which could be aloof, cold, vital and passionate all in the space of a few moments that people had talked of. Women had been immediately attracted by him – a challenge which Caroline had found irresistible. She wrote in her diary of him: ‘He is mad, bad and dangerous to know’ and therefore her great desire had been to know him.

Being as eager for notoriety as herself, Byron had not been averse. The wife of William Lamb would have seemed to be a worthy conquest, for it would be one which would excite the interest of society. It did. She and Byron were together everywhere; they quarrelled violently and publicly; they were reconciled and quarrelled again; and society watched with avid interest the growing indifference of Byron, the increasing passion of Lady Caroline and the seeming aloof indifference of William Lamb.

He had not been as detached as he had appeared to be, for it was at this time that he had begun seriously to consider a separation. His mother believed this should be arranged.

‘You have proved yourself in Parliament,’ she had declared. ‘You have your Whig standing. No one would blame you if you broke free of her. In fact society expects it, and this latest Byron affair perhaps makes it a necessity.’

Yet he had continued to smile and make no comment on Caroline’s behaviour. He shut himself away with his books and found great satisfaction in the Greek and Latin classics. At first they had been a drug to make him forget the difficulties of his marriage; later they became a necessity. While William improved his mind Lady Caroline had begun to lose her place in her lover’s affections. Lord Byron was bored; those dramatic and passionate scenes which had amused him in the beginning began to pall. He had had enough of Lady Caroline Lamb, and he told her so.

‘My poor Caroline,’ mused Melbourne, ‘why did you always take the road to self destruction?’ But then had she been a normal rational being she would have never exposed herself to such a scandal as she had. She had been completely frank; she had never stopped to consider. ‘I love Byron,’ she had told him, herself and the world, and she would not pretend otherwise.

She had tried to explain to her husband. ‘I love Byron, yes, and I love you, William Lamb. But it is enough to know you are there and always will be there. I don’t feel this mad craving for your company. I
must
see Byron or I shall go mad.’

And he had looked at her quizzically and thought: But Caroline my dear, you are already mad and can you be sure that I shall always be there?

He had shrugged his shoulders and gone back to Aeschylus which was more rewarding than the ramblings of a mad woman.

Perhaps his indifference had goaded her. Perhaps he had been wrong to shrug his shoulders. Perhaps she needed him to take her firmly in hand as other men would have done; either to have discarded her or to have fought to bring her back to him. But he did neither; his indifference had been clear; it was that which had saved him.

That was the most difficult of all times, when the whole of society, the whole of London was talking about Caroline Lamb’s crazy passion for Lord Byron who was trying to elude her. Neither of them had made concessions to conventional behaviour. They had cared nothing for the fact that their affair was made public. They insulted each other in company; they quarrelled in the open so that all might know how their relationship progressed. She pleaded; he scorned. She offered him all her jewels; she would wait outside his house for him to come home and then plead with him; she bribed his servants to let her into his house. There was no end to the follies of Caroline. She could not see that Byron was tired of her and that the more she pursued him the more she bored him.

Then there was that scene which was recalled even now when, finding herself at a party at which the poet was a guest, Caroline had accosted him, had accused him of neglect and quarrelled noisily with him to the outward consternation and inward delight of the other guests. He had expressed his contempt, his dislike and his great desire never to see her again, at which she had picked up a knife and tried to stab herself, and when this was wrested from her, crying passionately that she had no desire to live, she had snatched a glass, broken it and tried to cut her wrists.

William’s fortunes had seemed low then; he had lost his seat owing to his support of the Catholic Emancipation Bill and had remained out of the House of Commons for four years. He was not sure how he would have come through that trying time but for his love of literature. He became familiar with Tacitus and Horace, Aristotle and Cicero. His obsession with the past enabled him to be a detached observer of the present. It became clear during that period of Caroline’s maddest escapades that he was an unusual man. There was his mother to advise and comfort him. She applauded his attitude but continued to urge a separation from Caroline. There would be a time when he would come back to the House of Commons, she told him, and Caroline would be an unsuitable wife for a Prime Minister. She had not thought it incongruous to consider that he would attain this goal, and had the utmost confidence that one day he would be the leader of the Whigs.

‘Dear Mamma,’ he murmured. ‘Right as usual.’

And after that disastrous scene of Caroline’s attempted suicide he had taken her to Ireland and sought to calm her. Surprisingly, she had seemed tolerably happy there. He had always wanted a son and he had one, although two other children had died in infancy. When was it he had first been forced to admit that Augustus was not normal? The boy was only six years old at the time of Caroline’s attempted public suicide. ‘He’s a little backward,’ they had said. ‘Some children are.’ But of course later he knew that Augustus would go through life with the mind of a child.

What tragedy, people said, for William Lamb! A mad wife, his only child mentally deficient and his political career in ruins. But his charming indifference had made him as outstanding as their dynamic energy did most men.

Caroline had continued to fret for Byron and Lady Melbourne had decided it would be useful if the fascinating poet were married, so with characteristic verve she produced a wife for him – her own niece Annabella Milbanke – and rather to everyone’s astonishment Byron agreed to the match.

Caroline had been overtaken by melancholy when the marriage took place; she shut herself away in her rooms and did not emerge for days; it transpired later how she had occupied herself and in the meantime Lady Melbourne made William see that he must agree to a separation from his wife if he were to continue with his career. So he had agreed; and the deeds of separation had been drawn up. How Caroline had wept and thrown herself at his feet and clung to him and demanded to know what she would do without him! She was fascinated by Lord Byron, she declared; she was ready to die when he deserted her, and would have done so if she had not been prevented. But if William Lamb deserted her she would surely die. She was wild; she was mad; but he knew that she meant what she said. The loss of Byron had filled her with passionate rage; the loss of William Lamb would fill her with melancholy; and the latter was the more dangerous of the two.