Lord Byron: The Life and Work of a Poet

The poet Lord Byron, whose full name was George Gordon Byron, was an outstanding figure of the Romantic movement. Born in 1788, his life and poetry present examples of the excitement and despair of the early 19th Century.

When only ten years old, Byron inherited his family's title and home in Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire. His educational growth included a wealth of learning at Harrow and Cambridge. The latter was where he was to make the life long friendship of Cam Hobhouse. In 1809 they set off on a tour of Europe including journeys through Spain, Greece, Albania, Malta and Turkey. It was this experience that led Byron to write the poem 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' which was to lead him on the path to near instant fame in the year 1812.

Once he had returned to England he became one of the most well known and alluring young men in London. He had under his wing a best-selling poem as well as good looks and a confident manner. His notoriety as a bisexual lover spread as did his radically outspoken political views. Byron's first speech to the House of Lords in 1812 was a passionate defence of Nottingham weavers.

Lady Caroline Lamb, who Lord Byron had an affair with went on to describe the poet as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". There were later rumours that he'd had an incestuous relationship with Augusta Leigh, his half-sister who went on to give birth to an illegitimate daughter.

In 1815, Byron married the 22 year-old Anne Milbanke but only a year later, shortly after their daughter was born, she called for a separation citing dark but unspecified reasons. Scandal was beginning to take hold and his originally pleasing notoriety was beginning to shatter. In the Spring of 1816, Lord Byron left England for good and travelled to Italy where he began work on 'Don Juan' in Venice in 1818. Four years later he would witness the cremation of Shelly on the beach at Viareggio. A year after that, in 1823, Lord Byron set sail to join the battle in Greece for independence from the Turks. He was to die soon after, in April of 1824 from fever.

Augusta Leigh - The Honourable Augusta Leigh was the daughter of John Byron, who was also the father of Lord Byron. However her mother was the Baroness Conyers whereas his was Catherine Gordon, John's first wife.

The two half-siblings were brought up separately and were not to meet until adulthood when they happened to meet at Harrow. Augusta Leigh then began a letter correspondence with the dashing poet which lasted a few years before their relationship deepened and they fell in love. It is the possible revealing of this incestuous relationship alone which forced Lord Byron to flee England.

Lady Caroline Lamb - Lord Byron began an affair with the married Lady Lamb in 1812. He was 24 and she 27. Shortly afterwards he broke off the relationship but she could not take the rejection and pursued him constantly for a long time afterwards. Her emotional devastation presented itself in numerous acts such as disguising herself as a page boy just to get near him. Lord Byron was later to cruelly comment on her dramatic loss of weight by saying he was being "haunted by a skeleton".

The poem 'Remember Thee! Remember Thee!' was a retort by Byron to Lady Lamb's action of writing on a book of his, "Remember me!"

Elizabeth Medora Leigh - The 11th Baroness Wentworth was the cousin of Lady Caroline Lamb. In January of 1815 she married Lord Byron but the marriage was to prove a disaster. Possible marital violence, affairs and the birth of a daughter, Augusta Ada, instead of a son, were to further ruin the reputation of the poet. Exactly a year after the marriage, Leigh took her daughter and left Byron.

In 1811, Lord Byron took his seat in the House of Lords after his return from his travels in Turkey. His maiden speech in the chambers a year later was a sarcastic attack on the modernisation of textile industries which led to more and more workers loosing their jobs due to automation. Byron saw these new ways as being inferior to the old. He would later say about his first speech that he "spoke very violent sentences with a sort of modest impudence," and thought he came across as "a bit theatrical".

In another speech he went on to attack established religion and stating its unfairness to those of varying faiths. His time travelling across Europe had had a very strong affect on his viewpoints. Both his support for the Luddites (a social movement of British textile artisans) and his opposition to state religion would be reflected further in poems including 'Song for the Luddites' (1816) and 'The Age of Bronze' (1823).

"During the short time I recently passed in Nottingham, not twelve hours elapsed without some fresh act of violence; and on that day I left the the county I was informed that forty Frames had been broken the preceding evening, as usual, without resistance and without detection.

Such was the state of that county, and such I have reason to believe it to be at this moment. But whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress: the perseverance of these miserable men in their proceedings, tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could have driven a large, and once honest and industrious, body of the people, into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their families, and the community.

They were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them: their own means of subsistence were cut off, all other employment preoccupied; and their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned, can hardly be subject to surprise.

As the sword is the worst argument than can be used, so should it be the last. In this instance it has been the first; but providentially as yet only in the scabbard. The present measure will, indeed, pluck it from the sheath; yet had proper meetings been held in the earlier stages of these riots, had the grievances of these men and their masters (for they also had their grievances) been fairly weighed and justly examined, I do think that means might have been devised to restore these workmen to their avocations, and tranquillity to the country."

As the Liberty lads over the sea
Brought their freedom, and cheaply with blood,
So we, boys, we
Will die fighting, or live free,
And down with all kings by King Ludd!

When the web that we weave is complete,
And the shuttle exchanged for the sword,
We will fling the winding sheet
Over the despot at our feet,
And dye it deep in the gore he has poured.

Though black as his heart its hue,
Since his veins are corrupted to mud,
Yet this is the dew
Which the tree shall renew
Of Liberty, planted by Ludd!