him,’ says Rogers (Table Talk, p. 235); told him in her first letter that all her jewels were at his service; waited at night for Rogers in his garden to ask him to reconcile her to Byron; and would return from parties in Byron's carriage or wait for him in the street if not invited. At last, in July 1813 (see Jackson, Bath Archives, ii. 146), it was rumoured in London that after a quarrel with Byron at a party Lady Caroline had tried to stab herself with a knife and then with the fragments of a glass (the party was on 5 July; Hayward, Eminent Statesmen, i. 350–3). Her mother now insisted upon her retirement to Ireland. After a farewell interview, Byron wrote her a letter (printed from the original manuscript in Jeaffreson, i. 261), which reads like an attempt to use the warmest phrases consistent with an acceptance of their separation, though ending with a statement of his readiness to fly with her. She corresponded with Byron from Ireland till on the eve of her return she received a brutal letter from him (printed in ‘Glenarvon,’ and apparently acknowledged by Byron, Medwin, p. 274), saying roundly that he was attached to another, and telling her to correct her vanity and leave him in peace. The letter, marked with Lady Oxford's coronet and initials, threw Lady Caroline into a fit, which involved leeching, bleeding, and bed for a week.
Lady Caroline's mother-in-law, Lady Melbourne, was sister of Sir R. Milbanke, who, by his wife, Judith Noel, daughter of Lord Wentworth, was father of an only daughter, Anne Isabella Milbanke, born 17 May 1792. Miss Milbanke was a woman of intellectual tastes; fond of theology and mathematics, and a writer of poems, one or two of which are published in Byron's works (two are given in Madame Belloc's ‘Byron,’ i. 68). Byron described her to Medwin (p. 36) as having small and feminine, though not regular, features; the fairest skin imaginable; perfect figure and temper and modest manners. She was on friendly terms with Mrs. Siddons, Miss Baillie, Miss Edgeworth, and other literary persons who frequented her mother's house (see Harness, p. 23). A strong sense of duty, shown in a rather puritanical precision, led unsympathetic observers to regard her as prudish, pedantic, and frigid. Her only certain fortune was 10,000l. Her father had injured a considerable estate by electioneering. Her mother's brother, Lord Wentworth, was approaching seventy. His estate of some 7,000l. a year was at his own disposal, and she was held to be his favourite; but he had illegitimate children, and his sister, Lady Scarsdale, had sons and a daughter. Miss Milbanke was therefore an heiress with rather uncertain prospects. Byron, from whatever motives, made her an offer in 1812, which was refused, and afterwards opened a correspondence with her (Campbell, New Monthly, xxviii. 374, contradicts, on Lady Byron's authority, Medwin's statement (p. 37), that she began the correspondence), which continued at intervals for two years. On 30 Nov. 1813 he notices the oddness of a situation in which there is ‘not a spark of love on either side.’ On 15 March 1813 he receives a letter from her and says that he will be in love again if he does not take care. Meanwhile he and his friends naturally held that a marriage might be his salvation. Lady Melbourne, whom on her death in 1818 he calls (Letter 316) the ‘best, kindest, and ablest female’ he ever knew, promoted a match with her niece, possibly because it would effectually bar the intrigue with her daughter-in-law. In September 1814 he made an offer to Miss Milbanke in a letter, which, according to a story told by Moore, was the result of a momentary impulse. Byron may be acquitted of simply mercenary motives. He never acted upon calculation, and had he wished, he might probably have turned his attractions to better account. The sense that he was drifting into dangerous embarrassments, which (see Diary, 10 Dec. 1813) suggests hints of suicide, would no doubt recommend a match with unimpeachable propriety, as the lady's vanity was equally flattered by the thought of effecting such a conversion. Byron was pre-eminently a man who combined strange infirmity of will with overpowering gusts of passion. He drifted indolently as long as drifting was possible, and then acted impetuously in obedience to the uppermost influence.
Byron's marriage took place 2 Jan. 1815 at Seaham, Durham, the seat of Sir R. Milbanke. The honeymoon was passed at Halnaby, another of his houses in the same county. The pair returned to Seaham 21 Jan.; in March they visited Colonel and Mrs. Leigh at Six Mile Bottom, Newmarket, on their way to London, where they settled, 18 March 1815, at 13 Piccadilly Terrace for the rest of their married life. Byron, in ‘The Dream,’ chose to declare that on his wedding day his thoughts had been with Miss Chaworth. He also told Medwin (p. 39) that on leaving the house he found the lady's-maid placed between himself and his bride in the carriage. Hobhouse, who had been his ‘best man,’ authoritatively contradicted this (Westminster Review, No. 5), and the statement of Mrs. Minns (first published in ‘Newcastle Chronicle,’ 23 Sept. 1869), who had been Lady Byron's maid at
