LORD BYRON'S FATHER AND MOTHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2302, 14 April 1898, Page 49

LORD BYRON'S FATHER AND MOTHER.

The Chaworth Duel. Catharine Gordon of Gight (17G5-1811), afterwards Mrs Byron and mother of Lord Byron, was descended on the paternal side from Sir William Gordon, of Gight, the third son, by Annabella Stewart, daughter of James I of Scotland, of George, second Earl of Huntley, Chancellor of Scotland (14981502) and Lord-lieutenant of the North from 1491 to his death ia 1307. Both her parents dying early — her father, it may be mentioned, committed suicide at Bath — Catharine Gordon was brought up at Banff by her grand!.* mother, commonly called Lady Gight, a penurious, illiterate woman, who, however, was careful that her granddaughter wait better educated than herself. Gight was j worth between £23,000 and £24,000. ' Miss Catharine Gordon was a young lady 1 who had her' full share of feminine vanity

[ At the age of 35.; she w.as a atont, dumpy, '.. coarse-looking woman, awkward in her move"ments, provincial in her accent and manner. Bat as her son was vain of his personal appearance, and especially of his hand?,

neck, and ears, so she, when other charms had vanished, clung to her pride in her arms and hands. She exhausted the patience o£ . Stewartson, the artist, who in 1806, after 40 sittings, painted her portrait, by her anxiety to have a particular turn in her elbow ex- . bibited in the most pleasing light. Of her ancestry she was, to use her son's expression, as " proud as Lucifer," looked down upon the Byron family, and regarded the Duke of Gordon as, an inferior member of her clan. Born and bred in the strictest Galvanism of the day, a superstitious believer in ghosts, prophecies, and fortune-telling, she was subject to fits of. melancholy, which her misfortunes intensified. In later life, at any rate, her' temper was ungovernable, her language, when excited, unrestrained, her love of gossip insatiable. Capricious in her moods, she flew from one extreme to the otber, passing, for the slightest cause, from passionate affsc-

fcion to equally passionate resentment.

How far these defects were produced, as > they certainly, were aggravated, by her hus-

band's ill-treatmsnt and her hard struggle * With poverty it is impossible to say. She had many good qualities. She bore her ruin ••^with good sense, dignity; and' composure. - She lived on a miserable pittance without ..punning into debt ; she pinched berselE in ' torder to give her son a liberal supply of ■money; she was warm-hearted and generous

to those in distress. She adored her scamp cf a husband, and, in her own way, was a 'devoted mother. In politics she affected "democratic opinions, and took in a daily paper, the Morning Chronicle, which, as is shown by a bill sent in after her death, cost her at the rate of £4 17s 6d for six months — no small sum to be deducted oat of a narrow sb come. She was fond of reading, subscribed 'to book clubs, collected all the criticisms on tier son's poetry, made shrewd remarks upon them herself, and corresponded with her friends on literary subjects. It has been said that she died in a fit of rage at an upholsterer's bill. The truth is that she had been in" ill-health for months, and her illness was aggravated, if not caused, by Byron's recklessness. She had raised for her son's

benefit £1000, for which she made herself personally liable. In 1809 sho had moved Jbo News lead with all her household gods in order to protect his interests in his absence abroad, and for two years, as her letters prove, kept his creditors at bay and defended his character with pathetic fidelity. When Brothers, the upholsterer, put in an execution for debts contracted by her son in furnishing Newstead, she saw herself beggared, since all her worldly posses-

sions were liable to. seizure, and the shock ' jieeras to have proved fatal. In 1785 Miss Catharine .Gordon was at |3ath, buying trinkets at Deard's, dancing at

Lindsay's or Hayes's, and listening to the Compliments of the fortune-hunters who " Sfluttered round the young heiress. There fche met, and there, on May 13, 1785, in the 'jpnnrch of St. Michael, as the register shows, '■be married Captain John Byron. She was fascinated by his handsome face, charmed fey bjs £a&cteg, p!gg«di fry bii wjJUtatioß,

There is no reason to suppose tha*; he was attracted to her by anything but h'tr fortune, and his chaiac'er, debts, and pravicus career promised her little happiness in her marriage.

Captain John Byron (1755-91), born at Plymouth, was the eldest son of Admiral the Hon. John Byron (1723-86), known in the , Eoyal Navy as " Hardy Byron," or " Foulj weather Jack," by his marriage (1748) with j Sophia Trevannion, of Caerhayee, in Cornwall, The admiral, nsxt brother to William, fifth Lord Byron, was a distinguished naval officer, whose " Narrative " of his shipwreck in the Wager was published in 1768, and whose " Voyage Round the Worl3 in the Dolphin " was described by "an officer in the said ship " in 1767. His eldest son, John Byron, educated at Westminster and a French military academy, entered the Guards and served in* America. A gambler, a spendthrift, a profligate scamp, disowned by his father, he in 1778 ran away with and in 1779 marriad Lady Carmarthen, wife of Francis, afterwards fifth Dako of of Leeds, nee Lady Amelia d'Aicy, only child and heiress of the last Eavl of Holderaess and Baroness Conyers in her own right. Captain Byron and his wife lived in Paris, where were born to them a daughter who died in infancy, and Augusta, bom 1783, the poet's half-sister, who subsequently married her cousin, Colonel Leigh. la 1784 Lady Conyers died, and Captain Byroa reluraei to England, a widower, over his head and' ears in debt, and in search cf an heiress. Ib was a rhyme in Aberdeenshire :— • When the heron leaves the tree The laivd of Gight shall landless be. Tradition has it that, at the marriage of Catharine Gordon with " mad Jack Byron," tha heronry at Gight passed over to Kelly or Haddo, the property of the Earl o? Aberdeen. " The land itself will not be long in following," said his lordship, and so it proved. For a few months Mrs Byron Gordon — for her husband assumed the name and by this title her Scottish Meads always addressed her — lived at Gight. Bun the ready money, tbe outlying lands, the rights of fishery, the timber failed to liquidate Captain Bjron's debts, and in 1786 Gigfcf itself was sold to Lord Aberdeen for £17 : S5Q. Mrs Byroa Gordon found herself at the end of 18 months ! stripped of her property and reduced to the j income derived from £4200, subject to i an annuity payable to her grandmother. She bore the reverse with a composure which shows her to have been a woman of no j ordinary courage.

The wreck of their fortunes compelled Mrs Byron Gordon and her husband to retire to France. At the beginning of 1788 she had returned to London, and on the 22nd of January, 1788, at 16 Holies street, since numbered 24, and now destroyed, in the back drawing room of the first floor, gave* birth to her only child George Gordon, afterwards sixth Lord Byron. From his birth the child suffered from what would now be described as partial infantile paralysis of the right foot and leg, especially of the inner muscles. He was boro, it may be added, with a caul, then and now treasured by sailors as a preservative agaipst drowning. In this instance, however, the charm failed. The caul was sold by the nurse to Captain James Hanson. JB,tf v W, on the 2sth of. Jfwwiv 1809*

was wrecked in H.M.SI Biazar. off Newh&ven, and with the whole of iiis crew, one man excepted, was drowned.

At the time when the child was born two lives only, besides that of his father, stood between him and tha peerage. His great-uncle William, fifth Lord Byron, (1722-98), commonly known as the ".wicked lord," waa still living, separated from his wife and shunatd by his neighbours, a xnocdy, half-crazy misanthrope. Like his younger brother the admiral, he h&d served in the Royal Navy. In 1747 he married Miss Ei;zxbeth Shaw, cf Besthorpe Hall, a Norfolk heiress, and by her had two daughters and two sons. The eldest, born in 1748, died in infancy ; the second son, William (1749-76), married his cousin Jnliana Elizabeth, ihe daughter of Admiral Byron. Their only sob, William John (1772-94), was the heir to the peerage, and his death (July 31, 1794), from a, wound received at the battle of Calvs, in Corsica, made Goorga Gordon Byron heirprssramptive to bis great-uncle, then a man of 72.

Th-3 " wicked " Lord Byron, in the middle of the eighteenth century, lived in great state in town and at Newstead, and in 1763 was Master of the Staghounds. An eager collector of curiosities, whenever any article of special rarity was offered for sale in London he ordered out his horses, drove to the metropolis, and returned' with his purchase, bought without regard to expanse. Passionate, vindictive, and headstrong, he attended as little to the cost of his revenge as to that of his pleasures. His London life closed with his fatal duel with Mr Chaworth on Saturday, January 2G, 1765. On that evening a club of Nottinghamshire gentlemen ■wera holding their monthly meeting at the Star and Garter tavern in Pall Mall. They usually dined at 4 ; at 7 o'clock the bill and a bottle were brought, and the company separated. On that particular evening a dispute had arisen between Lord Byron and Mr Chaworth whether the former, who did not preserve, or the latter, who was a strict; preserver, had most game on his manor. The discussion grew warm, and Mr Chaworth said, " Your lordship knows where fco find me in Berkeley row," or words to that effect. Nothing further passed at the time — the subject was dropped and no serious consequences seem to have been feared. The company, who had dined on the second floor, had paid the reckoning and were dispersing. On descending to the first floor Lord Bjroa came up to Mr Chaworth and referred to the conversation which had passed between them at dinner. Both seem then to have called a waiter to bring a candle and show them an empty room. He opened a door on the first floor, showed the gentlemen into a room, set down a. tallow candle which he was holding in his band, and left them. In a few seconds the affair was ended. Accordißg to Mr ChAworth's account of what passed, he saw Lord Byron's sword " half drawn, and, knowing the man, immediately, or as quick as he coaid, whipped out his sword and had the first thrust," running Lord Byron through some part of his waistcoat. Then Lord Byroc, shortening his sword, ran his antagonist through the body. The bell was rung ; the landlord entered the room to find Lord Byron ' eupporting Mr Chaworth. Mr Hawkins, XbA irorseoi^ WM jmms«iat§ly

&acisjo::«d ; but the wouod prov«*<i moital az:d Loid Byr?r« was tried fur murder on April 16, 1765, ia Westminster Hall. The peers almost unanimously dismissed the charge of murder, and found him guilty of manslaughter only*

The fatal termination of tbe duel, and its circumstances — the absence of seconds, the dark room dimly lighted by one miserable tallow canale-- attracted so much attention fco the case that tickets for the trial were, it is said, sold for siz guineas apiece. There seems, however, nothing which, judged by the cede of the day, could reflect any special blame on Lord Byron, or discredit him in the couoty. Thenceforward he absented himself from London.

ACter the birth of; her son Mrs Byroa Gordon settled at Aberdeen. There for a time she was joined by her husband, though they soon found it necessary to live at opposite ends of Qcieen street. Captain Byron's daughter, Augusta, had been placed under tha care of her grandmother, Lady Holderness; his wife could give him no more money ; she had run into debt to supply him with £300, and on her remaining income she could barely maintain herself and her son. He was free from incumbrances, and had drained' the milch cow dry. Returning in 1790 to France, he died in the summer of the following year at Valenciennes, In bis will, dictated by him from his sick bed to two notaries of that city, on June 21, 1791, he is described as, "John Byron, a native 1 of London, and ordinarily resident there." He makes no mention, it will be observed, either of his wife or of his daughter. The operative part, as translated from the French into the English of Doctors' Commons, August 17, 1791, runs as follows : —

I give and bequeath fco Mrs Leigh, my sisfcer, the sum of £400 sterling, to be p&id out of tha effects of my deceased father and mother. I appoint my sod, Mr George Byron, heir of my real and psrsonal estate, and charge him to pay my debts, legacies, and funeral expenses. I appoint the said Mrs Le'gh, my sister, executrix of this my will.

The death of Captain Byrpn was passionately lamented by his wife, who, in spite of his vices, adored her handsome scamp of a husband. Already an orphan and almost beggared, she wasnow a widow of six-and-twenty, with an income of £122 a year, out of which to lodge, olothe, and feed her son and herself, and to provide for his education. — Nineteenth Century.