In Search of a Dead Poet's Society…
George Colman the Younger as the theatrical manager at Drury Lane considered Lord Byron a friend and as they got drunk together on more than one occasion. As he had an intuitive understanding of the complexities of the Byron marriage and the subsequent separation - perhaps his poem finally offers us a tantalising hint of what happened all those years ago?
By April 1816, Lady Byron's desire to be 'securely separated' from her spouse was reaching an increasingly bitter, fraught and heart breaking conclusion...
In January 1816 having left her spouse Annabella returned to the protection of her parents who duly offered their support in her resolution for a legal separation. However, Byron was never to learn the reason for her refusal to return to him and despite his letters asking her to state the reasons for leaving him - she NEVER did...
By autumn 1815 and as the bailiff beckoned along with the sale of his precious library and several threatened executions - Byron in his worry and torment behaved as many have done before… Yes, he got drunk AND frequently!
Although the Byron marriage lasted some mere 54 weeks - the poet's estranged spouse would spend the following 44 years ensuring that the story of her marriage was shared by friend and foe alike. AND it remains a story which continues to be told today...
Yes, February is the month for a profusion of chocolates, expensive red roses and some very dubious Valentine's cards but oh, what a month of anticipation as Cupid's Arrow flies forth!
However, sadly not for the poet Lord Byron as February 1816 would be the month that his wife would unceremoniously ditch him!
The Fifth Baron Byron was NOT the grandfather of our poet as purported by Alexander Larman in his sloppily researched tome Byron's Women which was published to enormous fanfare in 2016 but rather THE great-uncle and it was upon his demise that Byron became a Lord and inherited land and titles which included the glorious ancestral abode of Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire.
William Byron had inherited his title of the 'Wicked Lord' for a life that had included the illegal selling of family estates and ruining what little was left in revenge against his only son and heir William who having decided on his own love match and in true Byron style promptly married his cousin!
