Byron’s Corbeau Blanc, edited by Jonathan Gross,
is a fascinating volume which provides us for the first time with
the full transcripts of the letters of Elizabeth, Lady Melbourne,
one of the most powerful and influential characters of the Regency
period. As the wife of Lord Melbourne, mistress of the Prince
Regent, mother-in-law of the wild and unpredictable Caroline Lamb,
and close confidante of Lord Byron, Lady Melbourne lived at the
centre of political and cultural power in Regency England. If
her relationship with the Regent was politely ignored, her influence
with him was widely acknowledged. These letters show to what extent
her political and social power was respected in Society and also
reveal her remarkable talent for manipulating those around her.
Byron’s famous letters to Lady Melbourne and Caroline Lamb’s infamous
portrayal of her in Glenarvon have left for posterity
a woman who is shown both as mother confessor and wicked gothic
villainess. Gross’s book gives us the opportunity to hear Lady
Melbourne’s own voice and to understand her importance in the
lives of both these writers.
One of the major revelations of this book is the extent to which
the breakdown of Byron’s relationship with Caroline Lamb was encouraged
by Lady Melbourne’s interference, and also how his ill-fated marriage
to Annabella Milbanke was cleverly and determinedly engineered
by her. Gross includes a letter written by Annabella Milbanke,
after her separation from Byron in which she confesses that in
reading Les Liaisons Dangereuse she became reminded
of her scheming aunt. Whilst this volume reveals the full extent
of Lady Melbourne’s Machiavellian manipulation and control of
those around her, it also reveals a explanation of this beyond
mere malice, which seems to be a consuming desire to be mentally
active. Her letters to her husband’s staff reveal her strong involvement
with the agriculture and administration of the Melbourne estates
and her knowledge of and concern for their tenants. The Regency
lady of leisure need not have concerned herself with any of these
matters, but Lady Melbourne seemed to take as much interest in
the variety of cow-powders used on the estates as she did in the
machinations of government or the relationships of those around
her.
This book gives us not only a portrait of a unique and powerful
woman but a valuable insight into the political, social and cultural
life of the Regency period. Lady Melbourne’s letters together
with Gross’s meticulous scholarship bring to life a society which,
whilst it was highly decadent, was dependent on the rules and
strictures of propriety in order to survive. Lady Melbourne is
revealed in this book as very much a creature of her time. Her
hatred for Caroline Lamb, for example, stemmed not from Caroline’s
adultery but from her inability to maintain discretion and ‘play
the game’. In the one surviving letter that Lady Melbourne wrote
to Lady Caroline, her bile and hatred towards her daughter-in-law
is palpable. Her friendship with Byron was the perfect revenge.
Byron’s letters to Lady Melbourne are renowned as the most intense,
confessional and revealing of his surviving correspondence. To
read the other half of the letters is fascinating as Lady Melbourne,
cool, persuasive and dispassionate, exerts a quasi maternal and
at the same time almost sexual influence over the young poet.
Lady Melbourne’s letters reveal almost as much about Byron as
do his own and this volume will prove invaluable for Byron scholars,
or for anyone interested in or involved with the study of the
Romantic period.
Lady Melbourne’s letters are elliptical, sometimes fragmentary
and often elusive. Although at times, and to particular people,
she was a dedicated correspondent, she seemed to go through long
periods of writing nothing at all. As a letter writer she was
entirely in control of her art, never confessional, never scurrilous
and, with a strong awareness of the letter’s power as ‘proof’,
never indiscreet. Her letters to the Duchess of Devonshire are
full of suggested scandal and gossip but this is couched in the
most respectable of terms and, frustratingly, specific events
and people are rarely referred to. This is a highly confidential
and personal mode of correspondence which relies on the recipient’s
prior knowledge and understanding. Luckily we have Gross’s thorough
and elucidatory footnotes to fill in the gaps.
Jonathan Gross’s accompanying short biography and chapter summaries
provide vital background information for the often frustratingly
elusive and secretive letters. These are accompanied by genealogy
trees of the Melbournes and the Milbankes which go some way towards
helping the reader to disentangle the interconnected worlds of
the Regency aristocracy. What these diagrams unfortunately lack
is an account of the numerous illegitimate offspring produced
by Lady Melbourne and many other men and women within the circles
in which she moved. She herself was the mother of several of the
Prince Regent’s ‘by-blows’, including a son who was named George
in full acknowledgement of his paternity, and her son William
was fathered by Lord Egremont. Only her firstborn, Peniston Lamb,
was the legitimate son of Lord Melbourne in accordance with the
strict unwritten rule amongst women of Lady Melbourne’s standing
that one should not cuckold one’s husband until a legitimate male
heir had been provided. Gross also provides us with a comprehensive
set of illustrations including portraits, photographs of manuscripts
and contemporary newspaper satires. His thorough scholarly approach
and desire to contextualise his subject pay off as he manages
to create a living and accessible history which will prove invaluable
to our knowledge and understanding of the Regency.
Reviewed by Polly Rance
