Marriage
When Lord Byron proposed a second time to Miss Milbanke in September 1814, she accepted. The couple were married privately, and by special licence, at Seaham Hall in County Durham on January 2, 1815 (the officiating clergyman was her illegitimate cousin, the Rev. Thomas Noel of Kirkby Mallory, natural son of her uncle, Viscount Wentworth.) The couple lived at Picadilly Terrace in London.
Byron was then in extreme financial distress. He rejected payments offered for his written works, as he believed the sums were insufficient. He was having difficulty selling his estates at Newstead Abbey and Rochdale to clear his debt. During the summer of 1815, he began to unleash his anger and hostility on his wife. His moods were dark and he began to drink heavily. In a letter to his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, he stated his suspicions that his wife had broken the lock on his desk and searched it. Later in the year he began an affair with Susan Boyce, a London chorus girl.
Lady Byron became increasingly upset. In the late stages of pregnancy, she feared Byron might be going mad. In November 1815, she wrote to Leigh and told her of Byron's moods and behavior. In answer to her sister-in-law's letter, Leigh traveled to the Byrons' home to assist. Upon her arrival, she became the subject of Byron's wrath and believed him to be temporarily insane. On December 10, Lady Byron gave birth to the couple's only child, a daughter whom they named Ada. Byron's despair seemed to increase.
Read more about this topic: Anne Isabella Byron, Baroness Byron
Famous quotes containing the word marriage:
“A woman asking “Am I good? Am I satisfied?” is extremely selfish. The less women fuss about themselves, the less they talk to other women, the more they try to please their husbands, the happier the marriage is going to be.”
—Barbara Cartland (b. 1901)
“Thrift, thrift, Horatio, the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Always the same old story—
Father Time and Mother Earth,
A marriage on the rocks.”
—James Merrill (b. 1926)