Lady Caroline Lamb

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Image:Carolinelamb.jpg The Lady Caroline Lamb (13 November 1785–26 January 1828) was a British aristocrat, the only daughter of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough.

Her social credentials also included being niece of the Duchess of Devonshire, and cousin (by marriage) of Lady Byron.

She was born Caroline Ponsonby, and grew up as a tomboy, and it was thought that she was quite unable to read or write until her late adolescence due to her lack of a formal education. This was not uncommon for women of her time, despite her quite exalted position in society. However, she was well educated and attended a school in Hans Place, London, as well as being taught at home. Her considerable natural wit revealed itself in her early adult years, and she not only wrote prose and poetry, but also took to sketch portraiture. These courtly skills stood her in good stead. She spoke French and Italian fluently, was skilled at Greek and Latin, and also enjoyed music and drama.

In June, 1805, at the age of nineteen, and by now Lady Caroline Ponsonby, she married William Lamb, an up-and-coming young politician, and heir to the Viscountcy of Melbourne. Her union with Lamb produced an autistic son,Template:Fact and another child who died young. The loss of two children and the health problems of the surviving boy teamed with Lamb's consuming career ambitions to drive a wedge between the couple. There is some evidence (in an 1810 letter from Lady Caroline to Lady Melbourne) that Lamb was sexually promiscuous, and that he demanded the type of intemperate sexual shenanigans from his wife that would not be expected of a lady. The Lamb family also sought the separation of William and Caroline.

In 1812, Lady Caroline embarked on her well-publicised affair with Lord Byron (the main theme of the film Lady Caroline Lamb). She had attracted the attention of the poet through her accomplished wit and vivacity, and he in turn obsessed over her, actively trying to destroy her marriage to Lamb so that he might have her to himself. She was 27 to his 24, a mother, quick witted and able to hold her own in the cut-and-thrust world of a politician's wife, but none of this served her well; she fell for his ploys, and became ensnared in his obsession for her. Byron's concept of romance was to possess fully the object of one's desire, right up until the moment that one became bored. Lady Caroline was heartbroken by her treatment and abandonment by Byron. It was she who described the poet as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" (on the other hand, in an early love letter Byron had chided her for her "total want of common conduct").

After her liaison with Byron, Lady Caroline enjoyed some success as a novelist. Her first novel, Glenarvon, was published anonymously in 1816, and included a thinly-disguised pen-picture of her former lover. She published two further books and two narrative poems, mostly anonymously, during the following decade. In 1824, she accidentally came across Byron's funeral cortège on its way to his burial place, and this incident drove her to a nervous breakdown, and rumoured insanity.

External links

• SJSU.edu - 'CARO: The Lady Caroline Lamb Website: “Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know”?'