Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/136

  

BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, sixth lord (1788–1824), poet, descended from [q. v.], who was succeeded by his brother Richard (1605–1679). Richard's 8on, William (d. 1695), became third lord, and wrote some bad verses. By his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Viscount Chaworth, he was father of William, fourth lord (1669–1736), gentleman of the bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark. The fourth lord was father, by his wife, Frances, daughter of Lord Berkeley of Stratton, of William, fifth lord,, afterwards Admiral Byron [q. v.], and Isabella, wife of the fourth and mother of the fifth earl of Carlisle. The fifth lord (1722–1798) quarrelled with his cousin Mr. Chaworth (great grandson of Viscount Chaworth) at a club dinner of Nottinghamshire gentlemen, 26 Jan. 1766, and killed him after a confused scuffle in a room to which they had retired by themselves after dinner. Byron was convicted of manslaughter before the House of Lords, 16 April 1765 (State Trials, ix. 1175), and, though exempted from punishment by his privilege as a peer, became a marked man. He lived in seclusion at Newstead Abbey, ill-treated his wife, was known as the 'wicked lord,' encumbered his estates, and made a sale of his property at Rochdale, the disputed legality of which led to a prolonged lawsuit. His children and his only grandson (son of his son by the daughter of his brother, the admiral) died before him. Admiral Byron had two sons, John and George Anson (ancestor of the present peer), and three daughters, one of whom became wife of her cousin, son of the fifth lord; another of Admiral Parker; the third of Colonel Leigh, by whom she was mother of another Colonel Leigh, who married his cousin, Augusta, daughter of John Byron, the admiral's eldest son. This John Byron (born 1756) was educated at Westminster, entered the guards, was known as 'mad Jack,' and was a handsome profligate. He seduced the Marchioness of Carmarthen, who became Baroness Conyers on the death of her father, fourth earl of Holderness. He married her (June 1779) after her divorce, and had by her in 1782 a daughter, Augusta, married to Colonel Leigh in 1807, Lady Conyers's death in France, 26 Jan. 1784, deprived her husband of an income of 4,000l. a year. He soon afterwards met at Bath a Miss Catherine Gordon of Gicht, with a fortune of 23,000l., doubled by rumour. The pair were married at St. Michael's Church, Bath, 13 May 1765 (parish register). John Byron took his second wife to France, squandered most of her property, and returned to England, where their only child, George Gordon, was born in Holles Street, London, 22 Jan. 1788. John Hunter saw the boy when he was born, and prescribed for the infant's feet (Mrs. Byron's letters in Add. MS. 31037). A malformation was caused, as Byron afterwards said, by his mother's 'false delicacy,' Trelawny (Records, ii. 132) says that the tendo Achillis of each foot was so contracted that he could only walk on the balls of the toes, the right foot being most distorted and bent inwards. Injudicious treatment increased the mischief, and through life the poet could only hobble a few paces on foot, though he could at times succeed in concealing his infirmity.

John Byron's creditors became pressing. The daughter, Augusta, was sent to her grandmother, the Dowager Countess Holderness. Mrs. Byron retired to Aberdeen, and her fortune. She took lodgings in Queen Street, Aberdeen, and was followed by her husband, who occupied separate lodgings and sometimes petted the child, who professed in later years to remember him perfectly (, p. 58). With money got from his wife or his sister, Mrs. Leigh, he escaped to France in January 1791, and died at Valenciennes, 2 Aug. 1791, possibly by his own hand (, i. 48, p. 33; Letter No. 460 in Life of Byron implicitly denies suicide). Mrs. Byron's income, reduced to 135l. by debts for furniture and by helping her husband, was raised to 190l. on the death of her grandmother, and she lived within her means. Capricious and passionate by nature, she treated her child with alternate excesses of violence and tenderness. Scott (, ch. xxiv.) says that in 1784 ahs was seized with an hysterical fit during Mrs. Siddons's performance in Southern's 'Fatal Marriage,' and carried out screaming, 'Oh, my Biron, my Biron' (the name of a character in the play). She was short and fat, and would chase her mocking child round the room in impotent fury. To the frank remark of a