Lady Caroline Lamb was beautiful and so was envied in her early society career. But she soon went from belle of the town to total outcast thanks to one of the most disastrous affairs in history.
It’s certainly perfect for a Netflix series, so read on for more of this fascinating figure.
A brush with death
Caroline was the only daughter of the Earl and Countess of Bessborough. But it wasn’t exactly a charmed childhood, as it was a nightmare from the very start.
Caroline had a frail disposition. She almost lost her life from an illness involving worms.
The said ordeal had quite a chilling effect on the young Lamb.
A scandalous habit
As she was growing up, the young Caroline spent her days running around with her well-heeled cousins, but her innocence soon gave way to curiosity.
She may have gotten tired of the painful realities of her ailing life, so Caroline started taking downers like opiate laudanum, a drug famous at the time.
Her parents were shocked, hiring a special governess to keep an eye on their daughter.
That may have pushed Caroline on to the next phase of her life.
Her beauty was famous
In her teenage years, Caroline was a beautiful young woman.
Her family’s connections and that million-dollar face had everyone knowing she would land a good marriage.
If Caroline could keep her behavior intact.
In 1805, destiny came to her door.
A bizarre wedding
Before turning 20, Caroline married the Honorable William Lamb, a noble with good political ambitions.
They had a mutual crush on each other but it was no fairy tale.
William’s mother Elizabeth, agreed to the wedding as it was advantageous for him, but she despised both Caroline and her mother.
Caroline’s new monster-in-law would use the young girl for her own ends.
Caroline’s unimaginable tragedy
William and Caroline’s marriage was promising, but it turned out to be completely devastating.
Caroline got pregnant after the wedding, but the child was stillborn.
She was barely 20 but already mourning the loss of her child.
Lady Lamb’s life was about to get worse.
Her body betrayed her
William and Caroline adored each so they kept trying to have another child. Unfortunately, Caroline wasn’t well-suited to pregnancy and labor.
Her young body needed much longer to recover between bouts.
By the time she gave birth to a son named George in 1807, and a premature girl in 1809, her body was already ravaged.
That’s when things began to fall apart.
Young George had mental difficulties
Caroline’s son was lucky to survive past infancy, but it became clear that George was mentally handicapped.
She was used to the bustle of family life around her, so Caroline had to go against the grain of the time, which meant George would be sent to a sanitorium.
But Caroline continued to care for her son at home.
It was a choice with painful consequences.
Her marriage fell apart
Caroline was still young, but she now carried the burdens of someone twice her age.
George’s poor health, her body’s struggles recovering from pregnancy, plus her husband’s rising political career, Caroline soon felt alienated from her marriage.
This was around the time her in-laws dug the knife in even further.
Caroline’s in-laws were cruel
Years of marriage to William hadn’t endeared Caroline’s mother-in-law Elizabeth to her one bit.
Things got worse between them.
Following their mother, not one of William’s siblings liked Caroline. They sneeringly dubbed her the “little beast”.
Things were going downhill fast but no one knew what a catastrophe it would all turn out to be.
Caroline met an infamous rake
By 1812, Caroline was 26 and tired of her marriage. She was also frustrated with her life.
The young lady was primed to start a scandal, and that’s exactly what she ended up doing.
It was in the spring when she met the dashing and infamous poet Lord Byron for the first time.
Byron was famous for seducing women left, right, and center, but when he fixed his eyes on Caroline, nothing in English society was the same again.
She would send fan mail
Byron was soon smitten with Caroline, though she feigned indifference by ignoring his advances at first.
That was the time when Caroline claimed she called Byron “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” a dubious epithet that has stuck to this day.
Showing her change of heart, Caroline wrote Byron a letter gushing about his writing, which resulted in Byron’s response.
Seduced by a poet
Lord Byron never took to the sidelines when there was a woman he wanted. Instead of writing a polite “thank you” letter back, he went to visit Caroline in person.
He unleashed his arsenal of seduction, and soon, the vulnerable, emotion-starved Caroline gave in.
Within days, the affair was in motion and red flags were all over the place.
Playing mind games
Bryon and Lady Caroline played games with each other from the start.
Everyone knew what was going on between the two, but they still criticized each other in public.
They would carry on their affair and sneak off whenever they could to have “private” time.
Byron gave Caroline a pet name
Lord Byron and Caroline Lamb were really into each other.
Byron called her “Caro,” a pet name she insisted everyone call her as well.
The dashing poet also dubbed her, “the cleverest most agreeable, absurd, amiable, perplexing, dangerous fascinating little being that lives now or ought to have lived 2000 years ago”.
They were, by modern standards, an annoying couple.
Carlone was nearly a bigamist
Within weeks of meeting, Byron and Caroline were headed down an ill-advised path.
She even snuck into Byron’s rooms, begging him to elope with her.
Byron was equally obsessed, and he almost agreed.
It was a cool headed friend who reminded him that Caroline was married, and that stopped the poet from going through with it.
Caroline’s mother-in-law plotted against her
In a perverse twist of fate, Byron was good friends with Elizabeth Lamb, Caroline’s mother-in-law.
If the matriarch didn’t already know about the affair through rumors, she certainly found out through the horse’s mouth.
So unsurprisingly, Elizabeth loathed the affair, soon plotting Caroline’s demise in her head.
William stood by her
Elizabeth soon campaigned against Caroline to anyone who would listen, especially to her son William, but that backfired.
The marriage was strained, but Caroline’s husband refused to drop his wife entirely.
Undeterred, Elizabeth kept on with her ulterior motives.
Caroline flaunted the affair
Elizabeth hated how Caroline was cheating on her son, but the bigger problem was that Caroline was so flagrant about it all.
After all, Elizabeth did have several affairs of her own back in the day, but she was consummately discreet with the men she took to bed.
But Elizabeth had a point.
Caroline’s lack of moderation made it all disastrous.
Then Byron dumped Caroline
Byron and Caroline burned through each other and soon, they ran out of tinder.
He got tired of her quickly so by August of 1812, after just half a year together, Byron broke things off.
Caroline’s world spun off its axis, and she grasped around for anything to find answers.
Caroline’s lover had a secret
As Caroline enjoyed her passions with Byron, her illicit lover had his own secrets.
He was having fun with her, but the poet was deeply in debt. Byron was in search of a rich woman to marry and settle down with.
And that wasn’t Caroline.
Caroline turned into a social pariah
She was heartbroken, but what’s worse was that Caroline was now also damaged goods in the eyes of society.
All this while Byron’s reputation suffered almost no damage at all.
Nobles turned their noses at her, so William packed her off to Ireland to let her recuperate in peace and quiet.
She just couldn’t let go of Byron
Caroline, a lovesick ex-girlfriend, made a fatal error in breakup protocol. She began corresponding with Lord Byron again even when she was in Ireland.
For reasons only playful men know, Byron responded with a flurry of messages, getting Caroline’s hopes up for a reconciliation.
But she only ended up in tears, and even blood.
A rude awakening
Caroline spent months away from Byron, but she returned to London in 1813, still fixated on him.
She was skin and bones from the stress of her heartbreak, but she sought out her lover in person.
Byron’s reply stunned and shamed her.
He finally let her know that they were through, then proceeded to rub salt in the wound.
Caroline was replaced
Caroline found out that while she had been pining for Byron, the poet had been busy with Jane Harley, the Countess of Oxford.
She was an experienced seductress who was 14 years older than him.
But Caroline didn’t get the message so the situation deteriorated quickly.
Byron insulted her
Caroline was back in Byron’s world, but the breakup went from messy to monstrous.
He began insulting her both in public and in private.
A malicious exchange had the poet commenting to his buddy Elizabeth Lamb that he was “haunted by a skeleton”, a reference to Caroline’s weight loss while she was gone.
Upon hearing the insults, she picked up a nearby glass and attempted to cut her own wrists. Though many assumed she did it to get attention moreso than a desire to hurt herself, it didn’t help the situation.
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