But what about
Lady Byron, who, after less than a year of marriage to this most mercurial of
poets, discovered that she could just take no more? Markus begins her chapter
about the end with this: Reader, prepare
for a train wreck.[1]
Byron was
definitely attracted to Annabella—but then there was his half-sister, Augusta
Leigh. These two did not have a good history of staying away from each other,
and when they were together, well, stuff happened. Annabella—“no fool,” as
Markus puts it[2]—threatened
to break off with Byron. Who promptly fainted.
But the engagement
proceeded, and the wedding took place on January 2, 1815, and Byron took no
slow route to the consummation: It occurred on his couch as soon as they
arrived at his place after the ceremony.
Although she loved
Byron, Annabella had a hard time adjusting to his mercurial personality—his
“terribly black moods,”[3] his blasphemy, his excessive
drinking, and eventually (of course) his wandering eye. Which was not the only
organ that was wandering.
Still, they were
together enough that she became pregnant, and her child, Ada, arrived on
December 10, 1815. And just a month later—on January 14, 1816—Annabella left
him. And that was pretty much the end of their association. As I mentioned
earlier, he soon left England altogether, and he did not return until 1824, at
which time he was in his coffin.
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