History
"Try everything once," said Sir Thomas Beecham, "Except
incest and folk dancing" It is not known whether Byron ever tried
folk dancing.
When Byron and Augusta met in 1813 in London, the attraction was strong
and mutual. The graceful couple quickly became steady companions and shared
a busy social life. To an outsider, the situation might have seemed to
contain all the elements of a perfect romance. Never mind that she was
twenty-nine and five years older than he. Never mind that she was married,
or that she had three children. The problem was that they were brother
and sister.
Augusta's mother died shortly after she was born, and Augusta was brought
up in the care of her maternal grandmother, Lady Holderness. In 1785 her
father remarried, and her half brother George Gordon Byron, born on 22
January 1788, was the son of that second marriage. 'Mad Jack', as their
father was known, died when Byron was three.
Brother and sister grew apart and shared none of the ordinary experiences
of siblings. They had met earlier, but his mother discouraged contact
with Augusta. They had corresponded, but exchanges became infrequent from
1807 when she married her cousin, Colonel George Leigh, and ceased in
1809 when he left on his grand tour - his 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'.
Back in England after his two-year sojourn, communication between Augusta
and Byron resumed with her letter of sympathy on the death of his mother.
He was a sensational overnight success with the publication of the first
cantos of Childe Harold and became the lion of London society. Augusta
was full of curiosity about her 'baby Byron'. They arranged to meet.
Hers was not a happy marriage. Her wandering and worthless husband was
a selfish egotist, a spendthrift and a gambler, who was always in financial
difficulty. Appointed equerry, Colonel Leigh managed race horses at Newmarket
for the Prince of Wales, who gave him the conveniently located house in
the hamlet of Six Mile Bottom. He was usually busy at the races and away
from home. Left alone with her three small children, Augusta felt neglected
and bored. On a visit to a friend in London, she and Byron met and found
they shared not only the same father but a deep affection, which was to
grow into a permanent and passionate love.
They spent most of the summer of 1813 together, and Byron made several
visits to her Cambridgeshire home. He followed her to Six Mile Bottom
within a few days of her departure from London. After his second visit,
he persuaded her to come back to London. That summer they decided to remain
together always and planned to flee to the Continent. Lady Melbourne,
his confidante, who was privy to the escape plan, helped to dissuade him,
saying that it was a 'crime for which there was no salvation in this world,
whatever there might be in the next.'
Byron's regular visits to Six Mile Bottom continued. He often wrote outside
in the summer garden under a huge tree which came to be known as 'Byron's
tree' but, alas, not destined for the kind of immortality allotted to
Milton's mulberry in Cambridge. Byron's beech was felled some thirty years
ago and only the rise in the ground from the huge roots remain. He worked
here on The Corsair, a tale of incestuous love, with Medora, a name later
chosen for Augusta's fourth child, as one of the characters. The hero,
a 'man of loneliness and mystery,' was identified by many as the author:
He left a Corsair's name to other times, Linked with one virtue, and
a thousand crimes.
Their love continued unabated, and in January of the following year,
Byron took Augusta to his ancestral Newstead Abbey home, near Nottingham,
just as any loving husband might give a pregnant wife a holiday break.
There they were alone and extremely happy - and snowbound for ten days.
They carved their names on a tree. There is no doubt they adored each
other. The blissful holiday over, she returned to Six Mile Bottom; he,
to London. He visited her again in March, then returned the following
April when Elizabeth Medora Leigh was born. The Colonel was away in Yorkshire,
but Byron came to Six Mile Bottom to be with her. They both agreed he
should take the expedient step of securing a wife. Marriage would deflect
gossip. After proposing to Annabella Milbanke, he was again at Six Mile
Bottom. His impending marriage seemed doomed before it took place. He
hesitated about going to see Miss Milbanke, and he hesitated about marriage.
But the wedding finally took place on 2 January 1815. That date enabled
him to spend the preceding Christmas with Augusta.
The honeymoon was dreadful and the aftermath was worse. The newlyweds
were Augusta's guests at Six Mile Bottom for some two weeks in March.
His behaviour towards his wife was cruel from the beginning. He humiliated
the young bride by sending her to bed early, indicating that he preferred
his sister's company. He hinted strongly at his incestuous affair. He
once pointed to Medora and announced that she was his own child.
Augusta returned the visit to the Byrons in April and stayed at their
fashionable London address, which was filled with domestic strife. Annabella
left him after their child Augusta Ada was born in December. She tried
to have her husband certified insane. Augusta was dragged into the scandalous
proceedings, which ended in a deed of separation in April 1816. On the
23rd of that month, he left England, having said good-bye to Augusta a
week earlier. Abroad, 'the wandering outlaw of his own dark mind' turned
to his poetry. Augusta continued to occupy his thoughts, and his poems
include the Epistle to Augusta:
My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine;
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine
Go where I will, to me thou art the same
A loved regret which I would not resign,
There yet are two things in my destiny,
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.
But he was destined never to see his beloved Augusta - or England - again.
He travelled to Switzerland and Italy where he produced among other works,
the third and fourth cantos of Childe Harold, Don Juan, Beppo, Manfred
and Mazeppa. He set out in 1823 to join the Greek insurgents in their
fight for freedom and died of fever in Missolonghi, Greece, on 19 April
1824.
Byron's biography contains many unsolved problems. While it may never
be known with absolute certainty that Byron slept with Augusta, it is
certainly known that he slept in Augusta's home in Six Mile Bottom.
The Byron spirit still lives in that house, formerly known as The Lodge.
Renamed and remodelled, it is now a country-house hotel called Swynford
Paddocks. It sits at the end of a long drive amidst large trees in pleasant
grounds. With gabled roof and prominent chimneys, and with attractive
greenery which partly covers the white exterior, it still gives the impression
of a large private house.
The approach to Swynford Paddocks from London, fifty-eight miles to the
south, passes through the hamlet with the suggestive name of Six Mile
Bottom. Actually, the name derives from the fact that it stands in a hollow
six miles from Newmarket.
This area of England, famous for horses and horse-racing since the time
of Charles II who loved the sport, offers a variety of activities. If
walking around the stud results in boredom there is the possibility of
visiting the Newmarket racecourse. There is always the lovely countryside
to be enjoyed by taking drives, as did Augusta, across the Devil's Dyke
to the town of Newmarket or over the Gog Magog Hills with their prehistoric
Iron Age hill-fort of Wandlebury Ring. Cambridge is just nine miles away,
and stately homes such as Anglesey Abbey are open to the public. But one
can just as easily stay indoors and imbibe the Byron atmosphere of Swynford
Paddocks.
Tastefully decorated throughout, the fifteen bedrooms are extremely comfortable.
The management displays great awareness of the scandalous scenes played
out in its premises nearly two centuries ago. Huge dominating portraits
of Byron, Augusta and Medora hang on the staircase wall. Among the books
in the bedroom is a biography of Medora Leigh, Byron's Daughter; the guest
may chose between sin or sanctity, biography or bible for bedtime reading.
Swynford Paddocks dispels dark and gloomy accusations of dreaded incest
in its bright, cheerful and elegant atmosphere. Those able to create their
own canto for a private pilgrimage are in for a treat. Byron travelled
in style. It is fitting that those who follow his travels can do so stylishly
at Swynford Paddocks.
A slightly adapted extract from the book "Literary Lodgings"
by Elaine Borish.
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