Sophie!

The Cast of His Harrow Schooldays (1801-5)

Pretty much every one of his school friends at Harrow Boys School. No I kid, but truly it seemed that his passions for same-sex relations were stoked to life through intimate friendships with his school fellows, many of whom became his 'favourites', to which he would dedicate his special attention for spells of time.

As I have said before, he (and his cohorts) had an affection for the Greek classics, and especially the "Greek" custom of love, which to B at this time revolved around the personification of the Ganymedian, "lightly-bounding boy". There are many, many examples of this in his school days, when he himself would have been only 13-16. The romantic and sexual nature of these fads was exacerbated by the custom of bed sharing at Harrow, and the culture of 'fagging' (older boys making squires of younger boys, sometimes sexually), of which Byron had been both a victim and perpetrator of during his academic career. One boy, John Tatersall, left Harrow before Byron, and in a grief-riddled farewell letter Byron asked him "who will you have to comfort you […], and to undress you when you go to bed… who to go bathe with you… in short, who to do everything with you?"

Another of the most familiar names in the early days of boy-love was Byron's friendship with John Fitzgibbon, the 2nd Earl of Clare. Of him, Byron said "I never hear the word 'Clare' without a beating of the heart". He would coincidentally run into Lord Clare in Italy, a decade or so later, and be intensely moved by the fleeting reunion.

Henry Edward Yelverton, Lord Grey de Ruthyn

Lord Grey was the handsome, rakish renting tenant in Byron's ancestral pile, Newstead Abbey, while Byron was not yet of age to be living there himself. Grey occupied the Abbey for five years, and for an intense burst of that time, Byron spent a matter of weeks staying with him (he was then 15-16 to Grey's 23-24), even delaying his return to Harrow boarding school for the Autumn term in order to continue his friendship with Grey. They would ride together, swim and sail together, and go on midnight hunts (because the middle of the night is a perfect time to use a gun), and Grey insisted Byron spend as much time at Newstead as he liked - until an abrupt severing of their friendship.

Byron withdrew to Harrow and wrote to his half-sister Augusta Leigh: "I am not reconciled to Lord Grey, and I never will. He was once my Greatest Friend, my reasons for ceasing that friendship are such as I cannot explain, not even to you my Dear Sister." He also stated "I have a particular reason for not liking him". Later, his closest friend John Cam Hobhouse ('Hobby, Hobby-O' to B), said of the intimacy: "a circumstance occurred […] which certainly had much effect on his future morals".

This to many Byron scholars is interpreted as either a rejected romantic overture by Lord Grey, or (more likely, in my opinion), a sexual experiment that Byron recoiled from in self-dismay after the fact. I find this particular event fascinating - was this the relationship that brought the reality of Byron's sexual preferences to the fore outside of simple boyhood closeness? Was he taken advantage of, or put in a position (not to put too fine a point on it) that he misliked?

Tidbit: Byron's mother wanted him to make friends with Grey again because she fancied him. Jesus.

John Edelston, The Cornelian Boy

I have covered Edelston briefly in my previous post - he was Byron's 'Cornelian', a choral student two years Byron's junior at Cambridge whose relationship with him developed so intensely they discussed living together after their studies concluded (an idea that may well have resulted in Byron pulling back: it would not have been feasible in the moral climate at the time, at all). After their separation (Edelston's voice broke, making him untenable in his position of soprano choir boy- and perhaps Byron was aware of Edelston's expectations of the development of their relationship), Byron went on tour to the Mediterranean for two years. On his return, he received a letter from John's sister with the news that her brother had died from TB. Devatastated, Byron immortalised him as his "Thyrza", a female epitaph in the mourning poem, 'To Thyrza', and several others. They are heartbreakingly intimate, and were intrinsic in cementing Byron's reputation as a truly great poet. The fact they were published at all, censoring of genders notwithstanding, to me speaks of how keenly Byron desired his love for John to be immortalised, even through obfuscation.

His love for John, and his long-endured grief, was the most acute of any of his affairs. Edelston's death seemed to cement him in Byron's mind as the undiscovered potential - someone who had loved him without any expectation of earning something in return, and who loved Byron entirely as himself. He shares a heart-wrenching recollection of Edelston giving him a small gold ring with a carnelian heart set into it, delicate and tiny. At gifting it to Byron, he burst into embarrassed tears, mortified at the idea Byron might not return his feelings, or would think the gift paltry. Such a naked display of emotion moved Byron to tears himself, and the two boys embraced one another for a long time and cried. Byron did not remove the ring for the rest of his life, and still wore it when he died (yes I have mentioned this before, and no I'm still not over it).

It is my belief, from my reading, that Byron perhaps thought he might return to Edelston once they were both established and grown, though evidence suggests that Byron's friends (Hobhouse in particular) warned him off making any association known, as homosexual men were being targeted for pillorying and lynching.

[As an interesting aside, this poem was one that Mary and Percy Shelley quoted affectionately to one another as a symbol of their love - unknowing of the gender of Byron's lost inamorato - possibly always.]

Robert Rushton, Eustanthius Georgiou, and Nicolo Giraud

Also covered briefly in the first post, Robert Rushton was a young page boy taken into Byron's service just before his departure on his Grand Tour across the Mediterranean. He would have been 14 to Byron's 19 at the time of his trip. Byron boasted to his intimate friends of 'initiating' Rushton - the 'initatiated' being a code word amongst him and his friends that covertly referred to homosexuality. He also infected him with the cowpox apparently? Though this sounds fake as hell because Byron was not a cow nor, to my knowledge, a farmer. Wouldn't be surprised if he gave him something else, though.

When Byron moved on from Greece to Turkey, he sent Rushton home as "young boys [were] not safe" from the sexual advances of men there (or in Byron's tent, but apparently that doesn't count). Rushton reportedly was extremely devoted to Byron and was miserable to be separated from him, returning to Newstead to serve Byron's mother in his absence.

Interestingly, there is also a tidbit suggesting after Byron's return that he began having an affair with a maid at Newstead (if you could call it an affair, Byron seemed to be of the 'droit du seigneur' school of thinking) named Susan Vaughan, who Rushton was ALSO having an affair with. You can't make this shit up.

Eustanthius Georgiou was another Greek youth who was described as effeminate, with black curls tumbling down his back, and the large dark antelope eyes Byron was often taken with (whatever that means). He had the eccentric trait of needing a parasol or shade to travel, which Byron found amusing. He was said to be "disagreeable" and "prone to epileptic fits" (used to denote a tantrum, here), and Byron claimed he had "never in my life took so much pains to please anyone, or succeeded so ill" and said "I have quite exhausted my poor powers of pleasing, which God knows are little enough, Lord help me!". He sent poor Eustanthius back to his father rather quickly, all told. Only room for one Lestat De Lioncourt motherfucker in this camp, Eustanthius.

Nicolo Giraud was a French/Greek boy (also approximately 15 at the time) who seemed to have evoked some genuine affection and protectiveness in B. Byron boasted of his beauty, good nature, and their 'wild, puppyish sexual cavorting'. Nicolo was ostensibly hired to teach Byron Italian from a monastery, under what seemed to be an understanding that both parties would find compensation in matters other than the linguistic. Byron referred to their relationship in a letter to his friend Charles Skinner Matthews as "philosophical", but this was likely a playful code term referring to the "philosophy" of Greek love. Giraud cared for Byron through a bout of illness even though he himself was also unwell, and Byron disclosed (through thinly veiled innuendo) to friends that they had continued to have sex even throughout this fever, which he joked nearly killed him.

Afterwards, Nicolo came down with the same illness and Byron reportedly insisted on him seeing a British doctor who was in Greece. The doctor speculated privately that Giraud was ill from an infection that resulted from being sexually abused, but this was probably retrospective gossip circulated after Byron's death, as neither Byron nor Giraud make any mention of it in correspondence, and it would have been intensely damaging and preoccupying for Byron if it had been reported at the time. Again, I'll specify that the outrage would not have been Nicolo's age, nor whether he consented or not, but his gender. Priorities were wild back then.

Byron parted with Nicolo on arguably the best terms of any of his liaisons, paying for him to undertake an expensive education in Athens and even bequeathing him a generous sum (equivalent to £450,000 today) in his will, which was later removed (likely when he was getting married to Annabella Millbanke, and/or when he realised he didn't have any money). Heartbreakingly, it seems that Nicolo tried to maintain contact with Byron after he returned to England and was soundly ignored for his efforts, probably due to the mounting hostility toward queer men at the time (more on that later).

NB: There is no doubt that Byron's 'relationships' with teenage boys AND girls in this chapter of his life were the result of soliciting sex from paid or indentured individuals, even if this is not how it was acknowledged at the time. Sex workers were a common feature in London, but it seems it was almost implicit in any arena Byron entered in the Mediterranean that sex could be procured on tap. Indeed, he wrote in one of his journals that the only words he learned in Turkish for his travels were "water, bread, and pimp". Classy.

Speaking of Turkey! Ali Pasha (and his son, Veli Pasha)

Ali Pasha was the occupying governor of Albania during Byron's travels, ruling over it in the stead of Sultan Mahmud II, whom Byron also met and who insisted he was a "woman dressed as a man" for safety when travelling, due to his feminine looks and slight frame (aka he was a twink). Ali received Byron and Hobhouse with much fanfare and a regard that flattered Byron intensely. He was approximately sixty, short and rubenesque, with a white beard and hair and a cheerful demeanour. Despite this Santa-ish appearance, he was a brutal warlord who had purportedly had a teenage girl who had accused one of his sons of raping her sewn into a sack (along with several of her friends) and thrown into a river, where they drowned. Ho ho ho.

Byron interfaced with this in much the same way he did with the Sultan - privately outraged, but in turn almost admiring of the brutishness. He felt a dissonance toward the occasionally 'barbaric', lawless Turkish way of life, and the beauty of their architecture and men, and the scarcity of women (which seemed to please him). It likely doesn't need repeating, but sexual activity with young men was culturally encouraged and a regular feature of life even in Ali's circle, though usually men were said to grow out of "boy-love" and go on to marry for the sake of having children. This was largely because women were considered property, and therefore more closely protected - or rather, hoarded. Byron is actually said to have saved one girl from the same fate as her unfortunate peer, by purchasing her freedom. Whether this is true or not is debatable, but it is a theme that recurred in works such as 'Childe Harold' and 'The Giaour', which were largely autobiographical.

Anyway - Ali Pasha was very pleased with Byron's appearance and was sure he was a man of rank just going off his small ears and white hands. He called him beautiful, asked him to look upon him as a father, and begged Byron to visit him at night as often as he could when he would be at his leisure. He also furnished Byron and Hobhouse with horses, body guards, and sent Byron sweets, sherbets, and fruits throughout his stay, sometimes upwards of twenty times a day. There are other mentions Hobhouse makes of Byron cross-dressing at this time, as well as an asinine remark in his journal about him "entertaining" Ali Pasha's court (the mind boggles at what this might entail).

It is debated whether or not Ali was successful in his pursuit of Byron, but as Byron and Hobhouse had no real funds and were relying on the kindness of their host, it would not have surprised me in any way if there were expectations of reciprocity. Additionally, from what I know of Byron, I can imagine he had at least entertained the idea even if no sexual contact was had, as a young man clawing for all the experiences life could offer outside of the stifling society of England. Ali was certainly not his type, but he was attracted to power and the influence of it and, to put it indelicately, the daddy issues of it all probably played a part here (conjecture on my part).

Veli Pasha was Ali's son, receiving Byron and his entourage where he was holding another territory. He apparently was also very taken with Byron, calling him 'beautiful boy' and embracing him, and insisting that they drink, eat, and hunt together. Though Byron purported to be embarrassed by this attention, he still stayed with him for some days. Iykyk.

Charles Skinner Matthews and William Bankes

CSM may not have been a lover of Byron's in the traditional sense, but along with John Cam Hobhouse, he was one of Byron's very closest confidantes and seemed to make up part of the queer inner circle Byron fostered at Cambridge. CSM and Byron wrote coded letters about his sexual exploits whilst on his tour, and Matthews often encouraged him to tell him more details when he returned, and lamented on his own lack of "botanical exploits" (Byron and Matthews used this code as a term for having gay sex, using the term "Hyacinth" among others to describe gay lovers). Though their letters lacked the florid intimacy Byron typically bestowed upon his amors, there is no reason to suppose their initial discovery of mutual inclinations wasn't through experience as it was with other members of their circle. On the other hand, Byron was incapable of discretion, and likely would have shared if he had harboured any romantic feelings toward his friend. I waver.

Importantly, it appears that Matthews was rather candid about his sexuality whilst ensconced in the fishbowl atmosphere of Cambridge, more so than any of his set, which later may have caused issues. At the time of Byron's impending return from his tour, a local gentleman's club which was known to cater almost exclusively to gay men (clandestinely, of course) was raided by police, and two individuals (one only sixteen) were arrested and later hanged for the crime of sodomy. Matthews and one of Byron's other close friends, Scrope Davies, visited both of the victims in prison before their executions, and Matthews wrote in a carefully neutral tone about it to Byron, which could well have been a warning of the puritanical rise in London's moral landscape. They had other mutual friends (such as William Bankes) who are recognised as homosexual retrospectively, several of whom also ran into legal troubles surrounding "improper" behaviour with the same sex.

CSM is the same friend who drowned in the Cam river shortly before Byron's return, leaving no letter or whisper of reason for the apparent suicide. Given the historical context, it would be willfully ignorant not to suppose it had much to do with the executions of two other known homosexuals at the time, though it might have been compounded by other factors. Sadly, we'll never know, but Byron was deeply wounded by the loss.

The aforementioned William Bankes was a recurring member of Byron's set, the famous Egyptologist and a gay man who would later be arrested for committing a homosexual act near Westminster Abbey (apparently that was worse?) and be rescued by the Duke of Wellington - only to be charged again with sodomy some years later. Like dude. Quit fucking outdoors.

Byron coined Bankes as "the father of all mischiefs" and his "initiator" at Cambridge. As I stated, 'the Initiated' often referred to those who had gay sex or inclinations, suggesting that Bankes had exposed Byron to his way of life during their time at school together. Bankes was Byron's senior by two years, and seems to have been a guiding influence in introducing Byron to the idea of Greece and Turkey being accessible areas for gay men to explore their inclinations, as well as some of the literature he favoured. Bankes also joined Byron for his own exile in Venice where he settled for a couple of years after his split with Annabella.

Amusing aside: Bankes referred to Byron as "capricious and profligate", and Byron to Bankes as "not much of a flatterer". Calm down, boys.

William Fletcher

Byron's valet from when he was 16, Fletcher spent the rest of his Master's life with him. Byron spotted Fletcher tilling the fields shirtless and decided he would be his valet after his own had been dismissed for theft (there were some other hijinks in there where intially Fletcher was a footman, or some such). He would have been twenty eight by the time he became Byron's valet. He had the unenviable task of being at Byron's every beck and call despite having his own wife and children, and even went with Byron on his tour in 1809, though he was decidedly unsuited to the temperatures and customs of Turkey and Greece.

He also accompanied him on Byron's second flight from England, leaving behind a second wife and the children from his first marriage. At this time, Byron was at the height of his hedonism, first having his dalliance with the Shelley set and then making his way to Venice where he engaged in several months of "heartless concubinage". During this time he would prepare for sexual marathons like an athlete, and had Fletcher rub him down with linaments after ice baths. Even Percy Shelley remarked that Fletcher was a good-looking man, physically fit with sandy hair, who was devoted entirely to Byron for the entirety of their time together even though Byron was a difficult master.

Fletcher continued as valet to Byron until his death in Missolonghi in 1824, and was purportedly devastated, having a moment of intense overwhelm at his funeral where he had to be helped up after staggering to his knees in his grief. This, of course, does not necessarily portend a sexual relationship, but would certainly imply a high level of trust and intimacy, especially at a time when other noblemen were murdering their staff for simply discovering them in homosexual acts. Fletcher left behind two wives to spend extended months at Byron's side, and defended his generous character long after his death. He saw Byron at his very worst, through fits of temper and melancholy, and through sexual behaviour that thoroughly disgusted many of his close friends. Whether his feelings for Byron were brotherly or more, he was ride or die as fuck.

Tita

Giovanni Battista Falcieri, affectionately called Tita, was a broad, muscular gondolier that Byron adopted into his caravan in Venice during in a time where he quite literally nearly fucked himself to death. As previously stated, following the very public break down of his marriage to Annabella Millbanke (Lady Byron from then on out and the mother of Ada Lovelace, Byron's only legitimate daughter), Byron fell headfirst into nihilism, listing the women he had lain with in scores in some deeply misogynistic letters to Hobhouse. Despite this rolling carousel of women, Byron also wrote of his deep fondness for the Venetian Carnivale and its "gaiety". This is not simply the jargon of the time for a pleasant diversion. He used this as a tongue-in-cheek identifier of one of the primary methods of meeting homosexual men in Venice, anonymously and whilst wearing revealing and alluring costume - catnip to a man who was cutting about in a velvet banyan with gold tassels on it day to day.

As well as using the Carnivale to source gay sex, gondoliers were well-known to offer sex work in the privacy of covered gondolas. Tita was one such sex worker, who would sleep with other men (one being our returning gay icon William Bankes) for "broad silver pieces". Get your bag, Tita.

Anyway. Tita stayed in Byron's employ as another attendant for the rest of Byron's life, and was present when Byron passed away, holding his hand and weeping. He also shot someone who threatened Byron once, which caused a whole load of trouble. Though there is no proof or allusion to any romantic relationship, one has to wonder how else a strapping young gondolier who doesn't mind fucking men for money would come into Byron's employ. Gentle stretches, here.

Percy Byshe Shelley. Obviously

This is going to be a disappointingly short section for now because I have started gathering sources for an entire blog on Byron's relationships with the Shelleys and Claire Clairmont. HOWEVER. A summary.

Percy Shelley came into Byron's life at an incredibly vulnerable time for both of them. Byron was freshly (as in a few weeks) separated from Belle and being hounded by the London press, ostensibly for the suspicion of incest but, in reality, for the speculated "unspeakable crime" of sodomy (let's be real, it was legal to beat your wife back then so it wasn't mistreatment he was on the outs for). He was a pariah even to close friends, stalked by English travellers in Switzerland, and in ill-humour at having to travel with a man who would not make him feel any more well liked: John Polidori.

Percy was broke, chasing fame that would not come, and in a sticky situation with his young lovers Mary Wollstonecroft Godwin and her younger step-sister, Claire. Mary had lost a premature baby, Clara, and the three of them were besieged by debtors and ostracisation due to their philosophy of 'free love'.

The poets' meeting was coordinated by Claire, who knew that Byron would not entertain another liaison with her unless she could sweeten the pot. Indeed, Byron and Shelley immediately became inseparable for several weeks in Geneva, spending nearly every day boating together, dining with Mary and Polidori (Claire was generally not invited, as the animosity between her and Byron was already well-established, as well as with Mary), and travelling to scenes from their favourite Voltaire novels.

Most famously, this stormy summer was the catalyst for the production of Mary's first novel, 'Frankenstein' (heard of it?), and John Polidori's 'The Vampyre', which was based on a fragment of a novel Byron had started of the same name. According to her diary, Mary said that Byron had suggested they wrote ghost stories, and then taken Mary's hand and said to her, "you and I shall publish ours together, Miss Wollstonecroft", which I think is rather dear.

While there is little overt evidence at the time of any sexual relationship between Percy and Byron, it is evident that the Shelleys viewed Byron as an essential part of their group. He and Percy had shared a bed for some of their six week travels through Europe, and Mary seemed very aware that they were enjoying an intimacy she and Claire couldn't compete with - though this didn't seem to bother her. Percy developed an intense affection for Byron that can be seen through his letters to him at this time, expressing in one particularly yearnful scribble:

"Shall we see you in the spring? [...] We are looking out for a house in some lone place; and one chief pleasure which we shall expect then, will be a visit from you. You will destroy all our rural arrangements if you fail in this promise. You will do more. You will strike a link out of the chain of life which, esteeming you, and cherishing your society as we do, we cannot easily spare."

Where Byron maintained a very useful habit of retaining any and all letters he received, Percy did not keep his replies. All we have is Percy's playful, if defensive, letters regarding Byron's way of life in Venice (sleeping with gender non-conforming individuals or transgender women to my twenty first century interpretation) to judge his feelings on the matter - ("Byron associates with wretches who seem almost to have lost the gait and physiognomy of man […] he says he disapproves, but he endures") but as a member of Byron's inner circle, and a proponent of free love, it is impossible to rule out the idea that Percy was privy to the coded manner of discussing such things, and that he was simply discreet about the nature of their intimacy. Later, on his way back to Italy to meet up with Byron to discuss Claire's daughter, Allegra, Percy started a translation of Plato's Symposium, which he planned to turn into a 'Defence of Platonic Love'. Percy had the complex recognition of his own attraction toward the model of the Ganymedian boy that Byron himself favoured, as well as a (slightly too intense) fascination with art depicting intersex characters. That being said, internalised homophobia seemed to be too big a hurdle for him, and his translations of Plato seemed, to Byron, to miss the point entirely. This could well have been what broke their understanding and turned it from a complex, turbulent romantic friendship to a terse, envy laden (on Percy's part) grasp for greatness.

After the unpleasantness of their tussle about the parentage and custody of the ill-fated Allegra (which I have theories about and will discuss in a future blog), Byron sponsored the Shelleys sans-Claire living in Pisa for several months while Byron and Percy collaborated on an editorial venture that combined literature and political commentary (with Leigh Hunt, a man I hate so much I can't even go into it). During this time their friendship seemed to fluctuate depending on whether Percy wanted money or not, and culminated in his tragic early death, which of course affected Byron deeply (so much so that the entire trajectory of his life changed, again, in my opinion). He spoke affectionately of Percy but also pointed out both his naïveté and his hypocrisy, which I think speaks volumes. Byron continued to fund Mary living in Pisa until she decided she needed to return to England, though this is something that gets argued by those determined to label him a miserly cunt (which he could be, but wasn't with the Shelleys). There is also a hint of the clandestine in Mary's letters to Byron at this time (again, many of his to her have not survived) which could be interpreted as them having a short affair after Percy's death - a desperate, clinging touchstone to the man they had both had such a passionate and troubled relationship with.

Lukas Chalandritsanos

Another Greek teenager that Byron tried to woo, Lukas was genuinely disinterested and maintained a professional - though lucrative - relationship with Byron throughout his doomed journey to Greece, where he died in 1824. Even at just 36, years of hard living had robbed Byron of his once ethereal good looks. His pallor was paler than ever, he was dangerously thin, drank heavily, and was beginning to lose his hair. Moreover, the times had changed - Byron was not able to simply command affection from those around him, even with money. He wrote many odes to Lukas and his unrequited love toward him, and in response Lukas used that affection to leverage money out of Byron at every opportunity.

After Byron's death, Lukas was charged with the theft of a good chunk of gold from Byron's rooms, which he claimed Byron had given him. Lukas returned to obscurity after this brief, one-sided love, but it suggests that Byron - ostensibly still in a relationship with Countess Teresa Guicioli - was still searching for same-sex companionship up until his death.

John Cam Hobhouse

There is very little evidence in the way of letters or observations from their peers to suggest that Byron and Hobhouse were ever in a romantic relationship, and so this is conjecture on my part that is informed truly by vibes and hunches. I'm not the first to suggest it by any means, but probably the least well-armed with evidence. Even so, it doesn't stop anyone else sharing their bad takes, and it won't stop me.

Hobhouse was Byron's closest friend for the duration of his life since their meeting at Cambridge. He accompanied Byron on his first Tour de Fuck, and was viciously protective of Byron's reputation despite the fact that Byron was reckless as hell. He dissuaded Byron from several ill-advised marriages with women he had either impregnated or pissed off (one being Caroline Lamb, who literally threatened to kill Byron and then herself if he didn't elope with her, so he SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED IT), and stridently pressed Byron about keeping his proclivities for the rougher sex a very, very serious secret.

This prudishness was not due to his own Puritanism. Hobhouse was as interested in exploring same-sex relationships as Byron, which is probably how they became friends in the first place, and was part of the homosexual brotherhood Byron established with Bankes, Skinner Matthews, and Davies at uni. He clearly had limits that Byron did not, which led to Byron continuing rather gratefully on his tour without Hobhouse when he was summoned back to England by his father a year earlier than Byron to join the military. Captain John Hobhouse would also keep a close eye on the public hangings and pillorying that befell other bisexual or gay men in Regency London, and his own letters to Byron are carefully warning. Indeed, he laboured to Byron the importance of suppressing any sentiments of sympathy and clearly knew this would be one thing Byron would struggle to reconcile after two years of being free.

Byron learned of the death of his Cambridge love, John Edelston, and would lament to H about his grief in heavily coded language. He even acknowledges that he is failing to suppress his feelings, and tells H he has started up a correspondence with an old flame (John Claridge, who turned out to be devastatingly boring).

Obviously a confidante, it's not hard to imagine that Hobhouse might have occasionally despaired over Byron's promiscuity. His protectiveness would certainly have been to spare his own reputation from scrutiny (he was quietly ambitious), but his particular dedication to Byron's persona betrays a lifelong degree of extreme care that we seldom see in male friendships. Hobhouse not only minded Byron's relationships but also his finances, and he was tethered close to Byron even at his worst. When Byron's other friends turned their backs on him at the public revelation he might be bisexual, Hobhouse did damage control. When Byron died, Hobhouse helped to arrange his funeral, his transportation home, and the treatment of his body in Greece.

Most notably of all, Hobhouse was insistent on Byron's personal tell-all memoirs being burned after his death. This is a huge loss to us today in fully understanding some of Byron's later movements, but at the time the work was deemed too indecent and risky to have been even preserved for future generations. This too speaks of a man who wants desperately to protect a cherished friend - or an object of affection - from the scorn of others. It would likely have been a silver lining that Byron's memoirs would have likely implicated Hobhouse in some serious nastiness.

Other Notable Mentions

Caroline Lamb was obviously not a gay man, but she had strains of queerness that clearly appealed to Byron. As well as her elfin, boyish looks (an aunt described her as looking like a fourteen year old boy, ergo Byron's type), she was prone to cross-dress and regularly wore the guise of one of her well-dressed page boys or stable hands. She notably wore these disguises when sneaking to see Byron even after he had made it known he had no desire to continue their tryst, once asking Fletcher to give Byron a letter from her "Mistress" (herself) that gave Byron instructions to let a page boy in to take a response back to her. There is no reason to suppose this wasn't a direct response of her learning of Byron's proclivities (did I mention the indiscretion?), but she was supposedly cross-dressing before she ever met Byron.

John Claridge - another university friend he rekindled a relationship with on his return to London following his tour (and despite Hobhouse's warnings to maybe not do that). Later he wrote to his friend regarding the fling - "[Claridge was] a good man, a handsome man, an honourable man, a most inoffensive man, a well informed man, and a dull man, & this last damn epithet undoes all the rest". Nuff said.

In Conclusion

Byron was bisexual, with a heavier leaning attraction toward men. His relationships with women were tainted by his deeply ingrained hatred of his own mother and figures like her, and it's possible that in a less homophobic era, he would have completely turned away from the pursuit of female lovers (quite a statement I know, but I'll die on this hill).

Byron's romantic and sexual experiences with teenagers appear in part as a symptom of his own boyish mentality and inability to grow up. He was said to have "a genius mind but a child's malice and magic", which could be linked to the instances of child abuse we have explored before hindering his development and exposing him to the concept of merely demanding what he wanted regardless of whether it was being freely given. The bred-in entitlement of English nobility will have done the rest. Rich white guy sydnrome has always existed.

The literary influences of other queer friends at school and university, such as William Bankes, clearly cultivated the fantasy of the mythical adolescent beauty and the romantic allure of boy sex (yuck at that phrase) that haunted many of the queer works from this period into the Victorian era (Oscar Wilde, anyone?). It also feels pertinent to acknowledge that Byron's school and university days were the first times in his life he experienced love and desire in a relatively safe environment, and they must have held a halcyon quality that he clearly struggled to relinquish.

Additionally, Regency homophobia pushed his lingering post-schoolboy bisexuality into the shadows and forced a taboo exploration of queerness outside of the UK. These were climates which largely exploited and abused those in a position of social inferiority to Byron and his peers.

This does not negate the wrongness of the behaviour, but the context goes a long way in explaining the gravitation toward catamites. It also makes Byron's (arguably predatory) habit of hiring attractive male teens in his own young-adult years a logical step in a culture where English Nobility were implicitly permitted to sexually assault female staff at their discretion. Why would he think any differently of doing it to a page boy than a maid? And if no one else was going to love him on his own merit, why shouldn't he simply demand it?

TL;DR: yes, he was a pedarast and it was grim as hell, but fucking teenagers was sadly pretty normal back then. Fucking boys, however, was potentially life threatening - and that's how you know that Byron really loved dick.

If you liked this behemoth of a post, please consider reblogging it. I worked really hard on it 🥰

Sources:

Byron and Greek Love by Louis Crompton

Byron and Women (and Men) by Peter Cochran

Lord Byron: Life and Legend by Fiona Macarthy

Byron and Shelley, the History of a Friendship by John Buxton

he is so scared

and ofc the legs are super fucked with proportions sigh...