#william lamb

I'm still reading Melbourne.

Cecil is describing Devonshire House and its women, and a young (19ish?) Melbourne's reaction to them.

"It was not the Duchess herself so much who attracted him.... William found her kindly but inattentive. Nor did he succumb to the insinuating allurements of Lady Elizabeth Foster. But he was immediately drawn to Lady Bessborough....He was never seriously in love with her, but he paid her marked attention. And London soon recognized him as one of her established train of beaux." p.55

Now, if you're not spitting your drink all over your screen, I'll explain why this is post-worthy.

William here, is William Lamb, the future 2nd Viscount Melbourne. William is, within about six or seven years of this, going to marry Lady Caroline Ponsonby.

Lady Caroline Ponsonby is the daughter of Lady Bessborough.

She's known better as Lady Caroline Lamb, the authoress who had a ruinous affair with Lord Byron.

The more history I learn, the less crazy some of the plots I've come up with sound.

Vicbourne Suits AU

💜Cry for what you lost, for what you did, for what you didn't do and for what you should have done.

💜But don't cry forever, there's no way to change the past. Have courage to forget.

💜Glenarvon was Lady Caroline Lamb's first novel.

🟣It created a sensation when published on 9 May 1816. Set in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the book satirized the Whig Holland House circle, while casting a sceptical eye on left-wing politics.

🟣Its rakish title character, Lord Glenarvon, is an unflattering depiction of her ex-lover, Lord Byron.

🟣It is the first novel to make notable use of the vampire figure. The novel contains no actual vampire characters but suggests that its title character has vampiric characteristics.

🟣The novel never explicitly creates supernatural events until the final dramatic chapter, but it continually suggests how the supernatural is born of the psychological terror an individual experiences as the result of transgression and guilt.

🟣The novel focuses upon two distinctive Gothic wanderers: Glenarvon, who is based on Lord Byron, and the female heroine, Calantha, based upon Caroline Lamb. She depicts Glenarvon as a type of vampire damned beyond hope while Calantha is redeemed and forgiven her transgressions.

💜Caroline Lamb, née Ponsonby, was born on the 13th November 1785 into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family. Many know her only because of the men in her life. Her marriage to William Lamb, aka Lord Melbourne, aka Prime Minister to Queen Victoria, and her most notable affair with poet Lord Byron aka *rsehole.

🟣But she was more than that. So much more than that. She was a poet, a novelist and a loving mother to her son Augustus, who suffered from epilepsy and had "learning difficulties". She was not a woman of her time.

🟣She struggled to fit in a society that labeled and restricted women to roles of perfect wifes and mothers. (ringing any bells?) All while being bipolar and having a body unfit to carry a child.

🟣She was exiled by society, mockered by her mother-in-law, ridiculed by her lover. And yet she never abandoned her child, and never lost the love of her husband. She died at the age of 42 years old.

By Caroline Lamb

💜Amidst the flowers rich and gay,

That deck the fairy paths of pleasure,

I mark'd one violet in my way,

And seiz'd the little purple treasure.

💜It seem'd to weep, the glitt'ring dew

Fell from it as I press'd it nearer,

And thought that nothing fair or new,

Could ever to my heart be dearer.

💜Alas! I left it like the rest,

And left it when it lov'd me best.

💜And now in youth and vigour gay,

I wander forth each hour enchanted;

Taste every joy that meets my way,

Nor ask one boon that is not granted.

💜Yet some times with an aching heart,

I think of vows so fondly plighted,

Of early love for ever blighted,

And those who fell beneath its dart.

💜In this cold selfish world, there's none