|
Year
|
Date
|
Chronology Entry
|
| 1811 |
March |
The Scourge publishes Hewson Clarke's very
personal attack on Byron and his English Bards. |
| July 14-17 |
Byron arrives in London after an absence from England of a
little more than two years.
He begins to address his financial affairs as well as to
renew old friendships.
Byron delivers Hints from Horace to the printer
Cawthorn. In Byron's absence from England, Cawthorn had put
out four editions of English Bards. At the time of
Byron's arrival, the fourth edition is almost sold out.
Dallas is disappointed with Hints from Horace,
but responds enthusiastically to the cantos of Childe
Harold.
According to Marchand, Dallas owed his positive response
to CHP to Walter Wright's assurances that the poem
would sell (279).
Wright, a former Consul General of the Ionian Islands,
had received praise in English Bards for his
Horae Ionicae.
|
| July 17-19 |
Byron meets Hobhouse, now a captain in the Militia, at
Sittingbourne.
The pair tour Canterbury and its vicinity.
|
| July 19-23 |
Byron returns to London where Hodgson visits him. Byron
then visits Henry Drury at Harrow. |
| July 23 |
Back in London, Byron works with Hanson to arrange his
debts with the moneylenders.
Dallas wishes to take CHP I and II to a
publisher, though Byron is reluctant, he eventually
agrees.
Byron considers taking legal action against Clarke for
libel (see March).
|
| August 2 |
Byron receives news that his mother is ill, and he makes
arrangements to travel home to Newstead, borrowing 40 from
Hanson.
Lady Byron's condition worsens, and she dies before
Byron is able to leave for Newstead.
|
| August 3 |
Charles Skinner Matthews, one of Byron's Cambridge
friends, drowns in the Cam. |
| August 10 |
Byron receives news that John Wingfield, a Harrow friend,
has died. |
| August |
Byron drafts his will. |
| End of September |
Byron visits his Lancashire estate. |
| October 9 |
Byron returns to Newstead.
On his return, he receives news that John Edleston, the
Cambridge chorister, died the previous May
|
| October 11 |
Byron writes "To Thyrza" and "Epistle to a Friend." |
| October 16 |
Byron visits Davies at Cambridge.
Byron receives a challenge from the poet Thomas Moore
who had been offended by parts of English Bards.
|
| October 29 |
Byron arrives at 8 St. James' Street, London. |
| November 4 |
Byron meets Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore at the home
of Samuel Rogers, where the company discusses literary
topics. |
| November 14 |
Soldiers called out to stop the rioting of unemployed
weavers in Nottingham. The rioters had been breaking the new
wide frames that had put many of them out of work. |
| End of November |
Byron visits Hodgson at Cambridge. He invites Hodgson and
William Harness, an old Harrow favorite, to spend Christmas
at Newstead. |
| Early December |
Byron returns to London. |
| December 9 |
An additional 900 cavalry and 1,000 infantry called to
Nottingham to quell the frame-breakers. |
| December 9-14 |
Byron sees a variety of plays and players: Robert Coates
as Lothario in a farcical version of Rowes's Fair
Penitent; a performance with Mrs. Siddons, and Kemble's
performance in Coriolanus. |
| December 19 |
Byron, Hodgson, and Harness travel to Newstead. |
|
Year
|
Date
|
Chronology Entry
|
| 1812 |
January 8 |
Two additional regiments of soldiers called in to stop
the Nottingham frame-breaking riots. |
| January 11 |
Byron returns to London for the opening of
Parliament. |
| January 15 |
Byron takes his seat at Parliament. |
| January 20 |
Byron is appointed to a Parliamentary committee to hear
appeals on writs of error. |
| January 28 |
Byron believes Robert Rushton's stories of Susan
Vaughan's infidelity. Byron reluctantly sends the girl
away. |
| February 14 |
The Tory Riot bill which makes framebreaking a capital
offense is introduced into the House of Commons. |
| February 21 |
The Tory Riot Bill passes the House of Commons. |
| February 27 |
Byron speaks for the first time in Parliament, opposing
the injustice of the bill. |
| March 2 |
Byron's "Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill" appears
anonymously in the Morning Chronicle. |
| March 7 |
Byron's "Sympathetic Address to a Young Lady"
commemorates Princess Catherine's opposition to her father's
betrayal of the Whig party. Out of regard for Lord Holland,
Byron stops work on a fifth edition of EBSR. |
| March 10 |
Childe Harold I and II offered for public sale by
John Murray.
Within three days, the first edition of 500 copies sells
out. Byron awakes to find himself famous.
|
| March |
Byron meets the 27-year-old Caroline Lamb at Holland
House, and the pair soon begin an affair that reaches its
heights in May. |
| March 25 |
Annabella Milbanke, cousin of William Lamb, is at
Melbourne House when Byron visits. |
| April 11 |
Byron and Hobhouse dine at Lord Glenbervie's where they
meet Benjamin Constant. |
| April 21 |
At Parliament, Byron speaks once more; the motion
considered creates a Committee on Roman Catholic Claims. |
| May 1 |
Francis Jeffrey praises Childe Harold in the
Edinburgh Review. |
| May 18 |
Byron rents a window to view the public execution of
Bellingham, a trader who had killed Spencer Perceval, the
Prime Minister. |
| June 4 |
Byron, Hobhouse, and Captain George Byron travel to
Newstead. |
| June 13 |
Byron returns to London. |
| July 29 |
Lady Caroline Lamb invades Byron's rooms, wearing the dress
of a page.
Hobhouse and Byron prevail on her to return home.
|
| August 12 |
Lady Caroline Lamb refuses to travel with her family to
Roehampton and flees her house.
Byron finds her in Kensington and returns her to her
family.
|
| August 15 |
Thomas Claughton purchases Newstead Abbey, the furniture,
and remaining timber for 140,000. |
| August 24 |
Byron travels to Cheltenham to be near his friends from
London: the Jerseys, Melbournes, and the Hollands.
Lord Holland soon asks Byron to write the Address to be
read on the opening night of the new Drury Lane
Theatre.
|
| Early September |
Byron moves from an inn to the Holland house at
Cheltenham, after the Hollands' return to England. |
| September |
The Lambs set out for Ireland. |
| October 4 |
Byron accepts an invitation to stay a week at the
Jerseys' country house in Middleton. |
| October 8 |
Annabella Milbanke responds to Byron's proposal by
drafting a view of his Character. |
| October 10 |
Byron's "Address" is read by Elliston before two plays,
the Devil to Play and Hamlet. |
| October 12 |
Annabella Milbanke rejects Byron's proposal of
marriage. |
| October 19 |
Byron's purchaser, Claughton, still has not made his
first payment, but Byron's creditors are implacable, having
heard his estate has been sold. |
| October |
Murray reports that booksellers have purchased 878 copies
of the 5th edition of Childe Harold. |
| October 24 |
Byron sets out for Eywood, the home of the Oxfords. Byron
becomes enamored with Lady Oxford.
He also enjoys the company of her children, particularly
Lady Charlotte Harley, whom he praises as Ianthe in the
preface to the seventh edition of Childe Harold.
|
| October 31 |
Expecting to be paid by Claughton, Byron accepts a bill
from Scrope Davies for 1,500, part of a sum he had borrowed
to travel the Continent in 1809. |
| November 5 |
Claughton finally pays 5,000 of the deposit money. |
| November 9 |
Lady Caroline Lamb writes a petulant tirade to Lady Oxford.
In response, Byron writes the rejection letter Lamb
later includes in Glenarvon.
|
| November 21 |
Byron returns to Cheltenham where he stays at Middleton,
the home of the Jerseys. |
| November 30 |
Byron arrives at Batt's Hotel in London. |
| December 3 and 7 |
Byron attends Parliament. |
| December 8 |
Byron visits with Hobhouse, then attends a party at Lady
Melbourne's. |
| Before Christmas |
Byron returns to Eywood.
At Brocket, after writing several letters threatening
Byron with revenge, Caroline Lamb burns effigies of Byron's
picture and copies of his letters, while neighborhood
children dance around the bonfire.
|
|
Year
|
Date
|
Chronology Entry
|
| 1813 |
January 3 |
Still at Eywood, Byron orders a picture of Lady Oxford
and arranges for it to be held at John Murray's. |
| Early January |
To gain a picture of Byron from John Murray, Caroline
Lamb forges Byron's handwriting. |
| Third Week of January |
Byron returns to London, taking lodgings at 4 Bennet
Street.
His relationship with the Oxfords draws him into the
circle of the Princess of Wales, and Byron becomes a
regular visitor at Kensington Palace.
|
| February |
Byron attends several sessions at Parliament. |
| March 18 |
Byron considers three plans: one to travel with Lord
Sligo to Persia, another to travel to the Continent with the
Oxfords, and finally Hobhouse's proposal to travel again to
the East. |
| End of March |
Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, Paternoster Row, privately
print Byron's satire, the Waltz.
John Murray prints a few copies of the
Giaour.
|
| March 28 |
Byron--angry with Caroline Lamb's refusal to return his
portrait--answers her request for a lock of hair by sending
one of Lady Oxford's.
Byron returns to Eywood with the Oxfords.
|
| April 1 |
The Prince Regent oversees the opening of the vault of King
Charles I, and gives Princess Charlotte the central
sapphire from Charles's crown.
Perhaps unwisely, Byron satirizes the Regent's behavior;
Byron's verses circulate privately at court.
|
| April 19 |
Byron, in light of his relationship with Lady Oxford,
considers altering his plans for returning to the
continent. |
| April 19 |
Byron attends a party at Lady Heathcote's. |
| April 20 |
Byron, in the company of Thomas Moore, visits Leigh Hunt
in the Surrey Gaol. |
| April 23 |
Byron takes Leigh Hunt some books to help with his
composition of Francesca da Rimini.
Hobhouse's Journey through Albania and Other
Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia published by
Cawthorn.
|
| April 25 |
Tired of waiting for Byron, Hobhouse sets out for the
Continent. |
| April 29 |
In a letter forwarded through Lady Melbourne, Byron
consents to Caroline Lamb's pleas for an interview. |
| May 27 |
Lady Oxford returns to London. |
| June 1 |
On behalf of Major John Cartwright, Byron presents the
House of Lords with a petition for the right to "reform"
Parliament.
Cartwright had gathered 199,000 signatures.
|
| June 3 |
Byron accompanies Lady Oxford to Salthill, her lodging
until she sails for the Continent. |
| June |
Due to lack of funds, Byron postpones his own journey until
July.
Byron agrees to sell the household items at
Newstead.
|
| June 5 |
Murray publishes The Giaour. |
| June 15 |
Byron accompanies Lady Oxford to Portsmouth. |
| June 20 |
Back in London, Byron attends Lady Jersey's where he
meets Mme de Staël. |
| June 21 |
At Lady Jersey's, Byron dines with Mme de Staël,
Sheridan, and other literary figures. |
| June 27 |
Augusta Leigh arrives in London for a three week visit.
Byron had seen Augusta very little after her marriage in
1807, and he had not corresponded with her during his tour
of the Continent.
Byron takes her to Lady Davy's to see Mme de Stael.
|
| July 2 |
Hanson brings a suit against Claughton in Chancery. |
| July 5 |
Byron visits Lady Heathcote's, where Lady Caroline Lamb
stabs herself with a penknife. |
| July 6 |
The Satirist mocks Lamb's behavior so much that
her husband removes her from London. |
| July 13 |
Byron asks John Wilson Croker, Secretary of the
Admiralty, to secure him passage to the Continent. |
| July 18 |
Annabella Milbanke writes Lady Melbourne requesting
information of Byron's dealings with Claughton. |
| August 5 |
Augusta Leigh is back in London. |
| August 20 |
Augusta Leigh is back at Six Mile Bottom. |
| August 22 |
Annabella Milbanke writes Byron directly for the first
time, offering him moral advice:
"No longer suffer yourself to be the slave of the moment,
nor trust your noble impulses to the chances of Life.
Have an object that will permanently occupy your feelings
& exercise your reason. Do good" (Marchand II.405).
|
| September 11 |
Byron travels briefly to Six Mile Bottom. |
| September 13 |
Byron travels to Cambridge where he dines with Scrope
Davies. |
| September 19? |
Byron visits Wedderburn Webster and his family at Aston
Hall, near Rotherham, but after several days, he travels back
to London. |
| September 26 |
Byron meets Southey at Holland House. |
| October 3 |
Though Lady Francis Webster had invited Augusta Leigh to
visits as well, Byron returns to Aston Hall alone. |
| Mid October |
Byron and the Websters visit Newstead several times. |
| October 19 |
Byron returns to London. |
| October 20 |
Byron recommends Hodgson to translate Lucien Bonaparte's
Charlemagne.
Hodgson's debts were interfering with his desired
marriage to a Miss Tayler, and Byron provides £1000 to
pay Hodgson's debts.
|
| November 4 |
Byron records his work on Bride of Abydos. |
| November 14 |
Byron begins a journal. |
| November 22 |
Byron meets Lady Holland and her party at the Drury Lane
theatre. |
| November 23 |
Byron dines with Ward and other literary men. |
| December 2 |
Murray publishes Bride of Abydos, and he offers a
total of £1000 for both the Giaour and the
Bride.
Within a month, Bride sells 6000 copies.
Byron is once more the lion of the London literary
scene, and he receives invitations daily.
|
| December 15 |
Augusta Leigh arrives in London. |
| December 18 |
Byron ends his "Journal" and begins his next eastern
tale, The Corsair. |
| December 23 |
Mary Chaworth-Musters, unhappy in her marriage, writes
her cousin Byron. |
| December 26 |
Hearing that Byron has not left for the Continent,
Annabella Milbanke writes again. |
| December 27 |
Byron returns to London, having accompanied Augusta Leigh
home. |
|
Year
|
Date
|
Chronology Entry
|
| 1814 |
January 1 |
Byron completes the Corsair. |
| January 2 |
Byron dedicates the Corsair to Thomas Moore. |
| January 17 |
Byron and Augusta Leigh set out for Newstead. |
| January 22 |
Byron celebrates his 26th birthday. |
| February 1 |
The Corsair sells 10,000 copies on the first day,
and over 25,000 copies in the first month.
The inclusion of Byron's "Lines to a Lady Weeping" draws
Tory attacks: though Murray removes the poem from the
second edition, Byron demands its re-insertion for the
third edition.
The Corsair goes through seven editions in the
first month.
|
| February |
The Courier accuses Byron of making considerable
sums of money from his poetry.
Dallas writes the Morning Post, acknowledging
Byron's gift of the copyrights to Childe Harold and
The Corsair.
Mary Chaworth continues to write, though Byron does not
see her.
|
| February 9 |
Byron returns to London from Newstead. |
| February 10 |
Byron and Hobhouse meet at Covent Garden. |
| February 19 |
Byron, Hobhouse, and Hodgson see Edmund Kean play Richard
III at the Drury Lane theatre. |
| March 7 |
At the urging of Hanson, Byron attends the marriage of
Mary Anne Hanson to the Earl of Portsmouth where he gives
away the bride. |
| March 9 |
Byron dines at Roger's with other literary men such as
Macintosh and Sheridan. |
| March 27 |
Byron and Scrope Davies dine at the Cocoa Tree to
commemorate Byron's final payment of his longstanding debt
to Davies.
Byron moves to Albany House, Piccadilly.
|
| April 2-7 |
Byron visits to Six Mile Bottom. |
| April 6 |
Claughton promises to pay another installment of
£5000 toward the purchase of Newstead. |
| April 8 |
Byron returns to London. |
| April 9 |
Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates.
Byron composes his Ode to Napoleon
Buonaparte.
|
| April 10 |
Claughton reneges on his promise to pay.
Byron receives one of a series of letters from Mary
Chaworth.
Officially separated from her husband at the end of
March, Chaworth writes Byron over 50 letters in a period of
about six months.
|
| April 15 |
Hobhouse dines with Byron, then leaves the next morning for
Paris.
Augusta Leigh gives birth to a daughter. The child is
named Medora after Byron's famous heroine in the
Corsair.
|
| April 16 |
Murray publishes the "Ode." |
| April 25 |
Byron receives a formal invitation to visit Seaham from
Sir Ralph Milbanke, Annabella's father. |
| May |
Thomas Moore returns to London, and he and Byron frequent
Edmund Kean's theatre. |
| May 7 |
Byron and Moore see Kean as Iago in Othello. |
| Early May |
Byron sends Augusta 3000 to settle her husband's
debts. |
| May 14 |
Byron begins Lara. |
| May 18 |
Byron and Hobhouse dine at Lady Jersey's in a party of
around 100. |
| May 19 |
Byron, Hobhouse, and Moore see Kean act Iago again. |
| May 25 |
Byron and Moore take a private box to see Kean. |
| May 26 |
Byron sends Kean 50 guineas as a token of his
esteem. |
| June 11 |
Webster, having returned from the Continent, takes Byron to
Lady Sitwell's where Byron first sees his cousin, Mrs.
Wilmot.
Byron composes "She walks in Beauty" in Wilmot's
honor.
|
| June 14 |
Byron completes Lara. |
| June 17 |
Byron finally responds to the love-stricken letters of
Henrietta D'Ussieres.
Eventually he agrees to meet her, and they talk for half
an hour.
|
| June 18 |
Byron writes Augusta that he had seen her friend Lady
Charlotte Leveson Gower at Earl Grey's.
After the meeting, Byron considers seeking a
reconciliation with Lord Carlisle.
|
| June 26 |
Lady Caroline Lamb's antics continue.
In a letter, Byron complains to Lady Melbourne:
"You talked to me about keeping her out. It is
impossible; she comes at all times, at any time, and the
moment the door is open in she walks. I can't throw her
out of the window: as to getting rid of her, that is
rational and probable, but I will not receive her"
(qtd in M 1.458). On one of Caroline's visits,
she writes "Remember me!" on the first page of Byron's copy
of Vathek provoking Byron to compose the stanzas
beginning, "Remember thee, remember thee" under her note.
|
| July 1 |
Byron, dressed as a monk, and Hobhouse attend the masked
ball in honor of the Duke of Wellington at Burlington
House.
In his diary Hobhouse estimates that 1700 people were
seated for the dinner (M 1.459).
|
| July 2? |
Harriette Wilson, a well-known courtesan, writes Byron;
but their correspondence doesn't really begin until after
Byron returns to the Continent. |
| July 3 |
Byron leaves for Six Mile Bottom, having been delayed in
his visit to Annabella Milbanke by her mother's absence from
Kirkby Mallory. |
| July 6 |
Byron arrives at Cambridge and dines with Scrope Davies,
Kinnaird, and Hobhouse. |
| July 7- |
Byron and the others start for London. |
| July 7- |
In town for the next week, Byron tries to force the Hansons
to act on Claughton's lack of payment for the Newstead
estate.
Byron postpones his vacation plans several times hoping
for a settlement.
|
| July 13 |
Byron's month-long lease on Hastings House at the coast
begins, but Byron remains in London hoping for a settlement
with Claughton.
Until they leave for the seashore, Augusta stays at the
London Hotel in Albemarle Street.
|
| July 20 |
Byron avoids meeting Mary Chaworth by leaving for the coast
with Augusta and her children.
Byron finds the three-week vacation pleasant, visiting
with Hodgson, Cowell, and George Anson Byron.
|
| ? |
Murray publishes Lara (anonymously) in a joint
volume with Samuel Rogers' Jacqueline. |
| August 1 |
Still at Hastings, Byron receives a cryptic letter from
Annabella in which she acknowledges an "imperfect" attachment
to him. |
| August 11 |
Byron returns to London, to settle the Claughton suit. He
again misses seeing Mary Chaworth, as she had let Hastings
House after him.
Hobhouse reports that Murray has sold 6000 copies of the
Lara volume.
|
| August 20 |
Byron signs the paperwork to terminate Claughton's
contract.
Of the 28,000 earnest money paid in, Claughton gave up
all but 3000 and returned the property to Byron.
Byron, Augusta, and the Leigh children travel to
Newstead.
Unknown to Byron, Mary Chaworth has a nervous breakdown
while at Hastings.
Byron continues his correspondence with Annabella
Milbanke, while Augusta tries to arrange a marriage for him
with Lady Charlotte Leveson Gower.
|
| ? |
Byron accepts 700 from Murray for the copyright of
Lara, marking the first time Byron ever accepted
copyright fees for his own use. |
| September 9 |
Byron posts a marriage proposal to Annabella
Milbanke. |
| September 19 |
Byron receives Annabella's acceptance. |
