By Jovan Stipić

“He is really the only topic of almost any conversation.”

Now, dear reader, I would never say something like that about myself, egoless as I am; no, that's up to others to say. But enough about me, this quote is of Lord Byron after "Child Harold" had been published.

The Duchess of Devonshire was even quoted to say, "Men jealous of him, women of each other." And that was not a hyperbola. Women wrote to Byron in the hundreds, begging for his lock of hair or any kind of attention from the bad-boy poet.

But, alas, love comes too late. Byron already had eyes for only one person. A novelist, a peer of Byron’s. None other than Lady Caroline Lamb.

She was a lovely young woman who, like Byron, had a troubled youth, thankfully not caused by her mother but by an illness that almost ended her life several times. They had met in the Holland House, where she famously coined the phrase "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" about Lord Byron. At least, according to word of mouth, there is no concrete historical evidence that she said so, but it remained as his epitaph either way.

Over the following months, they were often seen with one another, with Byron giving her the nickname "Caro," which she proudly and publicly used and wore like it was in fashion. And that was something that they both were ("in fashion"). It wasn't clear how in love Byron was with her or whether he was faithful to her, which he really had no reason to as she was married at the time. All marriages of note back then had at least an affair or two to boast of, so it was nothing to brag about. But after Byron broke things off with her a year later, her husband was so ashamed that she was being put aside and exiled to Ireland for a time.

Ah, the quirks of British society – where being cheated on is less embarrassing than your wife's lover calling it quits with her, right? Well, not under my roof!

However, Byron and she remained in contact, and it was clear that she wished to continue where they left off once she was back in London. However, Byron had no such plans. He was the most wanted bachelor in England, and it was clear that she was not interesting to him anymore.

Things came to a head during the ball made in honor of the Duke of Wellington (of Waterloo fame) where he publicly insulted her. She, after breaking a wine bottle, tried cutting her wrists during the ball. Though the cuts were not of the lethal kind, and it was clear it was more of a scene than an actual attempt on her own life, it was clear that Byron's manipulations were getting to her. The whole affair would greatly affect her later life, as she would continue to stalk him and write to him in her poetry. Byron, being Byron, sometimes replied cordially and sometimes rather aggressively.

We should also note that, while it is clear that Byron was being rather vengeful towards her ever since breaking things off with her… we never found out exactly why. If one were to read his poems to her (which you will not find here as there are other women we need to get to), it was clear that he was rather spiteful and wounded because of something that happened between them.

Was it because she was already married, meaning there was no real future between them? While I did mention that we do not know how much Byron actually loved her, compared to his other adventures, he seems more affectionate towards her than he was towards the rest. This, of course, does not excuse his behavior, but it may help us understand it.

On the front, Caroline looked like a perfect fit for Byron. She was known as a charming, witty young woman who gave not the tiniest bit of… well, you know, about what the British society thought of her. Even their affair was known to be wild and rather kinky, with Byron enticing her to cross-dress while they engaged in scandalous lovemaking. To put it politely. Even the words that she described Byron with, "Mad, bad and dangerous to know," actually fit her even more so than Lord Byron.

It is even claimed that he broke things off because she was as unstable as she was. Without knowing the full story, though, we simply can't say who did what and why; what we can conclude is that Byron's unstable relationship with women began with his mother when he was a child and that Caroline, as unstable as she probably was, was a victim of his much more so than he was of hers.

But, before I leave you, maybe a piece of life advice? And it fits perfectly into the epilogue of their stormy relationship. A famous playwright, William Congreve, once wrote, "Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd,  Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd."

I am sure all of my female readers are having a cheeky giggle right now while men loosen their collars, but how exactly does that fit into Lord Byron? Well… until next time.

Adieu.