The Life of Lord Byron

-Troubles of his Mother-Early

have continued to be reckoned among the eminent families of the kingdom, under the names of Buron and

of their possessions, it docs not appear, that, before the time of Char

coln. In the Domesday Book, Ralph, the direct ancestor of the poet, ranks high among the tenants of the Crown, in Notts and Derbyshire; in the latter county he resided at Horestan Castle, from which he took his title. One of the lords of Horestan was a hostage for the payment of

ng at Milford, and fought gallantly at the battle of Bosworth, against Richard III., for which he was afterwards appointed Constable of Nottingham Castle and Warden of Sherwood

t of Sherwood. It was to him that, on the dissolution of the monasteries, the church and priory of Newstead, in the county of Nottingham, together wi

usly distinguished himself, he was made Governor of Chester, and gallantly defended that city against the Parliamentary army. Sir John Byron, the brother and heir of Sir Nicholas, was, at the coronation of James I., made a Knight of the Bath. By his marriage with Anne, the eldest daughter of Sir Richard Molyneux, he had eleven sons and a daughter. The eldest served under his uncle in the Netherlands; and in the year 1641 was appointed by King Charles I

e, respectively. He was also made Field-Marshal-General of all his Majesty's forces in Worcestershire, Cheshire, Shropshire and North Wales: nor were these trusts and hon

dgehill, and appointed Governor of Appleby Castle, in Westmorland, and afterwards of Newark, which he defended w

en weeks after their nuptials. His second wife was the daughter of the Earl of Portland, by whom he had three sons, who all died before their father. His third wife was Frances, daughter of Lord Berkley, of Stratton, from whom the poet was descended. Her eldest son, William, born in 1722, succeeded to the family honours on the death of h

accordingly fought without seconds by the dim light of a single candle; and, although Mr Chaworth was the more skilful swordsman of the two, he received a mortal wound; but he

or six guineas each. It lasted two days, and at the conclusion he was unanimously pronounced guilty of manslaughter. On being brought up

cated at Westminster School, and afterwards placed in the Guards, where his conduct became so irregular and profligate that his father, the admiral, though a good-natured man, discarded him long before his death. In 1778 he acquired extraordinary éclat by the seduction of the Marchioness of Caermarthen, under circumstances which have few parallels in the licentiousness of fashionable life. The meanness

descent, and of a respectable fortune for a Scottish heiress, the only motive w

lies of the realm, they have no claim to the distinction which the po

ow'rs John of Ho

which he found connected with two groups of heads on the old panels of Newstead. Yet the account of them is vague and conjectural, for it was not until ages after the Crusades that the abbey came into the possession of the family; and it is not pro

her, which represents a Saracen with a European female between him and a Christian soldier, is, perhaps, an ecclesiastical allegory, descriptive of the Saracen and the Christian warri

t to institute any particular investigation. They were exactly such as might be

about ￡23,500, was all wasted in the space of two years; at the end of wh

of January, 1788, gave birth, in Holles Street, London, to her first and only child, the poet. The name of Gordon was added to that of his family in compliance with a con

their reunion was comfortless, and a separation soon took place. Still their rupture was not final, for they occasionally visited and drank tea with each other. The

6, after an attack of the scarlet fever, he passed some time at Ballater, a summer resort for health and gaiety, about forty miles up the Dee from Aberdeen. Although the circumstances of Mrs Byron were at this period exceedingly straitened, she received a visit from her husban

t of ￡300, the interest on which reduced her income to ￡135; but, much to her credit, she contrived to live without increasing her embarrassments until the death of he

d and vehement. She was indeed a woman of quick feelings and strong passions; and probably it was by the strength and sincerity of her sensibility that she retained so long the affection of her son, towards whom

hat time in Scotland. It was kept by a Mr Bowers, whom Byron has described as a dapper, spruce person, with whom he made no progress. How long he remained with Mr Bowers is not m

of mild manners, good-natured, and painstaking. His third instructor was a serious, saturnine, kind young man, named Paterson, the son of a shoemaker, but a good scholar and a rigid Presbyterian. It is somewhat curious in the

ithal affectionate and companionable; this, however, is an opinion given of him after he had become celebrated; for a very different impression has unquestionably remained among some who carry their recollections back to his childhood. By them he has been

and a faithful servant of the name of Mary Gray, left Aberdeen for Newstead. Previously to their departure, Mrs Byron sold the furniture of her humble lod