;



If You Thought Byron Was Bad You Should Have Met His Family

Historians in the News
tags: English history, poetry, Lord Byron



Lord Byron is as famous for scandalous affairs, incest with his half-sister and a heroic death in Greece as he is for poetry.

Yet newly discovered records suggest that those exploits were tame by his family’s standards. Not for nothing was his great-uncle William, 5th Baron Byron, remembered as “the wicked lord” — an epithet he was known to revel in.

William, who succeeded to the title and estates at age 13, went on to kill a cousin, abduct an actress and squander a fortune. In a new book, the historian Emily Brand reveals untold adventures and sheds light on the murky outrages of Byron’s 18th century forebears, including (but not limited to) homicide, cowardice and cuckoldry.

Read entire article at The Times

comments powered by Disqus