“Coffee, according to the women of Denmark, is to the body what the Word of the Lord is to the soul.” .... Byron, Don Juan.
The trait of a genius can bear fruit in many form of expression; particularly amongst those who passionately consume the world's most popular beverage, namely; coffee. That the poet Byron was amongst those literati was not by accident nor design as the poet himself would put it. With a brew at hand some men forge their own paths by sheer power of will. In like fashion, Byron shaped his destiny by the sheer force of his rebellious personality. The writer Byron shall ever be remembered as one of those literary consummates that dared to pen words to verse at the inspiration of several rounds of coffee. Ever the center of attention; ever the self-indulgent role model, the new romantic arch-type hero; was Byron himself. In Byron's own words:
"I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;" .... Byron, Don Juan.
George Gordon Byron was born on the 22nd January 1788, the son of Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron, a British army officer of the Coldstream Guards, and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon. To understand the complicated life of the great poet and writer George Gordon Byron then one must understand the circumstances of his birth and the life of his profligate father "Mad Jack" Byron. Captain John Byron was the grandson of William Byron, 4th Baron Byron of Rochdale. In 1778 he had eloped with Amelia Osborne, the Marchioness of Carmarthen, daughter of Robert Darcy, 4th Earl of Holderness, and married at the time to Francis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds. The elopement created a scandal of the day. Together they fled to Europe and after she obtained a divorce from Francis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds they then returned to London and married on 1 June 1779. The couple had one daughter, born on the 26 January 1783, Augusta Maria Byron, but the mother Amelia Osborne died soon after in 1784. John Byron then quickly married a Scottish heiress by the name of Catherine Gordon on 12th May 1785 and changed his surname to Gordon so that he may inherit his wife's large fortune and estate. Catherine Gordon became mother to George Gordon Byron on the 22nd January 1788 but quickly her husband had wasted her fortune and then deserted her and the infant. Catherine Gordon then took her child to Aberdeen and lived in modest circumstances. John Byron then died in 1791 at the age of 35 years in France.
At the age of 10 years George Gordon Byron inherited the English Barony of Byron of Rochdale, to become the 6th Baron Byron, a peerage created in 1643 for the first baron, Sir John Byron who had served King Charles I in the English Civil War, 1642-1647, and was a Royalist supporter as a member of Parliament. The young Byron entered school in Aberdeen and quickly learned to deal with his deformity having been born with one 'club foot' and standing up to the taunts of bullies. He also became ill-disciplined and poor in academia due to his constant mother's interference with his education. The seeds of rebellion were thus early sown. In 1801 the child Byron entered Harrow School near London, founded in 1572 as a school for children of men of means, and where he remained in education until the year 1805. It was at Harrow School where the first inklings of inspiration grew to bloom in later life in the writings of his famous work Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Byron was not noted for academic prowess whislt at Harrow school but he was remembered as a sporty young man and cricketer. In October 1805 Byron entered Trinity College Cambridge at the age of 17 years and as a young man. At Trinity the young Byron learned to resent authority having being told off to rid him self of his pet bull dog. Byron, confident in his own authority would not let men's minds trample over his own. He then retaliated against his masters by taking the confrontation to a whole new level as he escalated their tension. Byron then purchased a tame bear which he would walk around the grounds of Trinity College much to the amusement of fellow students and passers-by. In confrontation Byron learned to fight back against the stamp of authority upon his civil liberties. It was at Trinity that the young Byron quickly grasped the power of his personality. Byron quickly resented the rigidity of character of his elders and learned to stand his ground of principles with a fervent passion. Socializing, drinking spirits and coffees in copious quantities, gambling and literary debate became the spirit of his Cambridge days. Just as importantly, the company of young men and women at the age of 17 years created the first stirrings of real romance and a rapid confusion over his sexuality. Byron soon came to be attracted to men just as much as he was fond of the company of young women. At Cambridge Byron developed an affection for a singing scholar John Edleston but the romance quickly ended when the scholar lost his scholarship and left.
Byron at Cambridge was the young man with cropped hair combed to the front in such a handsome manner that young ladies in society soon became enamored of the young man wherever he would visit in the evenings for social engagements. By the age of 18 Byron was gaining a significant weight problem and to tackle this issue Byron resorted to eating potatoes pickled in vinegar and tea and coffee. So obsessed with his own weight issue Byron even resorted to wear several layers of thick wool to induce sweating when he was alone in his rooms. Byron at Cambridge was always going to be the center of attention and self described "child of passion and the fool of fame".
In 1807 whilst still at Cambridge Byron published his first work 'Hours of Idleness' which subsequently received a scathing attack in the Edinburgh Review.
In 1808, on 4 July, Byron received his A. M. degree from Cambridge and then decamped to Newstead Abbey the home of his descendants tp launch a scathing retaliation of the Edinburgh Review in the form of his writing 'English bards and Scotch Reviewers'.
With ample time on his hands Byron would then decide to follow the course that every young English nobleman would wont to do; to take the grand Tour of Europe. Byron was reckless to say the least; his own mother fearing his creditors hid in Newstead Abbey for the sake of peace and quiet from clamoring collectors. Byron's own mother once quipped that her son possessed a "reckless disregard for money". Thus on 2 July 1809 Byron embarked upon the 'Grand Tour' as every young noble man would do but in this particular year with the ongoing conflict with Napoleon, Byron was forced to cut short the Grand Tour and spend most of the time around the Mediterranean. From England he crossed to Portugal leavinh England via the port of Falmouth on 2 July 1809, and then on to Spain and Malta, Albania and finally reaching Greece by December 1809. It was whilst in Albania where he came into contact with Islam and became deeply impressed with Sufism. Byron spend the whole of 1810 absorbing Greek and Turkish cultures but also commenced his writings for his famous work 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'.
In 1810 Byron visited Istanbul where he came to acquire a taste for' sharbaat' (a fruit juice extract mixed with sugar and cold water). The word itself is Arabic in origin and literally means 'sweet'. Upon Byron's visit to Istanbul, being a lover of tea and coffee to help him reduce his consumption of food, he also discovered that both tea and coffee were served in Turkey as very sweet and were also described as being 'sharbaat'. Byron made a lot of friends in Turkey and later on wrote a lot of poems with a Turkish theme; more so than upon any Greek subject as a matter in fact. Byron returns to England in 1811 on 14 July only to experience the loss of his mother in the same year.
In 1812 Byron finally won critical acclaim for his first major publication: 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage', Cantos I and II. The publication was an instant success. The lengthy narrative poem describes a young man, Childe Harold, disillusioned with life and weary of the Napoleonic Wars. Moody and outcast from society, the Byronic hero contemplates life and the world and becomes disenchanted on his travels.
In Canto I he writes:
"And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart,
And from his fellow bacchanals would flee;
'Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start,
But Pride congeal'd the drop within his ee;
Apart he stalk'd in joyless reverie,
And from his native land resolv'd to go,
And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;
With pleasure drugg'd, he almost long'd for woe,
And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below".
And again in Canto III he writes:
"Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts".
Against the world and the world against him; the character was already cast in stone from the memories of childhood rebellion to his contempt of authoritarian rule at Cambridge.
In the same year 1812, in London, at the age of 24 years, Lord Byron delivered his first speech to the House of Lords at Parliament whilst debating the Frame breaking Act. Unforgettably, not more than a week after his maiden speech Byron wrote to a friend that “I spoke very violent sentences with a sort of modest impudence, abused everything and everybody, put the Lord Chancellor very much out of humor, and if I may believe what I hear, have not lost any character in the experiment”.
Whilst in London Byron was a sensation. Young, enigmatic, out-spoken and controversial whether with the gentleman or without; the hero was the talk of the town. In a reminiscence of Lord Byron's profile appearing in the New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal issue, January 1, 1827, Byron was described as a frequenter of the Drury Lane plays in the year 1812. At a diner party at one Mr Murray's residence in Albemarle Street, Central London, in 1812, after diner and after-diner coffee had been completed, Byron was noted as commenting to guests that "To be thin nothing is to be done without it; no man of genius was ever fat!" which explains his predilection for extreme dieting. Byron also went on to say "When I was at school at Harrow...I was as fat as Lord Sligo ... This disgraceful infirmity I afterwards determined to get rid of. accordingly, when I quitted school and came to town (London), I got some dresses of flannel to envelope me from head to foot. Thus dressed I stood at the wicket while my servants bowled to me, two or three hours in the day (playing cricket)". Asked if the weight loss scheme actually worked Byron replied: "partly, but not entirely. I was put to profuse perspirations but was not reduced as I expected. I therefore determined to effect the rest by starvation. You observed what I ate for dinner today. Well, this is Saturday. I shall not eat again until Monday."
1812 not only became a social success for Lord Byron; it also became a year of flirtacious habit and multiple scandals the most prominent being the affair with Lady Caroline Lamb, who was already married and with an autistic son, another affair with the countess of Oxford and yet another affair with Lady Webster.
In January 1813 Byron publishes the 'Giaour' and the 'Bride of Abydos'. However, deeply involved with controversy and debts accumulating, Lord Byron, the center of attention of London society would plunge into an even more ambiguous relationship that would never escape the young poet. In 1813 Byron met with his half-sister Augusta Leigh for the first time and was capitvated by her. Almost immediately watching eyes could not fail to notice their mutual attraction and rumors of incest began to swirl through society; true or not. But the implication was not entirely unfounded as in 1814 Augusta Leigh gave birth to a daughter, Medora, for whom the father was not recorded. In yet another act of self-centered gain, Byron then married a rich heiress by the name of Annabella Milbanke, the only child of Sir Ralph Milbanke, 6th Baronet. They married on 2nd January 1815 and their daughter Ada was born in the same year in December 1815. However, Byron's continued fascination with his half-sister Augusta as well as with a stream of young ladies made his wife Annabella deeply unhappy. Considering her husband insane Annabella walked out on Byron with her daughter and filed for divorce. Early 1816, Byron published the 'Siege of Corinth'. But the separation with wife was by now complete. The divorce proceedings were seen as a confirmation of Byron's incest with Augusta Leigh and Byron was forced to leave England on 24 April 1816 amidst a growing swirl of scandalous gossip and pressing financial debts. Unknown to Byron this would be the last time he would be seen on English shores.
In 1816 Byron settled near Lake Geneva in Switzerland where he met another acclaimed young English poet; Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley, and Claire Clairmont. Thereafter in the same year Byron traveled down towards Venice where he came to settle. The favorite cafe that Byron habituated was cafe Florian where he would seek to meet local gentry and engage in intelligent conversations. Byron was also a regular visitor at cafe Quadri where the composer Wagner once brooded. Whilst in Venice perchance Byron became enthused and fascinated with Armenian culture when he visited the abbots of San Lazzaro degli Armeni at Venice. At Venice, with the help of Father H. Avgerian, Byron soon learned the Armenian language. In 1817, 12 January, Claire Clairmont gave birth to a daughter named Allegra to which Byron owned that he was indeed the father. Byron has finally sold Newstead Abbey in 1817 and by June that year, 'Manfred' is published.
Byron then visited Rome where he visited the famous cafe Greco which was also a meeting place of such famous writers as Goethe, Wagner and Anatole France and many other distinguished European gentlemen who had visited Rome as part of the Grand Tour in their youth. Upon returning to Venice Byron finished the 4th canto Chile Harold and also wrote the first five cantos of Don Juan between 1818 and 1820. In Venice by 1919 it is rumored that Byron had slept with as many as 250 women! However, finally, in 1919 in Ravenna, Byron found a beautiful young lady and married the young Italian aristocrat, the countess, Teresa Guiccioli.
In 1820 Byron is living in the Guiccioli Palace at Venice and his daughter Allegra is invited to come live with him but who tragically dies in April 1822 at the age of 5 years old.
Whilst in Venice Byron received his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley who also came down from Lake Geneva. In letters Shelley portrays Byron's daily life as follows: "Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual custom … at 12. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From six to eight we gallop through the pine forest which divide Ravenna from the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning. I don’t suppose this will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. Lord B.’s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the masters of it…". In 1821 - 1822 Byron Finished Cantos 6 -12 of his masterpiece Don Juan. Don Juan was presented as a lover of coffee and in Canto 9 Byron writes several coffee drinking references of the genius of the hero Don Juan as thus:
"Well—Juan, after bathing in the sea,
Came always back to coffee and Haidee".
and again
" 'T is pity wine should be so deleterious,
For tea and coffee leave us much more serious"
His friend the English poet Shelley was fond of the sea and thus rented a small house near the sea near La Spezia. However, on the 8 July 1822 the poet Shelley was drowned in an unfortunate boating accident whilst at sea as his vessel headed into a squall.
In 1823 Byron was becoming bored with life in Genoa and increasingly irked by the tyranny of the oppressive Ottoman Empire in a land he would instantly recognize as the mother of all civil liberties; Hellas herself. Representatives of Greece were making please for support in Italy and Byron thus aroused could not contain his despair for the lost liberty of Greece and thus enthusiastically embraced the cause for Her emancipation.
In 1823 Byron chartered a vessel by the name of Hercules and on the 16th July Byron set forth from the port of Genoa to arrive at the Ionian island of Kefalonia on 4th August. Byron refitted the vessel and then set sail for the Western Greek coast and landed at Missolonghi on 29th December 123. Upon meeting the Greek politician Alexandros Mavrokordatos at Missolonghi they jointly agreed to raise a force to attack the Ottoman held fortress of Lepanto, at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth. Byron did not possess any military experience but assumed command of part of the rebel force to attack Lepanto. But before the military expedition could set sail for Lepanto on the 15th February 1824 Byron fell ill with a flu. His doctors may have used unsterilized needles when they attempted to blood-let the patient as was the fashion of the time. Byron subsequently took on a fever, most likely from contracting sepsis and died in Missolonghi on 19th April 1824 unable to take a single part in his vision of liberating Greece from the Ottoman Empire. The death of Byron shocked the public at home in Great Britain and the Greeks mourned the loss of a hero although he did not see any military conflict. According to some reports the body had it's heart removed before embalming to keep the spirit of Byron on Greek soil. Upon return to great Britain, Westminster Abey refused permission to bury Byron as an English hero on the grounds of his scandalous relationships and concern for public morality. Byron was buried at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire and a marble slab was laid above the grave as a gift from the King of Greece in return for his sacrifice for the Greek Nation.
"I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;" .... Byron, Don Juan.
 |
| Portrait of the young Lord Byron c.1837 Painted by Henry Pierce Bone - Courtesy Christies. |
George Gordon Byron was born on the 22nd January 1788, the son of Captain John "Mad Jack" Byron, a British army officer of the Coldstream Guards, and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon. To understand the complicated life of the great poet and writer George Gordon Byron then one must understand the circumstances of his birth and the life of his profligate father "Mad Jack" Byron. Captain John Byron was the grandson of William Byron, 4th Baron Byron of Rochdale. In 1778 he had eloped with Amelia Osborne, the Marchioness of Carmarthen, daughter of Robert Darcy, 4th Earl of Holderness, and married at the time to Francis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds. The elopement created a scandal of the day. Together they fled to Europe and after she obtained a divorce from Francis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds they then returned to London and married on 1 June 1779. The couple had one daughter, born on the 26 January 1783, Augusta Maria Byron, but the mother Amelia Osborne died soon after in 1784. John Byron then quickly married a Scottish heiress by the name of Catherine Gordon on 12th May 1785 and changed his surname to Gordon so that he may inherit his wife's large fortune and estate. Catherine Gordon became mother to George Gordon Byron on the 22nd January 1788 but quickly her husband had wasted her fortune and then deserted her and the infant. Catherine Gordon then took her child to Aberdeen and lived in modest circumstances. John Byron then died in 1791 at the age of 35 years in France.
At the age of 10 years George Gordon Byron inherited the English Barony of Byron of Rochdale, to become the 6th Baron Byron, a peerage created in 1643 for the first baron, Sir John Byron who had served King Charles I in the English Civil War, 1642-1647, and was a Royalist supporter as a member of Parliament. The young Byron entered school in Aberdeen and quickly learned to deal with his deformity having been born with one 'club foot' and standing up to the taunts of bullies. He also became ill-disciplined and poor in academia due to his constant mother's interference with his education. The seeds of rebellion were thus early sown. In 1801 the child Byron entered Harrow School near London, founded in 1572 as a school for children of men of means, and where he remained in education until the year 1805. It was at Harrow School where the first inklings of inspiration grew to bloom in later life in the writings of his famous work Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Byron was not noted for academic prowess whislt at Harrow school but he was remembered as a sporty young man and cricketer. In October 1805 Byron entered Trinity College Cambridge at the age of 17 years and as a young man. At Trinity the young Byron learned to resent authority having being told off to rid him self of his pet bull dog. Byron, confident in his own authority would not let men's minds trample over his own. He then retaliated against his masters by taking the confrontation to a whole new level as he escalated their tension. Byron then purchased a tame bear which he would walk around the grounds of Trinity College much to the amusement of fellow students and passers-by. In confrontation Byron learned to fight back against the stamp of authority upon his civil liberties. It was at Trinity that the young Byron quickly grasped the power of his personality. Byron quickly resented the rigidity of character of his elders and learned to stand his ground of principles with a fervent passion. Socializing, drinking spirits and coffees in copious quantities, gambling and literary debate became the spirit of his Cambridge days. Just as importantly, the company of young men and women at the age of 17 years created the first stirrings of real romance and a rapid confusion over his sexuality. Byron soon came to be attracted to men just as much as he was fond of the company of young women. At Cambridge Byron developed an affection for a singing scholar John Edleston but the romance quickly ended when the scholar lost his scholarship and left.
 |
| George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, by Richard Westall before 1836 |
Byron at Cambridge was the young man with cropped hair combed to the front in such a handsome manner that young ladies in society soon became enamored of the young man wherever he would visit in the evenings for social engagements. By the age of 18 Byron was gaining a significant weight problem and to tackle this issue Byron resorted to eating potatoes pickled in vinegar and tea and coffee. So obsessed with his own weight issue Byron even resorted to wear several layers of thick wool to induce sweating when he was alone in his rooms. Byron at Cambridge was always going to be the center of attention and self described "child of passion and the fool of fame".
In 1807 whilst still at Cambridge Byron published his first work 'Hours of Idleness' which subsequently received a scathing attack in the Edinburgh Review.
In 1808, on 4 July, Byron received his A. M. degree from Cambridge and then decamped to Newstead Abbey the home of his descendants tp launch a scathing retaliation of the Edinburgh Review in the form of his writing 'English bards and Scotch Reviewers'.
With ample time on his hands Byron would then decide to follow the course that every young English nobleman would wont to do; to take the grand Tour of Europe. Byron was reckless to say the least; his own mother fearing his creditors hid in Newstead Abbey for the sake of peace and quiet from clamoring collectors. Byron's own mother once quipped that her son possessed a "reckless disregard for money". Thus on 2 July 1809 Byron embarked upon the 'Grand Tour' as every young noble man would do but in this particular year with the ongoing conflict with Napoleon, Byron was forced to cut short the Grand Tour and spend most of the time around the Mediterranean. From England he crossed to Portugal leavinh England via the port of Falmouth on 2 July 1809, and then on to Spain and Malta, Albania and finally reaching Greece by December 1809. It was whilst in Albania where he came into contact with Islam and became deeply impressed with Sufism. Byron spend the whole of 1810 absorbing Greek and Turkish cultures but also commenced his writings for his famous work 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'.
In 1810 Byron visited Istanbul where he came to acquire a taste for' sharbaat' (a fruit juice extract mixed with sugar and cold water). The word itself is Arabic in origin and literally means 'sweet'. Upon Byron's visit to Istanbul, being a lover of tea and coffee to help him reduce his consumption of food, he also discovered that both tea and coffee were served in Turkey as very sweet and were also described as being 'sharbaat'. Byron made a lot of friends in Turkey and later on wrote a lot of poems with a Turkish theme; more so than upon any Greek subject as a matter in fact. Byron returns to England in 1811 on 14 July only to experience the loss of his mother in the same year.
In 1812 Byron finally won critical acclaim for his first major publication: 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage', Cantos I and II. The publication was an instant success. The lengthy narrative poem describes a young man, Childe Harold, disillusioned with life and weary of the Napoleonic Wars. Moody and outcast from society, the Byronic hero contemplates life and the world and becomes disenchanted on his travels.
In Canto I he writes:
"And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart,
And from his fellow bacchanals would flee;
'Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start,
But Pride congeal'd the drop within his ee;
Apart he stalk'd in joyless reverie,
And from his native land resolv'd to go,
And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;
With pleasure drugg'd, he almost long'd for woe,
And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below".
And again in Canto III he writes:
"Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts".
Against the world and the world against him; the character was already cast in stone from the memories of childhood rebellion to his contempt of authoritarian rule at Cambridge.
 |
| Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage - Italy 1832 JMW Turner. Tate Gallery. |
In the same year 1812, in London, at the age of 24 years, Lord Byron delivered his first speech to the House of Lords at Parliament whilst debating the Frame breaking Act. Unforgettably, not more than a week after his maiden speech Byron wrote to a friend that “I spoke very violent sentences with a sort of modest impudence, abused everything and everybody, put the Lord Chancellor very much out of humor, and if I may believe what I hear, have not lost any character in the experiment”.
Whilst in London Byron was a sensation. Young, enigmatic, out-spoken and controversial whether with the gentleman or without; the hero was the talk of the town. In a reminiscence of Lord Byron's profile appearing in the New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal issue, January 1, 1827, Byron was described as a frequenter of the Drury Lane plays in the year 1812. At a diner party at one Mr Murray's residence in Albemarle Street, Central London, in 1812, after diner and after-diner coffee had been completed, Byron was noted as commenting to guests that "To be thin nothing is to be done without it; no man of genius was ever fat!" which explains his predilection for extreme dieting. Byron also went on to say "When I was at school at Harrow...I was as fat as Lord Sligo ... This disgraceful infirmity I afterwards determined to get rid of. accordingly, when I quitted school and came to town (London), I got some dresses of flannel to envelope me from head to foot. Thus dressed I stood at the wicket while my servants bowled to me, two or three hours in the day (playing cricket)". Asked if the weight loss scheme actually worked Byron replied: "partly, but not entirely. I was put to profuse perspirations but was not reduced as I expected. I therefore determined to effect the rest by starvation. You observed what I ate for dinner today. Well, this is Saturday. I shall not eat again until Monday."
1812 not only became a social success for Lord Byron; it also became a year of flirtacious habit and multiple scandals the most prominent being the affair with Lady Caroline Lamb, who was already married and with an autistic son, another affair with the countess of Oxford and yet another affair with Lady Webster.
In January 1813 Byron publishes the 'Giaour' and the 'Bride of Abydos'. However, deeply involved with controversy and debts accumulating, Lord Byron, the center of attention of London society would plunge into an even more ambiguous relationship that would never escape the young poet. In 1813 Byron met with his half-sister Augusta Leigh for the first time and was capitvated by her. Almost immediately watching eyes could not fail to notice their mutual attraction and rumors of incest began to swirl through society; true or not. But the implication was not entirely unfounded as in 1814 Augusta Leigh gave birth to a daughter, Medora, for whom the father was not recorded. In yet another act of self-centered gain, Byron then married a rich heiress by the name of Annabella Milbanke, the only child of Sir Ralph Milbanke, 6th Baronet. They married on 2nd January 1815 and their daughter Ada was born in the same year in December 1815. However, Byron's continued fascination with his half-sister Augusta as well as with a stream of young ladies made his wife Annabella deeply unhappy. Considering her husband insane Annabella walked out on Byron with her daughter and filed for divorce. Early 1816, Byron published the 'Siege of Corinth'. But the separation with wife was by now complete. The divorce proceedings were seen as a confirmation of Byron's incest with Augusta Leigh and Byron was forced to leave England on 24 April 1816 amidst a growing swirl of scandalous gossip and pressing financial debts. Unknown to Byron this would be the last time he would be seen on English shores.
In 1816 Byron settled near Lake Geneva in Switzerland where he met another acclaimed young English poet; Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley, and Claire Clairmont. Thereafter in the same year Byron traveled down towards Venice where he came to settle. The favorite cafe that Byron habituated was cafe Florian where he would seek to meet local gentry and engage in intelligent conversations. Byron was also a regular visitor at cafe Quadri where the composer Wagner once brooded. Whilst in Venice perchance Byron became enthused and fascinated with Armenian culture when he visited the abbots of San Lazzaro degli Armeni at Venice. At Venice, with the help of Father H. Avgerian, Byron soon learned the Armenian language. In 1817, 12 January, Claire Clairmont gave birth to a daughter named Allegra to which Byron owned that he was indeed the father. Byron has finally sold Newstead Abbey in 1817 and by June that year, 'Manfred' is published.
Byron then visited Rome where he visited the famous cafe Greco which was also a meeting place of such famous writers as Goethe, Wagner and Anatole France and many other distinguished European gentlemen who had visited Rome as part of the Grand Tour in their youth. Upon returning to Venice Byron finished the 4th canto Chile Harold and also wrote the first five cantos of Don Juan between 1818 and 1820. In Venice by 1919 it is rumored that Byron had slept with as many as 250 women! However, finally, in 1919 in Ravenna, Byron found a beautiful young lady and married the young Italian aristocrat, the countess, Teresa Guiccioli.
In 1820 Byron is living in the Guiccioli Palace at Venice and his daughter Allegra is invited to come live with him but who tragically dies in April 1822 at the age of 5 years old.
Whilst in Venice Byron received his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley who also came down from Lake Geneva. In letters Shelley portrays Byron's daily life as follows: "Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual custom … at 12. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From six to eight we gallop through the pine forest which divide Ravenna from the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning. I don’t suppose this will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. Lord B.’s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the masters of it…". In 1821 - 1822 Byron Finished Cantos 6 -12 of his masterpiece Don Juan. Don Juan was presented as a lover of coffee and in Canto 9 Byron writes several coffee drinking references of the genius of the hero Don Juan as thus:
"Well—Juan, after bathing in the sea,
Came always back to coffee and Haidee".
and again
" 'T is pity wine should be so deleterious,
For tea and coffee leave us much more serious"
His friend the English poet Shelley was fond of the sea and thus rented a small house near the sea near La Spezia. However, on the 8 July 1822 the poet Shelley was drowned in an unfortunate boating accident whilst at sea as his vessel headed into a squall.
 | ||
The Funeral of Shelley by Louis Édouard Fournier (1889); pictured in the center are
|
In 1823 Byron was becoming bored with life in Genoa and increasingly irked by the tyranny of the oppressive Ottoman Empire in a land he would instantly recognize as the mother of all civil liberties; Hellas herself. Representatives of Greece were making please for support in Italy and Byron thus aroused could not contain his despair for the lost liberty of Greece and thus enthusiastically embraced the cause for Her emancipation.
 |
| Lord Byron in Albanian dress 1835 by Thomas Phillips |
In 1823 Byron chartered a vessel by the name of Hercules and on the 16th July Byron set forth from the port of Genoa to arrive at the Ionian island of Kefalonia on 4th August. Byron refitted the vessel and then set sail for the Western Greek coast and landed at Missolonghi on 29th December 123. Upon meeting the Greek politician Alexandros Mavrokordatos at Missolonghi they jointly agreed to raise a force to attack the Ottoman held fortress of Lepanto, at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth. Byron did not possess any military experience but assumed command of part of the rebel force to attack Lepanto. But before the military expedition could set sail for Lepanto on the 15th February 1824 Byron fell ill with a flu. His doctors may have used unsterilized needles when they attempted to blood-let the patient as was the fashion of the time. Byron subsequently took on a fever, most likely from contracting sepsis and died in Missolonghi on 19th April 1824 unable to take a single part in his vision of liberating Greece from the Ottoman Empire. The death of Byron shocked the public at home in Great Britain and the Greeks mourned the loss of a hero although he did not see any military conflict. According to some reports the body had it's heart removed before embalming to keep the spirit of Byron on Greek soil. Upon return to great Britain, Westminster Abey refused permission to bury Byron as an English hero on the grounds of his scandalous relationships and concern for public morality. Byron was buried at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire and a marble slab was laid above the grave as a gift from the King of Greece in return for his sacrifice for the Greek Nation.
Coffee and it's social history by Pieter Bergli
For those of my readers that have a penchant for art babble then kindly grab a cup of coffee and turn to:
Thank you.
