‘My heart is withered away, so that I forget to eat my bread’: The level of the ‘deep horrors’ can be gauged by the fact that Annabella felt it necessary to write in shorthand (Statement G, 1816) that Byron claimed to know his sister wore drawers, ‘with an emphasis perfectly unequivocal’. (See note to p. 74 above, ‘It is so like him’.)
Mrs Leigh ‘submitted to his [Byron’s] affection, but never appeared gratified by it’: AIB, Narrative S, confirmed in Narrative R (late 1816 to 1817). The narratives were reports, rather than legal statements. (See note to p. 74 above, ‘It is so like him’.)
she ‘did not wish to detain us’: ibid.
Chapter Seven: Unlucky for Some: 13 Piccadilly Terrace (1815–16)
‘Hey diddle! diddle’: I am indebted to Sammy Jay at Peter Harrington for a viewing of the violin and the poem (23 July 1815). The poem has never been published. The violin’s provenance and authenticity remains alluringly unproven, but the signature is in Byron’s hand. It is privately owned.
‘It was an instant of revenge . . . and her voice of kindness extinguished it’: Statement K, late 1816 (see Ch. 6, note to p. 74, ‘It is so like him’).
‘I believe he burnt it afterwards’: Narrative S, written as part of a sequel to Narrative Q, July 1816 (see Ch. 6, note to p. 74, ‘It is so like him’).
‘My Night Mare is my own personalty [sic]’: Byron to Douglas Kinnaird, 20 January 1817, BL&J, vol. 5.
‘I meant to marry a woman who would be my friend’: Statement F, March 1817 (see Ch. 6, note to p. 74, ‘It is so like him’).
‘unless there is a woman (and not any or every woman) in the way’: Byron’s journal, 26 November 1813, BL&J, vol. 3.
‘B has just found out an Etymology for Blücher’s name which is quite in your way’: AIB to RN, 15 August 1815, Dep. Lovelace Byron 29, fol. 109.
‘B said it was a memento left us by our honoured parent’: AIB to JN, 17 August 1815, Dep. Lovelace Byron 29, fols. 111–12.
‘gratefully acknowledged by B’s voracious stomach’: Ethel Mayne, The Life and Letters of Anne Isabella, Lady Noel Byron (Charles Scribner, 1929), p. 184.
‘She is diffident – she is very young, not more, I think, than nineteen’: Anna Eliot Ticknor (ed.), Life, Letters & Journals of George Ticknor, 2 vols. (Houghton Mifflin, 1900), vol. 1, p. 53.
‘as if he were not to see her for a month’: Ticknor, op. cit., p. 50.
‘a good kind thing . . . the best little wife in the world’: Both tributes were cited by AIB in Narrative F, March 1817 (see Ch. 6, note to p. 74, ‘It is so like him’).
whether ‘there ever was a better or even brighter, a kinder or a more amiable & agreeable being: Byron to Thomas Moore, 8 March 1816, BL&J, vol. 5.
‘Annabella I am sure requires country air’: JN to Byron, 11 August 1815, NLS.
‘I always feel . . . as if I had more reasons to love you’: AIB to AL, n.d., Tuesday evening, early August 1815, in Rowland Prothero (ed.), The Works of Lord Byron, 6 vols. (John Murray, 1898–1902), vol. 3, pp. 210–12.
A coded ‘Not frac.’ signified ‘not fractious’: Byron to AIB, 31 August 1815, BL&J, vol. 4.
‘I was very ill,’ she later recalled: Statement G, 1816 (see Ch. 6, note to p. 74, ‘It is so like him’).
Byron’s own was signed, as Annabella’s had been, with the mysterious ‘–A—da’: Byron to AIB, 1 September 1815, BL&J, vol. 4.
amidst ‘the very distressing circumstance to which we must look forward’: AIB to JN, 7 October 1815, Dep. Lovelace Byron 29, fols. 134–5.
‘In short,’ wrote Annabella, ‘they yelped and he snapped’: AIB to RN, 4 November 1815, Dep. Lovelace Byron 29.
‘God knows what he may do’: Statement by Mrs Clermont, 22 January 1816 (see Ch. 6, note to p. 74, ‘It is so like him’).
Annabella credited Augusta’s reassuring company with having prevented her from doing so: AIB to Lady Melbourne, 4 January 1816, Jonathan David Gross (ed.), Byron’s ‘Corbeau Blanc’: The Life and Letters of Lady Melbourne (Rice University Press, 1997), pp. 331–3.
‘for a considerable time before my confinement he [Byron] would not see me’: Statement B, added shortly afterwards to AIB’s first statement of 18 January 1816, to her mother. Underlinings probably indicate where Annabella’s mother felt that the record would carry most weight. (See Ch. 6, note to p. 74, ‘It is so like him’)
‘The impression . . . made upon my mind’: Mrs Clermont, see note to p. 97 above, ‘God knows what he may do’.
Byron had spoken out to him against marriage: ‘talking of going abroad’: Hobhouse’s Diary, 25 November 1815, see note on p. 487.
‘would probably say that she has seen Lord B appear personally fond of me’: AIB, Statement to JN at Kirkby, January 1816, and additional statement relating to the nurse, March 1816 (see Ch. 6, note to p. 74, ‘It is so like him’).
‘Amongst other unkind things said to me’: Additions to Statement made by AIB to her mother at Kirkby Mallory, 18 January 1816 (see Ch. 6, note to p. 74, ‘It is so like him’).
‘She [Annabella] cryed’: Mrs Clermont’s Statement, see note to p. 97 above, ‘God knows what he may do’.
According to her later statements, this was the only occasion upon which Lady Byron feared for her life: Statement U, ‘Desultory’, partly dictated by AIB to Mrs Clermont, March 1816 (see Ch. 6, note to p. 74, ‘It is so like him’).
Chapter Eight: The Separation (1816)
the expectation of Byron’s imminent arrival remained firmly in place: The 1816 separation correspondence between AIB and AL is given in Rowland Prothero (ed.), The Works of Lord Byron, 6 vols. (John Murray,
