Lady Caroline Lamb: Regency Era Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Vulgar History Podcast

Lady Caroline Lamb: Regency Era Manic Pixie Dream Girl 

May 6, 2026

Ann: Welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast. This series, we’ve been talking about the Regency era, which is a time period very well known from Regency era romance novels, which is a whole, very popular genre. And we’re joined today by a Regency era romance novelist, it’s Alexandra Vasti. 

Alexandra: Hi! 

Ann: So, you were previously on this podcast doing a Regency Era Sex Ed episode. 

Alexandra: Yes, that was so much fun, thank you so much for having me. 

Ann: Which, fan favourite. It was such a fun episode. Anyway, the Regency era. So, today we’re going to be talking about, just so everybody knows, Lady Caroline Lamb, which was your suggestion. 

Alexandra: I’m so excited. 

Ann: There’s so much to get into. I didn’t know her story at all. I’m obsessed now. There’s so many things I think everyone’s going to be so excited about. 

But first, can I ask you, as a Regency romance novelist, how do you square off the actual history of this era with the expected tropes of these books? If you were to write a book that was straight-up, like, the Regency era, it’s like, everybody’s in a messy, polycule relationship, [Alexandra laughs] everyone’s constantly on opium, everyone’s broke from gambling debts. It’s like, no one would want to read that because that’s not what people want from a Regency romance novel. 

Alexandra: People would say, “This is so inaccurate,” [laughs] which is so funny. 

Ann: How do you balance what people think the Regency is like with what it was like? You do that in your books, and I’m just curious how you find that balance. 

Alexandra: Yeah. I mean, I think that it’s a great question, and it is something that, as a historical writer, especially historical romance, where we’re not necessarily striving for strict historical accuracy, or like, “Let me open your mind to the realities of the day,” it is something that I constantly have to balance, and a line that I have to walk. It’s really important to me to show readers of historical romance that some things are historically accurate that they may not have known. 

For example, I think maybe last time I was on, I talked about my sapphic historical romance, which is called Ladies in Hating, and that book, I was like, I already know, because you see it with Bridgerton, you see it everywhere, that people are going to say, “Well, that’s not real. That’s not accurate. There weren’t women in loving, sexual, romantic relationships with other women. That was not a thing back then. They didn’t know that existed!” So, it was really important to me to fill that book with tons of real, historically accurate people, like the Ladies of Llangollen, who I’m sure we will talk about today because of their connection to Caroline Lamb. 

But also, there absolutely are some aspects of real history that I don’t really spend a lot of time touching on. Like, I do not want to talk about the fact that the roads were full of garbage. There is no garbage disposal; you just throw it out the window, or burn it if you can burn it. So, in London, especially, it’s smelly, there’s trash everywhere, there’s thick, disgusting-smelling smoke. [laughs] You know, I don’t need to include that level of historical accuracy. My characters don’t have syphilis, even though they probably would have. 

So, I think that it’s just a constant sort of balancing of like, what do you want to shine a light on and what do you want to, you know, politely, decorously ignore? And I think it’s a really fun thing for people to read, because we’re all kind of playing in the same sandbox, but doing our own emphases, or putting our own twists in that universe. 

Ann: Yeah, I think, especially just the story of Lady Caroline Lamb and the people who are around her, and her mother, and her aunt, and all these people just really reminded me, I was talking to my friend Lana about this, where it’s on the one extreme end of, like, Regency romance novels, you have like, “Oh my gosh! This lady was seen holding hands with a man, and now they have to get married, or else her reputation will be ruined.” Versus, you have Lady Caroline Lamb and everything she was up to, where it’s like, I don’t know if handholding was the most scandalous thing a young woman could get up to in the actual Regency. 

But the books have become so like… There’s lots more now, but sort of when you think about the typical, like, Regency romance novels of the ‘70s, the ‘80s, it was very prim and proper. And that’s just so many people’s understanding of the Regency. We talked about this in our other episode, like on Bridgerton, where it’s like, “And no one knew what sex was until they got married,” where it’s like, “Uhhh? Mmm? Okay.” 

Alexandra: Absolutely. I do think that there is this sense, and I think it happens across history, like, sort of a flattening of the historical past, or like, “Oh, they didn’t know anything then.” We like to imagine humans, we like to imagine that we’ve grown, right? That we’re so progressive now, and we’re so this, and we’re so much more smarter, and we’re more knowledgeable, and we’re, you know, better in all these ways. And so, I think one of those is we like to assume that the past, that everybody was prim and proper and never stepped a toe out of line. So, I have written many books about women who step way out of line, and I do often get a lot of pushback that, like, “Well, they wouldn’t have been allowed to do that,” or “They wouldn’t have known to do that,” or “They wouldn’t have been this or that.” 

So yeah, Caroline Lamb is someone that I have known about as a historical figure for a long time. Often when I’m like, “Am I going too far with this character?” I’m like, no! This is, like, not even half of the Caroline Lamb distance. Like, go farther. 

Ann: Well, the thing I’ll tell everybody just to queue up this episode and what we’re going to get into Caroline Lamb, but also just in terms of the Regency era, what I was thinking, it’s like, the people who she was hanging out with, her friends, her family, they were already at such a level of, like, what we would consider debauchery, for lack of a better word. 

Alexandra: [laughs] Absolutely. 

Ann: Caroline had to go so extreme to even be thought of as a scandalous person because all the stuff that she was doing, everybody was doing; her mom did it, her aunt did it. And part of this is because they were, like, the upper class. They could not have been more upper-class. They were so rich and so wealthy, and that’s who can get away with stuff. The stuff where it’s like, “Oh no, you were seen holding hands,” that’s like a very middle-class thing, but when you’re rich, as we’ve seen out today, like, you can get away with a lot more. So, the fact that, like… And she was sort of an adorable it girl, until she took things a bit too far. 

Alexandra: Yes, absolutely. 

Ann: But like, how much she did before she took things too far, I think, is interesting just to show, like, what was considered scandalous in that time. 

Alexandra: And I think that why, I mean, you know, as I’m sure you’re alluding, her mother had affairs, had multiple children, like, well-known that she was having these children with men who were not her spouse. She would be, like, whisked away to give birth, and they’d be like, “Oh, she had a fall.” Or like, her mother-in-law, similarly, everyone knew that Caroline’s husband was illegitimate or, you know, that the father, he was technically legitimate because she was married, but everyone knew that his parentage was sort of suspect. And the reason that everybody got away with it is because they would pretend they didn’t do it, and they would just keep up these pleasant little lies like, “Oh, I just had a fall on my horse,” even though, like, everybody just saw her eight months pregnant, you know what I mean? And Caroline just never did. 

Ann: Emma Hamilton, we did the episode about her a bit ago, and she was just like, “Oh, I was in Naples, and I just found this foundling baby, and I adopted her, and now I have her with me. Don’t worry about it! Totally not my baby with Nelson. Just found a baby, now I have a baby!” 

Alexandra: If you just lied, everyone would sort of… It was, like, the social contract to just go along with it. But Caroline, for whatever reason, could not do that. And she was like, “No. These are my feelings. This is what happened.” There was no hiding things with Caroline. Everything was out there, everything was in public, everything was 11 out of 10, and people just… That’s why she’s so scandalous, because of that just sort of inability to, kind of, be polite and be decorous and brush things over. 

Ann: That’s so funny, the way you described it, because I agree. I do want to mention, I read there’s a biography of her called Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free Spirit by Antonia Fraser, which I really recommend, it’s very, like… Antonia Fraser, she wrote Marie Antoinette: The Journey. If you’re going to read a biography, she writes some really narratively, really easy to read. But she was touching on this as well, where it’s like, everybody was doing this, but as long as you don’t talk about it, it’s… Yeah, anyway. 

I do want to clarify because we’re going to have so many connections to previous episodes. I forget, it’s like, episode 29 in my Regency Era series, and I feel like we’re going to talk about at least 25 people who already come up in the series [Alexandra laughs] because her life intersected with everybody, most notably, trigger warning, Lord Byron. 

Alexandra: Hugest trigger warning for Caroline. 

Ann: If only she could have known. So, just to start things off, the most… We start with her family. You were just alluding to who her mother was. So, she’s the niece of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, who I did a whole two-part episode about. And if you recall, listeners, from that episode, Georgiana had children with her husband, she had children with her lover. Then also, there was Elizabeth, Bess Foster was there, and Bess Foster had her children with her husband; she had children with Georgiana’s husband. These children were all growing up together in kind of this sort of like, daycare. And then Georgiana’s sister, Harriet, had children with her husband, children with her various lovers, and those children were there, too. So, it’s just like this daycare of like cousins, half-cousins, secret siblings, half-siblings. It’s just like, no two kids of the same two parents. 

So, this is where Lady Caroline Lamb was growing up, just among this menagerie of half-siblings, much to my annoyance in reading about it, half of whom seem to be called Caroline. 

Alexandra: Yes, yes. And her husband, his brother also marries a Caroline, so they are both Caroline Lamb, which is incredible. So, the family would call them… What is it? Caroline William and Caroline George. Differentiated between the two Carolines…

Ann: Between the two Caroline Lambs.

Alexandra: … they had the same first and last name. 

Ann: Yeah, and then what happens is, yeah, so Caroline marries William Lamb, and then her one of these other kids from the daycare, Caroline St. Jules, marries another Lamb. So then, anyway, they’re both married to brothers. It’s just a real incestuous thing, but like, don’t look at it too closely. I don’t think you see this in Regency novels, you tell me, people falling in love and then realizing they’re secretly half-siblings, because I feel like that’s a real risk. 

Alexandra: I’ve never read that one. 

Ann: Okay, because I was like, this is a real risk. What ends up happening— We’re jumping all over it, but it’s fine. Because ultimately, Lady Caroline Lamb marries Lady Caroline Ponsonby, marries William Lamb, and so you’re alluding to the fact that William Lamb’s mother had had various affairs, and so probably biologically, his father was not Mr. Lamb. But then, basically, she and her husband were probably cousins based on the biological fathers of both of them, but the legal fathers of both of them were not cousins. So, it’s just like, there’s all these secret relationships because of who everyone is having— So, this is what she’s growing up with. I want to just contextualize this for everybody; she’s a girl growing up in a context where, like, all the women around her are having affairs and children with various people. That’s normal to her. That’s just what’s up. 

Alexandra: Yeah, and she grows up in extreme wealth, just like, lavish wealth. That’s why they can afford all of these children, all of the governesses to take care of the children. And she’s very wild, and that’s sort of like, there’s all these sweet little girls, and then there’s like wild Caroline, who is… She refuses to ride side-saddle. So, like, if you’ve ever read a Regency romance, all the heroines like, “Oh, of course, I don’t ride side-saddle.” And, you know, you’ll see reviewers, readers will complain, like, “Everybody rode side-saddle.” Well, actually, we can look at Caroline Lamb, who absolutely, flat-out refused. And it’s, you know, it’s a little scandalous to be riding astride, especially because they don’t wear underwear, so you’ve got to wear trousers under there. 

So, she grows up kind of, I think, in this extravagant atmosphere, and everybody knows, even when she’s a child, that she’s something special and different. 

Ann: And she’s also different physically; she’s a little, tiny person. I was trying to think about, like, who in modern society can we compare it? She’s like a little tiny person with huge eyes. So, she’s described throughout this biography by Antonia Fraser as, like, this little fairy, like this little sprite. She’s little, and so cute with these big eyes. And when you see portraits of her, you’re like, “Oh, yes!” Nicole Richie is, like, the closest person I could think of who’s, like, little, tiny, really big eyes. 

Alexandra: Maybe like Audrey Hepburn? 

Ann: Yeah, like a short Audrey Hepburn. 

Alexandra: I don’t know how tall Audrey Hepburn is. 

Ann: Audrey Hepburn is like, leggy, so I assume she’s tall. Maybe she’s not. But yeah, she’s like a little Audrey Hepburn, and she’s so cute and so sweet, and she’s in this overcrowded, again, daycare of half-siblings, she stands out partially because she’s so tiny, and partially because of this huge personality that she’s got. One of her cousins is Hart, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire’s son, Hartington, and the two of them have a lifelong, like, really sweet friendship. Hart is always very supportive of her, but I think he talked about how… She was a star, like, from an early age, just, she stands out among all these people. But you said, like, she would ride astride. 

She had this sort of… Because she was so little throughout her life, and I guarantee we’re going to talk about this, she liked to disguise herself as a boy, because she was just physically, she was described as boyish. She’s small, she’s not especially curvaceous, and she would even keep her hair cut short, which I feel like if you did that in one of your novels, they’d be like, “Alexandra, how dare you have a… Short hair and she rides astride? That’s so inaccurate!” You’re like, actually, here’s a portrait of Lady Caroline Lamb with her short pixie cut, because she wore her hair short, she liked to disguise herself as a boy. And who knows why? I think part of that is just for the freedom that it would entail; she could sneak into places that you couldn’t go when you were a girl, and she was disguised as a boy, but also because she liked to get away with it, and she could because she was sort of androgynous-looking. 

I do want to clarify. So, she was born in… Just to place this all. When I say she’s the niece of Georgiana, if you heard those episodes, listeners, it’s like the next generation. She was born in 1785. She’s born a Ponsonby. Her father is Frederick Ponsonby, the 3rd Earl of Bessborough, an Anglo-Irish peer. And if the surname Ponsonby is bumping up and you’re like, “I know… Wasn’t there someone else Ponsonby?” Yes. One of the Ladies of Llangollen, Sarah Ponsonby, started her life in Ireland, ran away to Wales, and so they are relatives. That’s how, again, in the episode about Ladies of Llangollen, there’s going to be so many callbacks in this episode, but we talked there, part of the reason why they were able to run off together and have this house and be in a sapphic relationship is because they were so rich that they could kind of get away with it. So, this is the family that she was born into. 

Alexandra: And also, their sort of aristocratic connections were part of why their story got so much attention. Had they just been two, you know, like maids who just happened to live together, or two farmhands or whatever, no one would care. But because she was supposed to marry rich, and she was supposed to have this big aristocratic marriage, and they kept sort of like planning, you know, her marriages to two various wealthy aristocratic men, and she kept eloping with her female lover. They kept running off, repeatedly eloped together. And so, I think that they were sort of, you know, it would be like if, I don’t know, I’m trying to think of someone, like a big politician or something’s daughter kept getting involved in these sort of like, dramatic things. Everyone would know. 

Ann: Yeah, the only similar thing I think in contemporary culture is, like, the Kennedys or something. A family that people are just like, you remember who they are because you just kind of… There’s always something interesting happening with them. So, she’s already… She’s born into, on the one side, it’s like Georgiana’s sister is her mom; on the other side, it’s the Ponsonbys. Like, she’s in this one percent. 

Alexandra: Yes, exactly, exactly. 

Ann: Growing up in this daycare. And as you said, she was wild and people, in another context, maybe a girl like that would be, you know, I don’t know, beaten down or somehow tried to, like, force her to behave. But everyone’s just kind of like, “That’s just her. That’s just little Caro. She’s just like that.” And she just kind of was allowed to run wild, and partially that’s because her mother was always busy having babies in continental Europe from her numerous affairs. [Alexandra laughs] No one could really, like, parent her. 

But I found it interesting that even from a young age… So, she was administered laudanum often just to calm her down, which is this opioid, which we’ve talked about in the podcast this series as well. It was used at the time just like we would use Advil or something. It’s just kind of like, people weren’t aware then of, like, the risks and stuff of opioid use on very young children. So, from a young age, she’s being drugged. I’m seeding that because later on, you know, that might affect some things. But she’s so intense and hyper that parents are like, “Here’s heroin. Can you please calm down?” [Alexandra laughs] It’s the only way to get her to just be quiet. So, she’s a handful. 

She was close to her mom. She was always close to her mom and close to her grandma, and they both loved her, which I think is great, because in another context, there could be a family who just, like, a girl like this would be kicked out of the house, or I don’t know. But she was just sort of like, “That’s just her.” 

Alexandra: Well, the Lamb family is that other family, she just marries into it. 

Ann: Yes. And so, let’s talk about William Lamb. It’s a love match when she first falls for him, it’s not one of these arranged— Like you were saying, you know, with her relative, Sarah Ponsonby, they wanted her to have this, you know, alliance with another powerful family. But everything we’ve said so far about Lady Caroline, like, of course, she’s not going to do what she’s told. She fell in love with a person who’s, like, the younger son, and because of her wealth and stuff, they thought, “Oh no, we can do better than this.” But she’s like, “I’m marrying no matter what.” But then his older brother died, and it’s like, “Oh, he is the heir!” So then everyone’s a bit more cool with it. 

Alexandra: Yes. Although, except the family was sort of scandalous because the older brother was the actual dad’s actual biological son, but everyone believed that William was not. So, it was sort of… When the older brother died, who was meant to inherit, and then it was like, [disappointed tone] “Oh!” But they couldn’t do anything about it because they were married, so he was legally the heir. So, that’s something that I think— 

Ann: Oh, I just want to mention the older brother, Peniston. [phonetic: Pee-niss-tun]

Alexandra: No, but yeah, it’s Peniston, [ph: Pen-iss-tun], but it is it is spelled… 

Ann: Would you ever have called a character in one of your books, Peniston? 

Alexandra: No, I haven’t, because, again, I don’t think people would believe it. But I do use a site, a census site, to come up with character names. So, sometimes I’m like, “Okay, I need a character’s name that starts with a P,” and Penis, [ph: Pen-iss] P-E-N-I-S was a real last name, a real. So, I could have, like, Mr. Penis, and it would be real, but I have not. But yes, Peniston. 

Ann: These are the details where it’s just like, “Oh, but it’s factually true,” but it’s just like, readers would just be like, “What are you doing?” 

Alexandra: Just silly if I named a character… [laughs]

Ann: Lord Penis. Yes, it’s important what you’re saying that Peniston was, everyone agreed, the biological son of the husband, but then, he dies, and then who’s left is William Lamb, who is clearly the son of one of the lovers. But, you know, legally… Anyway, so he’s the heir. So, this is kind of controversial. There’s a bit of back and forth, and Caroline already does have a reputation for being this wild child. 

Alexandra: Willful, yeah. 

Ann: You were sort of implying this before, but the Lambs are a family who are just like, “This is how things are done. We do things by the book.” So, you know, and it’s not going to be like, what’s that movie? The Amanda Bynes movie where she’s Colin Firth’s daughter? I don’t know if you know what I mean. 

Alexandra: Oh, yes. 

Ann: And she shows up… What a Girl Wants. So, she shows up, and everyone’s just like, “Oh no! All of her wild ways.” But by the end, they’re just like, “We love you and your wild ways.” That’s not what’s going to happen with the Lamb family; this is not an Amanda Bynes movie. This is… They hate her. They get married, and the mother-in-law… Talk about the mother-in-law. Like, mother-in-law from hell. 

Alexandra: Mother-in-law from hell in so many ways. Okay, so I want to say, and I hope I’m not jumping ahead too much… So, William Lamb, this is a love match, as you said. She’s 19, he is, I think, 26 or so. So, they’re both fairly young. I mean, this is a pretty young marriage. I think sometimes we think, like, “Oh, in the past, everybody got married so—” But they didn’t really. So, this is a fairly young marriage. He later would say, like, “No man should get married before they’re 30 because their brains aren’t fully developed,” basically was what he said. But they’re really in love, and they’re very happy together at first, despite the fact that Melbourne, Viscountess Melbourne, who is William Lamb’s mom, really loathes Caroline. 

Ann: And they all live in the same house. It’s important to note that all live in the same house. She moves into… It’s a big house, but like, the mom who hates you is there, every day. 

Alexandra: Every day. And they have sort of a sad… It’s sad. Their first child is stillborn, then they have a son, and then they have another daughter who dies after 24 hours. So, I mean, just, you know, infant mortality was very, very high then, maternal mortality was very high as well. And then, she never gets pregnant again for the rest of her life, despite having what seems to be quite a lot of sex. And she loved children, so it’s kind of sad. They do have one son together, whose name is Augustus, George Augustus. 

Ann: Augustus. Yeah, and Augustus has… This is one of those, when looking back at history, I can’t not just— And we’re going to talk about this with Caroline’s psychology, and that of some other people, but like, their son Augustus… Neurodivergent, probably. He’s the sort of child where she was devoted to him, and I find it really cute that she’s this little, teeny, tiny person, and her son is born, and I was like, “Whoa, that’s a big baby.” He’s just a big kid, and then he becomes, like, a big adult man; he’s just a big guy. And she adores her son, and another mother might have sent him off to some sort of, like, hospital or something because he had extra needs, like special needs. But she did not, and the family and William also, they supported him and loved him, and he just has… I don’t know, there’s something going on. 

Alexandra: He definitely had epilepsy. 

Ann: He definitely had epilepsy, yes. He has fits.

Alexandra: And I think that it is sort of hard to believe, but is historically true, that you could be institutionalized at the time just for epilepsy, like, not even for anything else. Epilepsy alone was like, “Oh, you’re having fits. You need to be…” whatever. So, she really worked hard to prevent what other people were advising, which was “Send him away. There’s nice places you can send, you can put him into,” because part of this upper-class sort of thing that they live in is that like, “Oh, these things are embarrassing and you need to hide them and we don’t talk about them.” And she spent her whole life making sure that that did not happen to him. So, I think that that really just is part of her personality, that she wasn’t going to hide anything, but she definitely wasn’t going to hide her son. 

Ann: I wonder if part of the thing, like, the sort of what’s up with Augustus, and we don’t know, is that he had these fits and people back then, and their understanding of everything, medical knowledge would just be like, “Oh, he has fits. That must mean that he’s also stupid.” I think, I don’t know how much… But like, he could read and write, and he went to school and stuff, and he just might have had some extra challenges. But she was so devoted to him, and she also, similar to her contemporary, Caroline of Brunswick, the Princess of Wales, who also had huge maternal feelings and wanted to have a huge brood of children and did not, Lady Caroline Lamb also took in people, like children, young pageboys, young girls. There was a child who she took in who’s, like, the illegitimate daughter of a relative called Susan, who she kind of raised as her surrogate daughter. So, she didn’t have other biological children, but she found ways to, like, be a mother to other people. 

Alexandra: Yeah. 

Ann: I’m really putting off Lord Byron for as long as we can. 

Alexandra: And I do feel like when people talk about Caroline Lamb, it is in the context of Byron, or in the context of her husband. 

Ann: Mm-hm, that’s all I knew! 

Alexandra: And, you know, I think then— Well, these were two powerful men. William Lamb was sort of this, like, he just sort of adored her; he was sort of easily led. So, his sisters and his mom would be like, “You’ve got to break it off with Caroline,” and then he would be like, “Okay, I guess.” And then they’d find him with Caroline again, you know? But he was very fine with her doing whatever. But after she dies, so spoiler, she dies… [laughs] 

Ann: Years later, there’s a lot to come. 

Alexandra: She was born in 1775, so we could probably assume that, actually. So, after she dies, he becomes the prime minister, like, a very important, very significant prime minister for Queen Victoria. So often she gets talked about in the context either of him as prime minister or of Byron. So, I totally agree that I’m like, “Let’s just not… Let’s just talk about her.” 

Ann: I just realized that we hadn’t even got into that, because this is what interests me about her is who she was. But that was actually a big twist for me when I was reading through this biography. At the end, when it talked about after she died, and then his father died, he became Lord Melbourne. And I’m like, “Why do I know that name, Lord Melbourne?” And it’s just like, [gasps] “The hot prime minister from Victoria?” 

Alexandra: Yes! Yes! 

Ann: The miniseries, played by Rufus Sewell?! 

Alexandra: The tragic backstory of having had this, like, you know, mad wife who almost destroyed his career. Yes, I know! 

Ann: I was like, “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Her husband was hot?” That was my… Because in Victoria, you know, the one with Jenna Coleman, the miniseries version? In the first episode, I was just like, “Oh, I hope she gets together with this guy.” It’s like, I know Queen Victoria did not get together with her prime minister. That’s Caroline’s husband, later! So, that was a big twist for me. 

Yeah. So, he becomes an important prime minister. But that’s also important in terms of the Lamb family hating Caroline because they wanted him to become this important politician, and an important politician has to have a wife who’s, like, not riding side-saddle while disguised as a pageboy. 

Alexandra: And she is not political, like, she is not ever going to pol— I mean, later in life, she tries to like help one of the friends’ campaign, or cousin or something, and she’s literally like, “I will kiss you if you vote for him.” 

Ann: Well, and that’s how she’s inspired by her aunt, Georgiana, who was alleged to have done that. So, she’s like, “This is how you campaign. I’ll just, like, kissing booth. Great.” 

Alexandra: Yes. That is part of why they hate her so much. And to be fair to them – not to the mom, who is horrible, but to the sisters – I could see, like, if your brother is trying to be a serious politician and his wife is frolicking around, causing scandals all the time, like, I could see how you would really get mad. 

Ann: But I appreciate about William that he was just like, “Oh, that’s just her,” you know, the same way that her family was. He liked and knew that that’s what she was like. I love this detail that, so he kind of was in and out of politics for a while in various jobs, but when he first was elected to, I guess, the House of Lords, he went to give a speech, or Parliament— Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t care. He was elected to something in government, I think, Parliament, because that’s when you’re elected to. 

Alexandra: Yeah. He was an MP, yeah. 

Ann: And he’s a Whig, for all my Whigs and Tories lovers out there. This has been haunting me this whole series, Alexandra. I’m just like, “God damn Whigs and Tories. Do I have to talk about it again?” Anyway, these people, all Whigs. 

Anyway, so he’s elected, and he’s going to give his, like, “Hey, thanks for voting me in speech,” and like, women are not allowed in Parliament, only men can go to Parliament, and Caroline’s just like, “But I want to see my guy have his moment.” So, she disguises herself as a pageboy with her short hair, puts on some trousers, and then she’s there to watch him. And I’m just, like, I love this couple! Like, she’s cool. She’s proud of him, and he’s cool with her just, like, wild ways, and they’re just having a nice time. 

Alexandra: Yes, although I think it’s worth noting that he was hot, and he was very sweet to her for most of their life, and he also did not want his son institutionalized, but it is worth noting that he was, like, a huge pro-slavery advocate. 

Ann: Ooh, did not know that. 

Alexandra: He loved slavery so much. Yes, this is, like, an important historical fact about William Lamb, who then becomes Melbourne, right? He fought so hard to keep slavery going. So, thing to know about history. 

Ann: Thing to know, yeah. 

So, he’s doing well, politically. Caroline, it’s just… There’s so many fun examples of her. Like, she loved to do a masquerade party. I’m just trying to think, there’s one party she went to once, like, she was a famous person just for being this outrageous personality; she’s like Julia Fox of her time. I don’t know, I’m trying to think of somebody who’s just like, “Whoa!” Like, if she went to the Met Gala, like, look out. What she’s going to wear is going to be amazing. 

Alexandra: Yes, absolutely. 

Ann: At one of her masquerade parties, she came dressed as a man, dressed as Lady Caroline Lamb. 

Alexandra: This is my favourite. I’m so glad you told that anecdote, because yes! And people thought it was a man dressed as Caroline Lamb! People were totally convinced by this. 

Ann: I can picture, like, Lady Gaga doing that or something, where she’s just like, “I’m dressed as a man, dressed as Lady Gaga.” Because of just her build, and I guess she’s able to change her mannerisms, and this is also a time where it’s just, like, if you’re wearing trousers, you’re a man, like culturally, that’s just the understanding. She would just go off and sneak, like, she’d pretend to be the pageboy. This story happened later in her life, but I’m sure she was doing this throughout her life where she wanted to meet somebody, and she said, “Okay, yeah. Come by my house,” and she sent a letter and the person showed up, and then she had, like, her maid servant dressed in a fancy dress, and she was standing nearby as a pageboy, and the person assumed, “Oh, this must be Lady Caroline Lamb.” And she’s like, “No, wait one second,” and she runs off, changes, comes back, and she’s like, “I’m Lady Caroline Lamb.” Like, yeah, she’s never not doing a costume switcheroo, doing her favourite thing, impersonating a pageboy. I’m obsessed with this. [chuckles] It’s like, for her whole life. Later on, she’s like, 35 years old, and she’s just like, “Is that a teenage pageboy or is it me, Lady Caroline Lamb?” [Alexandra laughs] Like, juust constantly! 

Alexandra: So, all right, I fear we have to turn to Byron. 

Ann: I know. 

Alexandra: So, William and Caroline are happy for a while, and then she has kind of a flirtation with another man. His mom says, “You’ve got to shut it down.” She’s like, “Okay, fine,” she shuts it down. And then the Byron era starts, and it never really ends. [laughs] 

Ann: I need to say one thing. So, Lord Byron, like, listeners, here we go. His first really famous poem was called “Childe Harold,” which, friend of the podcast, Allison Epstein, she does this Substack called “Dirtbags Through the Ages,” where she talks about just, like, shitty people in history. And she said whenever she sees “Childe Harold,” the title, she pictures Harold and the Purple Crayon, the children’s book. [Alexandra chuckles] So, I can’t not think that Lord Byron and his famous work, “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” and everyone’s just like, “Oh, this beautiful work,” and I’m like, “Yes, Harold and the Purple Crayon.” 

Alexandra: Okay, go ahead, go ahead. 

Ann: No, no, you go ahead. 

Alexandra: What people need to know about “Childe Harold” is that it is the Hudson Williams, Connor Storrie moment of Lord Byron’s life. It is Heated Rivalry. 

Ann: He goes from zero to one million in terms of fame. 

Alexandra: Yes. And he’s young, and he’s super hot to everyone, apparently, despite me not understanding this fact, and yeah, it transforms his career, his life. He’s been this sort of like, impoverished— He had a disability, so he’s sort of been this impoverished… He’s technically a lord, but like, you know, people don’t think he’s that great to, all of a sudden, overnight, he is like this massive, massive celebrity. And so, Caroline reads the poem, and she writes him a fan letter. 

Ann: And I want to mention, too, just in terms of like, Caroline-forward discussion: She is a very literary person. She’s been writing her whole life, like, writing poetry, she’s also a talented artist. She’s educated really well. She can speak, and read, and write in, like, Greek, Latin, and French and Italian. She is a writerly person in an era where women like her couldn’t really be writers. Like, we’ve done episodes where we’ve talked about Jane Austen, we’ve talked about Mary Wollstonecraft, the Brontës. We know the challenges; a woman can’t just like be a novelist. But I think in today’s age, you know, she would have been. 

So, when she’s writing to Lord Byron, she’s not just like, “Hey, you’re hot. Hi.” I think she’s like, “Whoa, your writing is so good, and you’re hot, and I’m a chaotic person, and let’s see this…” But the Heated Rivalry comparison is so apt. I think Lord Byron is a famous quote, he wrote something where he’s just like, “I woke up one day, and I was famous.” And I’m like, yes, you are Hudson Williams. It’s exactly like that. Suddenly… 

Alexandra: And he’s young, I think he’s, what? Like, 24 or something? I could look it up, but he’s young.

Ann: He’s 24, he’s 26. So, he is, facially, very handsome. When you see the portraits of him, like other people from this era, we know, like the Prince of Wales, got portrait artists to exaggerate their handsomeness. But Byron was a really good-looking guy. He had the face of, like, Harry Styles. He was a very handsome person. His disability, which you mentioned, is he has a club foot, which means his one foot kind of drags when he walks. This becomes an issue because later on, the waltz is popularized. Caroline starts hosting waltzing parties. 

Alexandra: I hate Byron. 

Ann: Oh. Oh! This podcast is purely anti-Byron. 

So, there’s waltzing parties, and Caroline is all about it. So, if you picture, like, in a classic Regency era movie, you’ve got, you know, like the lineup of people. It’s like the women on one line and the men on one line, and you walk towards each other, and then you switch partners. 

Alexandra: Touch hands, maybe touch hands, at the most. 

Ann: But a waltz is this new German sexy dance where you’re, like, holding on to one person for a whole song. It’s like the dirty dancing of its age. It’s like the lambada. Everyone’s just like, “Whaaaat?” 

Alexandra: Oh, like by the waist. Even now, if a person is, like, holding me by the waist, I’m like, “This feels very intimate. Why are we…?” You know, like, this should only be someone that I have a very close relationship with. So, it’s shocking. And of course, Caroline loves it. 

Ann: And Caroline, she starts hosting waltzing parties, which are literally, like, all-night raves. Literally! They have a waltzing party, and they start at 2:00 a.m., and they go until, like, 2:00 in the afternoon the next day. People are just waltzing, she loves it. But Byron, because his club foot is just, like, they’re having an affair at this point, and he’s just like, “I forbid you from waltzing.” He forbids her from waltzing because he can’t do it, because of his foot. 

Alexandra: Because he can’t do it. No, he’s awful. 

So basically, she writes him this fan letter, he comes to meet her at her house. She’s just come in from one of her rides, and she’s all sort of windblown and whatever. It is lust at first sight, and they embark on an extremely intense, very short relationship. And this is what, like, I think needs to be expressed, is that she becomes obsessed with him after a pretty short, like, two months. 

Ann: The entire duration of the relationship is something like four to five months. 

Alexandra: Right. [laughs] We were talking about this a little bit before we started recording, but like, I don’t understand what Byron has that makes people feel this way about him, because it was a lot of people were, like, completely so into him. So, she becomes obsessed, obsessed with him. And he, I think, really like, kind of negs her, kind of hot-colds her. Like, on one day, they’re declaring their love forever and their commitment, and they’re having a fake marriage ceremony, which obviously they can’t get married because she’s already married. And then the next day, he’s frolicking off with, you know, someone else. One of the people he was frolicking about with at the time was, you know what I’m going to say already, Caroline’s mother-in-law! Mother-in-law! [aggravated scream] 

Ann: The one who hates her. Her chief hater, hater in chief. So, pause to talk about her mother, Elizabeth Lady Melbourne. It’s certainly mentioned in the biography I read, and I forget if it was a contemporaneous source or not, I think it might have been. Someone compared the mother-in-law to the Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, the character played by Glenn Close in the film and by Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions. Because the mother-in-law, it was said, like, she could not stand to see two people in love and happy, she had to break them up. She’s, like, pathological about it. She couldn’t stand it. She just had to, like, make everyone as miserable as she was. 

So, she… Okay, remember, they’re all living in a house together, listeners. So, Byron is coming to see Caroline. He’s coming the next day to see the mother-in-law… In the same house! Like, in the same house. 

Alexandra: We have one of Caroline’s letters to Byron where she’s like, “Well, if I ever get jealous of her, I just remember her age, so then I make sure to be polite.” [laughs] I mean, Caroline is very witty, she’s very funny, she’s very snarky. She’s excellent at sort of just, like, jabbing people where it would bother them. 

Ann: And in terms of re: Byron’s club foot, there’s a detail that I also appreciated in terms of, you know, accessibility for shitty men. It matters, even if you’re a shitty man or not, that if you have a clubfoot, and you’re going to see your lover, and there’s a little tiny staircase, you know what they put? They put up, like, a rope so that he could climb the stairs more easily with his club foot. Like, that’s the sort of accessibility that matters, is just making sure Lord Byron can get to both of his lovers in the same house, without stumbling on the stairs. 

Alexandra: So, they have this extremely passionate, intense, intense affair, and Caroline…

Ann: And the letters exist. Like, this is how we know the intensity and the passion of it, because the letters— Both of them are, like, for these four months, it’s like matching each other’s freak. 

Alexandra: Oh my god. Yes, that is a perfect way to describe it. 

Ann: They’re both all in. We talked about her; she’s this intense person. Like, she’s just chaotic; she does what she wants. Lord Byron also. And so, for these four months, it’s like, is this actually the best pairing because, like, no one else is at this level of freak? 

Alexandra: It’s like the Angelina and Billy Bob Thornton vials of each other’s blood. And I thought of that specifically because she asked him to send her his blood. [laughs] That is where they were at. So, she thinks that they’re going to run off together. 

Ann: I thought you were going to mention the vials of pubic hair. 

Alexandra: Pubic hair. Okay, so I learned that this was not uncommon. For a long time, I thought this was really wild. They send each other lots of hair, but her lock of hair is pubic hair. 

Ann: She’s like, “Guess where this hair came from?” in her letter. 

Alexandra: I thought that this was really wild, but apparently this was, like, not that uncommon. Like, Anne Lister, who was a famous Regency lesbian. 

Ann: We did an episode about her. 

Alexandra: Okay, good. Did you talk about how she had, like, multiple locks of pubic hair stored up from her various lovers? 

Ann: No. 

Alexandra: Yeah! Apparently, this was, like, a thing. It’s very hard to understand history. Like, how did this come…? 

Ann: We’re talking about… No, but a pubic hair collection we have talked about on the podcast was George, the Prince of Wales, who had a…

Alexandra: Also had a pubic hair collection? 

Ann: He had a pubic hair collection as well. 

Alexandra: It does seem to be, like, not wildly common, but not that uncommon either. 

Ann: He went on a trip, once he became king, he went to Scotland on a royal tour, and he presented the box of pubic hair to St. Andrew’s College, and it’s still there. 

Alexandra: [laughs] I did not know that. 

Ann: And the poor archivists are just like, “Well, how do we… Where do we want to store this tin of pubic hair?” It’s like, “Well, it’s from the king, so I guess it matters.” Anyway. So, they’re just exchanging locks of hair. 

Alexandra: So, Caroline is obeying tradition of she gives Bryon a lock of pubic hair. 

Ann: I feel like if they could have, they would have drunk each other’s blood. 

Alexandra: Absolutely. 

Ann: Like, they were just like, all in to this extent that’s like, “Oh, no!” 

Alexandra: But Caroline is dead serious about it. She loves her baby – well, he’s not a baby anymore, but she loves her son – and even still, she’s going to leave. She’s going to run off with Byron; that is how committed she is. Byron is not. Byron is poor, he knows he needs to marry an heiress. Running off with Caroline is not in his life plan at all, so he is, like, courting this woman who he does end up marrying, and it’s starting to get serious. Actually, Caroline’s, of course, horrible mother-in-law is the one who introduces them, and Caroline shows up at his house and is like, “I’m ready. I’m ready to elope. Let’s go.” And he says, like, “Absolutely not.” This is, like, the beginning of the sort of horrible, blow-up end. 

Ann: I do think it’s important to say that Caroline shows up at his house to say, “Let’s elope,” and she’s dressed like a pageboy. 

Alexandra: [laughs] Yeah. What story is she not dressed as a pageboy? Yes. And his friends are there, and she’s like, “Just let me talk to him alone. I know he’ll…” And his friends are like, “Absolutely not. You can’t talk to him alone.” They have to sort of, like, quiet her down. She grabs a sword, and she’s waving the sword around. She’s like, “I’m going to stab you. I’m going to turn it on myself!” I mean, she just creates this huge, massive scene, the first of many scenes.  

Ann: This is also an era where, yes, she’s doing the most. I thought numerous times when I was reading this biography, if only she was alive today and could be on a Real Housewives franchise, I think she would have done so well, and she would have been a breakout star; she would have gotten her own spin-off. But this was a time period where feeling things really deeply was very trendy. 

Alexandra: Yes! 

Ann: Byron really popularized this romantic poetry, where it’s just like, everyone— Again, I keep coming back to this, but like, listeners, I wrote a book. It’s called Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Queen Without a Crown, and so I keep thinking about things like that. But in that book, George, the Prince of Wales, he claims to attempt suicide in order to make a woman marry him. Like, this is how people are just behaving. Again, they’re all on drugs constantly, and they’re also just, like… It’s a time where feeling things deeply is what you want; that’s what you want to be displaying, like, “I’m a passionate person.” And she just takes it a step further than anyone else. 

Alexandra: She can’t be cool about things, ever. 

Ann: Oh, she has no chill. Caroline has no chill. 

Alexandra: So, Byron repeatedly tries to break it off with her. He’s like, “I haven’t actually known you that long. You’re going to get over me.” Sometimes he tries to be nice about it, sometimes he’s absolutely horrible about it, and she’s crushed because in her mind, like, they are forever. This is the thing. So, she runs away to Spain, and no one knows where she is. She literally is just like, “Fuck it!” and she goes off and sort of vanishes because she’s so upset about this. 

Ann: Disguised as a pageboy. So, you know, people are looking for her, you don’t see a little boy? “Where’s Caroline? I don’t know. But I saw a little boy running over that way.” 

She also, at one point, I don’t know if this is before or after, but it’s all a blur of just like “Caroline, oh god, you need some friends”. But she, at one point, breaks into Byron’s house, like opens one of his books and writes in the book “Remember me,” which is, like, restraining order time. 

Alexandra: She also goes to his publisher, she wants a painting of him, so she goes to his publisher and forges a letter from Byron, saying that they’re supposed to give her this painting of him. [laughs] And then Byron’s all mad because like, it wasn’t supposed to… I mean, like, really not great behaviour, not great. 

Ann: It’s really an old-time version of just, like, Instagram stalking while drunk, just like, sending DMs, but it’s olden times, so you have to go to a publisher. But Byron, like, he takes the bait sometimes. He writes poems, making fun of her, and then every time he writes a new poem, just a regular poem, not a making-fun poem, then she would do a parody of that poem. 

Alexandra: That were actually really good. 

Ann: Yeah! Because she’s a good writer. 

Alexandra: Her parodies were excellent; they’re very funny. I mean, she just had a real talent for kind of like, taking his style and twisting it. I think there were some poems that actually people were like, “Wait, is this by Byron, actually?” Like, people didn’t know. I mean, she’s super talented. She just wasted a lot of time on this piece of shit, Byron, who I think just really… I think he likes the drama, you know what I mean? It feeds his ego that she is causing these scenes, and like making whatever… 

So, after she gets back, she gets brought back from Spain by her family, and they are at a party together, and she’s like, “Well, I guess I can finally waltz now.” She gives him that little what for. They get into a fight publicly, she breaks a glass and then, like, acts like she’s going to cut herself with it. I mean, just scene after scene after scene. And she spends just a lot of time and energy on Byron, and it’s like, everyone in the world is like, “Caroline, you’re being very cringe right now,” and she just cannot let it go. 

Ann: And she’s, at this point, I think it’s like, the going to the party and pretending like she’s going to slit her wrists with a glass, is where I think she gets kind of blacklisted from Almack’s. Can you explain what Almack’s is? 

Alexandra: Yes. So, Almack’s, basically, there were a lot of clubs for men. And your club, you had to be sponsored by someone to get to be a member. You could go there, and you could smoke and drink and have a good time, it was just for men. Almack’s is the only club that allows both men and women. So, you know, there’s no smoking, there’s no drinking, it’s much more decorous. But being admitted, like getting a voucher to Almack’s, basically meant that you were upper class, that you were part of the good set. 

So, Caroline comes from this very rich background. I mean, there’s absolutely no way— She’s more famous than, you know, the people who run Almack’s. So, when she gets kicked out of Almack’s, it is shocking. It is really scandalous. I’m trying to think of, like, an equivalent today. 

Ann: Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, and then he can’t go to the Oscars anymore. 

Alexandra: Right! Yes, exactly. It would be like, you’re blacklisted from the Oscars, and it would be like, “Oh, whaaaat?” You know, it’s really shocking. 

So yeah, she just starts to… She’s so extra about all of this Byron stuff that it really starts to hurt Williams political career; it just embarrasses the family. And Byron is so famous and popular that, of course – I mean, she is acting a little extra – but he is able to spin it like she needs to be institutionalized. So, this is when the family starts to be like, “She’s completely unhinged. You need to throw her in a straitjacket. You need to get her out of here.” And a lot of that, I think, is because Byron is so popular and so just so, so, so famous. It’s very, you know, like Johnny Depp, Amber Heard kind of situation.

Ann: I was going to say Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, yeah. He’s so famous, and then the society in general, like, it’s easy for him to get them to take his side against her. And this is where the family, I think, is like, just quasi an intervention and drags her to Ireland to just be like, “Let’s remove you from the country of England. Let’s just…” 

Alexandra: [laughs] Byron gets married to the heiress, who was not that into him, pretty much ever, which is so great. I love that his wife is, like, one of the few women who just, like, never succumbs to his charms. So, Byron gets married. Caroline gets dragged off to Ireland. And now, we can stop talking about Byron for a minute because this is when Caroline starts to become a novelist, and Caroline, she takes a break from obsessing over Byron for a little bit to do what she is meant to do, which is create.

Ann: So, her first novel is called Glenarvon. And everything we said about Caroline, it’s just like, yeah, hell yeah! Like, everyone wants to read a book that this person is going to write. She’s such an interesting, creative, interesting person. Like, please, what book did she write? So, Glenarvon is like… Well, describe it. It’s a Gothic. 

Alexandra: It’s delicious, it is delicious. So, I have a book about two lady Gothic novelists, who have a romance, obviously. And when I was researching that, I read a lot of Gothic novels from the period. Glenarvon is so… It is very Caroline Lamb. It is the most. It is the most Gothic, it is the most sexy, it is the most, like, unbelievable. You know, it just is the most… It’s 11 out of 10, all the time, every single page. 

It is about this poor, innocent young woman named Calantha who gets married to this sort of, you know, stern kind of man that she thinks is sort of cold at first, but he actually turns out to kind of be the hero. She’s this young bride, and then she meets this Irish rebel, this dark, handsome, moody, sexy… 

Ann: Not to say he has a club foot, but like, he might have a club foot. 

Alexandra: [laughs] And his name is Glenarvon. She falls for him immediately; he sucks her in with his, like, mesmerizing erotics. She literally can’t stop, like, fucking him all the time, basically is implied in the book. Her family sort of disowns her, or whatever. Well, of course, then it turns out he’s actually a vampire, and that is why he is able to exert these sort of mystical, occult powers on her because he’s a vampire. People are dying everywhere. People are dying of grief. It’s like, so Gothic and just whatever. 

So, obviously, this guy is Byron, right? Like, it is so thinly veiled as to like not even be veiled, basically. And it is a total takedown on him. At the end, he turns out not to have been an Irish rebel fighting for the cause, but in fact, a British sympathizer who’s, like, a traitor and is in league with the colonizers. So, it is just absolutely like it destroys, you know, Byron. It’s like, a complete takedown of Byron. He was livid about this book. Absolutely furious. He had a huge ego, and he could not take the idea that all of these people would see this clearly Byronic character. 

Ann: The book was popular. People were reading it. But he’s livid because it’s like, this is a takedown of him, and everyone’s reading it. 

Alexandra: And everyone’s reading it. Yeah, exactly, he’s so mad. He calls it, like the phrase “Kiss and tell,” he calls this book “Fuck and publish.” 

Ann: [laughs] You know what? That’s a good one, Byron. 

Alexandra: Yeah, yeah. I don’t want to admit anything nice about Byron, but it’s pretty funny. 

Ann: No, I bet someone else said that, and he copied them. So, she’s a novelist. Because she’s always been, you know, she had a good education for a girl of this time for anybody, of any time, really, and she has always been a creative person, and now she has this intense passion. It’s like, yes! Put this into a creative outlet. Don’t put this into just like, you know, put this in a costume parties when you want, but don’t just like, crash balls and make a scene. Like, do something productive! Good for her. 

Alexandra: Yeah. And she continues to write for the rest of her life. She sort of finds this passion in this time and just sticks with it, and she publishes several interesting, very different novels. One of them is set in South America. None of them got nearly the fame of Glenarvon, right, because Glenarvon is about Byron and Byron is the, you know, is the biggest person, the biggest celebrity alive at that particular moment. And of course, people are also very interested in her because of her relationship with Byron, like, this increases her celebrity as well by being affiliated with him; they want to read the story, they want to see her perspective on it. So, none of them are as successful as Glenarvon, but she was very committed to writing for the rest of her life. And of course, as we already talked about, she publishes these Byron parody poems as well, which is very funny. 

Ann: I love it. The Weird Al of her time. You know what it is? It’s like Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl with his take down of Drake. 

Alexandra: Yes, that is exactly what it is. 

Ann: Because it’s like well done, and a diss track, but in her case, a poem. So, she has, like— If we can move on from Byron, I think we’re both happy to. She’s a writer, and she makes writer friends, and she’s hanging out with lots of creative people. One of them, she develops a strong platonic friendship with Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin. He’s a big supporter of her as a writer; he’s a publisher also. So, can you talk about the literary circles that she sort of joins? 

Alexandra: I absolutely adore William Godwin so much. Let me just tell you a little mini story about William Godwin. So, William Godwin is a radical. Like, the Whigs are like, he’s like “Those Whigs…” you know, he’s a radical. He believes in free love; he doesn’t believe in marriage. He literally publishes a whole book about how, like, marriage subjugates women and is the cause of women’s depression. Then he meets Mary Wollstonecraft and falls just, like, head over heels for her, and he changes his mind, he’s like, “Okay, I want to marry you.” And all of his friends are like, “Bro, you literally wrote a book about…” and he’s like, “I don’t care.” So, I just love William Godwin. He was so in love with Mary Wollstonecraft. She dies in childbirth, like, very shortly after they get married, which is very, very sad because he was so lovely. 

So, yeah, he becomes friends with Caroline Lamb, and she was also very interested in his daughter, Mary Shelley, right? 

Ann: Yeah, because Frankenstein has now been written. 

Alexandra: Right. Yeah, so she’s very interested in that. She sort of develops this correspondence with William Godwin. Lots of people corresponded with William Godwin; I think he must have really been a very devoted letter writer as well. But he’s just really interesting, and he’s a philosopher, and he is very respectful of women, and he just kind of nurtures this intellectual interest, all of the intellectual interests that she has, nurtures her publishing career. He’s just very supportive of Caroline Lamb. I also think it’s very funny that when his teenage daughter runs off with Percy Shelley, William Godwin is like, “Everything I said about free love, I take it back.” He’s like, “None of that applies to my daughter, my 16-year-old daughter.” 

Ann: “Free love is great in theory, but when it comes to my 16-year-old daughter…” Well, and this is where it’s like, just the crossing of generational boundaries… We talked before at the beginning about, you know, all the women having affairs and all these children, and they are maybe half-siblings, like, the fact that she’s friends with Mary Shelley’s dad, and Mary Shelley is hanging out with Byron, and Byron’s having an affair with Caroline’s mother-in-law. It’s just kind of like, age means nothing. Everyone’s just like… I don’t know. These days, I think you have a much more like people in their twenties hang out together and people in their fifties hang out together. But then it was just kind of like, “It’s all good. I’ll be friends with you, and then my daughter’s friends with your ex.” It was interesting to me that William Godwin is a person she hung out with. But earlier on in her life, she read Mary Wollstonecraft’s famous book… 

Alexandra: Vindication of the Rights of Women. 

Ann: Vindication of the Rights of Women. She read that as a young woman, and it really affected her, and we see that, like, the way she moves through the world. Because Mary Wollstonecraft is like “Women should not just be a wife and a mother, women should be able to do what they want.” And like Caroline Lamb, you can see like, “Hell yeah!” She and Mary Wollstonecraft would have gotten along, and maybe that’s part of what William Godwin liked about her, he saw some of that spirit. 

Alexandra: Yeah, I think probably for sure. She was very affected by the book, and one of the other things the book is really arguing for is education for women, and that was something that she benefited from because, of course, there’s no compulsory education, but her family chooses to give her an excellent education, and it’s just nurtured throughout her life by her own sort of eagerness to read. She was a huge reader, but also by finding people who did support that in her, like William Godwin. 

Ann: And there’s somebody, just before we started recording, you were saying there was another writer who she was involved with, maybe as a lover or maybe just his friends. Lytton? 

Alexandra: Yeah, Bulwer-Lytton is his name. Yeah. He is, like, a Victorian writer. I was just saying… We were talking about how this name pops up because he was, I think, like, 17 years younger than Caroline or something, and he’s this sort of devoted fan. My favourite part is like, I think he writes a love poem to her, and she replies to his mother. [laughs] She sends a note back to his mom. He is undeterred, and yeah, and he eventually becomes a very well-known Victorian writer. So, it’s funny to see that sort of like, as you said, cross-generation… You know, I think about her as, like, a very staunchly Regency figure, but then it’s like, well, her husband becomes like, you know, this major prime minister for Queen Victoria. 

Ann: Well, and then also going backwards too, like, as a younger person, or maybe in this time, too, I forgot how long she lived, but Germaine de Staël shows up in her story as well, who I did an episode about back in my French Revolution series. So, I think of her as like, a revolutionary figure, but she was also a woman writer, kind of like bon vivant, and Lady Caroline Lamb saw her as an inspiration, and they had dealings with each other. It’s just like, she is the Forrest Gump of this whole time period; she interacted with everybody. 

Alexandra: Yes. And Mary Wollstonecraft, too, was very influenced by the French Revolution. Her first big book was inspired by, sort of in response to the French Revolution. So, you’re absolutely right that, like, history is both very long, but also, like, one person’s lifetime can be very long and, you know, can sort of intersect with all of these different times and periods. 

Ann: And that’s what’s funny, too, like, because, you know, when I think of the Regency, it’s just finite. It’s like, this to this, the empire waist dresses, this is what’s happening, going to balls. And before that was the French Revolution, and that was different: wigs, big skirts. And then Victorian, and that’s different. But it’s like, no, one person’s life can comprise all of these things. What an interesting thing to live through all these changes. 

So, she eventually… William Lamb’s family is just like, “You need to separate from this woman.” 

Alexandra: Yeah, they’re like, “You’ve got to get serious if you want to have a career.” They also, I think, had anticipated that his father would die and that he would inherit, but his father just keeps not dying. So, his family is like, “You have to get a job,” basically. Like “You need to set up a career. You need to kind of establish yourself, and you cannot do that, you know, with this like scandalous wife that you have.” Especially after Glenarvon, you know, she becomes even more of a household name. It was published anonymously, but it was like, a very, very… 

Ann: Everyone knew. 

Alexandra: Yeah, there was absolutely no mystery as to the authorship of Glenarvon. So, they persuade him, and he finally accepts to do an official separation, and then he takes a post in Ireland and takes their son, which she was very supportive of. Their son is now like, 20 or something. 

Ann: Yeah. And I think, just so everybody understands, because she’s been devoted to the son, Augustus, like his whole life. He’s like her best friend, she loves him so much, she’s always writing him letters. But at this point, her health is becoming a bit more fragile, and so she knows that Augustus would thrive better in a different environment. Because she’s living in this place called Brocket Hall, which is sort of out in the countryside, and so she wanted him to get more education and just to be around more interesting people, not just kind of like, trapped with his invalid mother in the country. 

So, with her blessing, yeah, William and Augustus go to Ireland, and she stays there in Brocket Hall, which seems to be… She really liked being there. I think eventually, just she’d had enough. I don’t know. You know, it’s the thing of like, she lived really hard, and she burned through London High Society. And now she’s like, “You know what I like?” Kind of like the Ladies of Llangollen, it’s like, “You know what I like? Just being in the countryside, having a garden, reading some books, writing some books.” 

Alexandra: She has correspondence with various interesting people who, you know, William Godwin, but also others as well who were interesting to her. There are many people in the village who really like her, but she’s still sort of scandalous. There’s a very sad story where she sends out a bunch of invitations, and she thinks she’s going to host a big ball and, like, four people come. They have an orchestra, they have the table set for twenty-five or whatever, and there’s only four people there. So, I think she sort of tries to feel positively, but there are also, I think, some ways in which she feels like she’s kind of lost something that she can’t get back. She’s lost her husband, you know, she’s lost sort of the opinion of society, but she’s still writing. She’s still writing, she’s still publishing, and she’s still kind of keeping up this lively correspondence with a lot of different people, one of whom, we haven’t mentioned, is the Duke of Wellington. 

Ann: Yes. The Duke of Wellington, I feel like is a stealth supporting character in this whole series. He keeps popping up. He’s just kind of always around, and he’s a good friend to her. Some people think that they were lovers. There’s various men in her life, and it’s like, which were lovers and which were just friends? She had a lot of man friends. But Wellington, just like, he liked her, he thought she was a good time. They’d met when she was younger, and he was stalwart, like continued to be her friend, and I appreciate that. Thank you, Wellington. 

Alexandra: Yes, he had his longtime mistress, and we have their letters, and they talked a lot about her. And so, we have a lot of surviving information, and he just seems very fond of her. He’s like, ”That little wild creature,” you know? Sometimes he’ll kind of like, be stern and be whatever about her, but mostly he seems kind of just amused by her antics. 

Ann: Oh, and part of her sort of like— This is her final era, spoiler. But Byron dies in Greece from a cold when he went off to be a war hero there, which, you know what, listeners? I did a whole Lord Byron episode, we don’t need to get into it. He dies, and she’s devastated because she’s been like, they were together for four months, years ago, but like, she’s never not been thinking about him. 

Alexandra: Yeah, and they have continued to argue and snipe at each other. His best friend is running for office, so we talked about her campaigning. She campaigns for the friend’s, like, opponent. 

Ann: He was so mad at her, which was great. 

Alexandra: So mad about it. Yes, he actually said like, very unpleasant things that I’m not going to repeat, that were very sort of graphic and crude about what he do to her to get her to stop. He sucked, guys. Byron, horrible. Blergh! 

Ann: He was the worst. And in the midst of all of this, like Byron, you know, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Byron was briefly involved with Claire Clairmont, Mary Shelley’s sister; they had a daughter, Byron, like, stole the daughter, and then the daughter died. He’s getting up to a lot of stuff. Caroline is like, she’s got various friends, she’s got perhaps lovers. And Byron is just like burning through a variety of really toxic relationships and just leaving really sad women in his wake. And he dies and, you know, oh! You know what we haven’t talked about is dogs. This is important. 

Alexandra: Dogs!

Ann: Caroline loved dogs. She had so many dogs, and she was obsessed with her dogs. And Byron also loved his dog, so I feel like maybe that’s part of where they got along. 

Alexandra: Definitely. No, they had a ton in common. I mean, like, too much. Actually, William Lamb was a much better match for her because he was like a grounding force for all of her excesses. She was also like, she was just very loving; she loved animals. She would sort of collect them. She was very loving to the servants in a way that, like, William Lamb’s family found cringey, that she was always whatever. 

There was a great anecdote about her. She would always, like, play with the servants, and she had one pageboy that would throw firecrackers in the fireplace, and you know, they would just like cause chaos all the time. And so, he throws a firecracker in the fireplace. Obviously, it explodes, and then she throws a ball at him, and it hits him, and he starts bleeding, and she runs out screaming, “I’ve murdered the page!” And so, of course, there was this big scandal that she had murdered a man in her house. [laughs] 

Oh, just the gossip was just ridiculous. Like, she could do one little thing and, you know, gossip would just explode over it because of who she was. And because Byron also was much more capable of, like, being cool about stuff, so people, I think, were just sort of more on his side because he could just play it off and act cool, and she just couldn’t. She was just too… I just, if it’s not obvious, I just love her, and I feel for her so much. Just this honesty and this brashness and the sort of like, unwillingness to play around, but also then how it just led her astray, sometimes, this sort of nature of hers. 

Ann: Well, and you’ve used the word a few times, and I think it’s a perfect word, which is cringe, where it’s just like, she’s just so upfront about everything all the time. She has no chill, she is not cool. To me, she’s cool in the sense because she is so honest and upfront all the time, but it’s just like everything she does, you’re just like, “Oh god, Caroline! Oh, why? No!” She’s just like, “I gotta be me! I gotta be me!” 

I love her too. I read this biography, and I was just like, I am obsessed with this little person and her constant pageboy disguises. There was one, before her sort of social downfall, there was a party that she held – I forget the details exactly – but she had announced I come to this party and meet it was in Wellington, but it was like, “Come meet this great war hero.” And everyone was there waiting for the war hero to come stroll out, and then what happened was she strolled out in men’s clothes, being like, “Hello everybody!” I forget if she had a fake moustache on or what, and everyone was just like, “Oh, she’s great.” Like, she was hilarious. I love it. 

Alexandra: No, she was very funny. But as you alluded, her health was poor. She increasingly self-medicates with laudanum and alcohol. 

Ann: Which, she’d been using laudanum, remember when I said earlier, from childhood. It’s an opiate like this is… Has she been an addict since she was five? Maybe. I don’t know. 

Alexandra: And many people were like, this was not implausible.

Ann: Everybody was. Yeah, this is not just her. 

Alexandra: Yeah. So, her health grows increasingly poor. William is like, “I would like to come back.” So, this man, he definitely was not perfect, but he really was very loyal to her. He never remarries after she dies. He’s like, “I would like to come be with you,” but he’s like, right in the middle of this very delicate, like, political situation and literally like the day the situation ends, he and Augustus travel back to be with her, and then she dies at 42. 

Ann: I’m always blown away, it happens so often when I’m researching where I read about somebody’s life, it’s like, “And then she died,” and it’s like, 42! Like, she did so much stuff! But also, I want to say their whole, like, they separated and the family is pressuring them, but it was a real conscious uncoupling type situation. There was no bad feelings; they both still loved each other, and I like that he went to return to her. But yeah, she died of… Well, basically just health-related issues, exacerbated probably by alcohol or, you know, health-related issues that she was self-medicating with alcohol and laudanum and this all kind of works together. So, she passed away. 

And then, what do you know about her legacy? Like, once she died, was everyone just kind of like “Good riddance,” or were they just kind of like, “Oh, actually, her books were good.” What was the vibe? 

Alexandra: Yeah, no, I think it was definitely more like “Good riddance.” I think it was like “Now William Lamb can finally have the illustrious career he always was supposed to have.” Her son also dies quite young, like in his twenties, so not too long after she dies, and their family line actually peters out, like, there’s no more Melbournes, the line goes extinct. Yeah, it’s just very sad. And I think that for a long time, her reputation was basically like this, you know, wacky bitch who could have ruined Melbourne’s career, good thing she died. Or this, you know, over-the-top, hysterical woman who was obsessed with Byron. 

Ann: Oh, “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” 

Alexandra: Yeah, yeah. Supposedly, she said that about Byron. 

Ann: If you’ve heard anything about her, it might have been that she allegedly coined the phrase “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know” about Byron. Did she? We don’t know. 

Alexandra: We don’t know. It’s a good phrase. Sounds like something she would have said. 

Ann: It is a good phrase. She was a good writer. But yeah, so she’s just kind of… So, I’m curious to know, like, you read Glenarvon when you were researching for this novel, you were writing about Gothic novelists. Like, how is the book understood lately? 

Alexandra: Well, even as late as the 1970s, historians were still, like, criticizing her and criticizing her behaviour, and basically seeing her as just this horrible kind of stone around Melbourne’s neck, Melbourne being William Lamb, or just this wild woman. And I really don’t think it’s been until the last, you know, this century, like, this century that we are in now, that her reputation has really taken a turn, that she’s been recognized for her own writings. I mean, biographies of her were often critical biographies until recently. Only recently, I think, has her work been… Have there been studies just about her literary work, like, that it has been seen as a thing worthy of academic treatment, which is just wild because it was such a popular book at the time. But just this sort of scandalous life reputation, I think, both added to its popularity, but made it seem like not a serious work. 

Ann: It’s interesting because I can see it in the pantheon of like… Like the Brontës’ writing, for instance. How many movie versions and how many theses have been written about, like, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights? These are also bananas books written by, like, intense women, but they didn’t have this scandal in their life, so I guess they were taken more seriously. I don’t know. 

Alexandra: Yeah, right. Exactly. There was no sort of public grand public scandal about them. So, I think that that absolutely, you know, plays a huge role. I mean, even Mary Wollstonecraft! Mary Wollstonecra! writes Vindication, and it’s popular! Everybody is reading it, everybody is talking about it. And then after she dies, William Godwin writes his biography of her and sort of unwittingly destroys her reputation because he writes about her sexual relationships, and it destroys her reputation for, like, a century. It takes a long time for that to come back; these sort of sex scandals just outweighed this book that she had written that was incredibly important, and that was popular at the time. 

Ann: Well, and versus, I would say Byron, who was always taken seriously for his writings and, as a writer, despite his, like, chaotic, nightmare, Tom Sandoval-level life that he was living… Well, just the double standard, right? Like, he had so many wild, you know, love affairs and scandals and stuff, but because he was a man… He did eventually leave England because even his stuff got to be a bit too much, but his writing was always taken seriously. 

Alexandra: Yes, exactly. His public reputation was just as dismal by the end of his life as Caroline’s, but that never impacted how seriously literary critics at the time, or later, took his work. Absolutely. So, yes. You already did an episode on him, so we don’t need to talk about Byron. 

Ann: Yeah. It annoys me that he wasn’t allowed to be buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey because of his terrible reputation, and people fought, Byronites, for years and years and years, until finally there is, like, a stone in there for him. And when I was there, I was just like, “Boo!” I said in my head, just like [emits several groans]. 

Alexandra: Yeah. And I also think another thing that’s really important in reflecting on her life is this constant threat that she could be thrown into an asylum at any moment, right? Because she absolutely does not have the right to say, “No. I don’t want to be institutionalized.” And the only thing that prevented that from happening was William Lamb. Like, had he decided, “You know what? She is causing me too much trouble,” she would have absolutely been institutionalized and tossed in there for hysteria and never let out again. I mean, he absolutely had that control over her at that time. We are long before women having any kind of rights over themselves, their own bodies, their property. We are 60 years before the Married Women’s Property Act, right? So, I think that that constant sort of threat against her… I mean, I just can’t imagine what an impact that would have had on, you know, your mental health if you’re constantly being told, like, “If you act out again, we’re going to toss you in an institution.” 

Ann: By your mean in-laws, who you live in a house with. 

Alexandra: Right. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the fact that she wrote as much as she did and that she achieved as much as she did is actually incredible. 

Ann: Mm-hmm, given everything. So, this leads us really well into… We’ve got four categories we’re going to score her in. And I think I’m going to… I want to start, just because we’re talking about this, one of the categories that I score people on this podcast is what I call the Sexism Bonus, which is, like, I want to give people bonus points for how much shit they had to put up with, and how much more maybe they could have done if they weren’t living under a shitty patriarchal society. On a scale of 0 to 10, how much do you think that affected her and what she was able to do? 

Alexandra: Well, it’s hard to say for Caroline because on the one hand, a lot. But on the other hand, her whole person was just like, “I’m going to do what I want anyway,” right? So, let’s say a 5 because I think in a different world, in different circumstance, she could have had a completely different life, but she also, I think, very much refused to be in a way that was maybe sometimes to her detriment. 

Ann: Yeah, I think a 10 out of 10 for her in this context would have been like if she had a shitty husband who did send her to an asylum. 

Alexandra: Exactly. Exactly. 

Ann: Like, she still did what she could. 

Alexandra: It was total luck that she didn’t, right? 

Ann: Yeah. Well, especially because the marriage— I don’t know, maybe she chose a person who they actually were in love with each other, and if her family had chosen a husband, maybe he would have been more mean, but she chose somebody who they actually liked each other, and maybe that’s part of why he did not do that to her. 

So, the next category, again, it’s the scale of 0 to 10, I know what I think, the category is Scandalousness. How scandalous was she seen by the society in which she lived? 

Alexandra: I feel like this has to be a 10. 

Ann: I feel like it has to be a 10. I don’t know what else she could have done. 

Alexandra: Who could be more scandalous? Yeah, no, she’s like, the pinnacle. 

Ann: Well, and even in the context of – I forget if we were saying this before or on the podcast – but like, the Regency, there’s all these people, and they’re having affairs and having… They’re called “children of the mist,” the illegitimate children, even in that context, what she did was too much for even them. So, even people who, like you said, they were all just pretending like this wasn’t happening. But she just did it. And, you know, dressing like a pageboy and having short hair and like riding astride, these things were just too much. Absolutely a 10 out of 10. 

Alexandra: Yeah, I think short hair was fairly trendy, actually. I think there was definitely like a window where that was like pretty on trend. So, that I don’t think was super scandalous necessarily, but everything else, absolutely. 

Ann: It’s interesting because you don’t see that short hair in the Regency era, you know, costume dramas. 

Alexandra: Absolutely never in a costume drama. For sure not. 

Ann: Everybody would panic. If on Bridgerton, when they do their Francesca, Michaela season, if Francesca shows up with a pixie cut, everyone’s going to go wild. 

Alexandra: Oh, man. Yeah. 

Ann: And you and I will be like, “Actually, it’s accurate.” 

So, the next category is Schemieness, which is interesting because she’s not someone who’s she’s coming up with, well, like, you know, some of the Byron parodies and stuff, but in terms of her scheme, she’s just like, “I’m going to go to Spain dressed like a boy,” like, it wasn’t a well thought-out plan. I wouldn’t even call them schemes. 

Alexandra: Right. And she’s not grifting. She’s not like, trying, “How can I move up in the world?” Like, she is already up. So, the extent of her schemes are, you know, like you were saying, “I’m going to dress up as a war hero. Ha! Ha! Ha!” You know, they last for, like, five minutes. So, I feel like she’s more playful, or like a prankster, over scheming. So, I don’t know, I feel like she’s like a 2. 

Ann: I think a 2 is fair, and that’s entirely mostly just for the times that she [laughs]… The work and the schemes that had to go into preparing her costumes for her, like, surprise reveals. It’s two points for the time that she’s dressed as a man dressed as herself. 

Alexandra: Yeah, right. Maybe a 3, maybe a 3. 

Ann: That’s some preparation. And then the final category is her Significance, and that’s her significance to just everything, to history. I think if we’re looking at, in the pantheon of Regency era women, there have been a couple of films about her; “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know” is a phrase that people have heard; Glenarvon is a book that is being taken more seriously now. 

Alexandra: Yeah, I feel that her significance… She’s always been well known, but it’s so often been in the context of men, and I would just love to see her increasingly be recognized for herself and her accomplishments, and not her relationship with Byron or her relationship with William Lamb. So, I’m going to say, like, a 6, but I think we could do… Like, we could do better, you know? 

Ann: Like, she’s currently at a 6, but let’s get her to a 10. 

So, let me see. This gets her to a total score, out of a possible 40, she has 24. And I’ll just let you know, for comparison, other people this series… The Brontës only got a 19; that’s because they had zero scandal. Her aunt Georgiana had a 22. The Ladies of Llangollen, 23, and then she’s at a 24, so she’s just above them. And then way, way, way higher above Mary Shelley, 29. So, I think right in the middle of all that makes sense for her. 

Alexandra: I love Mary Shelley. 

Ann: Mary Shelley… Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, it’s wild that that’s a mother-daughter because they’re both so iconic. 

Alexandra: Yes, yes, yes. Did you do an episode on Mary Shelley? 

Ann: I did I think two episodes of Mary Wollstonecraft, two episodes of Mary Shelley, because there’s a lot. 

Alexandra: Did you talk about how some critics think she’s bisexual? 

Ann: Yes. Some think that both Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft were potentially queer. 

Alexandra: Okay, so Mary Shelley, she gets with Percy quite young. He dies very young. So, she is a single woman for a long, long time, she lives a long life, and she is not really that into men, despite being courted by them. She says stuff like, “I never really feel anything with men, although sometimes women make me feel tuzzy muzzy.” We have record of her saying this. We don’t know what that means. “Tuzzy muzzy” is not an adjective that we know what she was talking about. But we do know that tuzzy muzzy was a slang for vagina. So, it’s like maybe, you know, possibly… We don’t know what she was getting at there. 

Ann: Well, and then with Mary Wollstonecraft, she had, like Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who also, some people see some queer coding in her story, again, just sort of like, very passionate female friendships, undying devotion. Mary Wollstonecraft wanted to run away with her friend, Fanny Blood, and be together forever. 

Alexandra: Yes. And the sapphic commune was real. Sapphic communes, like early feminists, were very in favour of sapphic communes. There were some that were tried and attempted, sort of like this women-only utopia, and I do have a book series that features a sapphic commune. 

Ann: I wanted to have you— So, for everyone… Explain about… Well, you have a book coming out in June. 

Alexandra: Yes, yes. 

Ann: But also, we’re talking about the sapphic book, so talk about that first. You have the Ladies in Hating, which you mentioned is about the two… 

Alexandra: Ladies in Hating came out last September. And yes, so that’s when I read Glenarvon for the first time was when I was doing the research for Ladies in Hating. They are a pair of rival Gothic novelists who end up trapped in a haunted mansion together as they’re doing research for their next books, and it is full of real historical inspiration, real historical figures. Lady Caroline Lamb’s ghost is haunting that story, as well as Anne Lister, and the Ladies of Llangollen, and lots and lots of other people. So, yeah, that came out last year. 

I also have a book that came out this year in February that is about a pair of twins who kind of deliberately court scandal; a lot of their antics were also drawn from Lady Caroline Lamb, so dressing up as things, and things like that. That’s called The Halifax Hellions. And then, yeah, this summer, I have a new book coming out called Scandal of the Summer, which is eventually… The first one in the series doesn’t have the sapphic commune, books two and three, we will see the sapphic commune appears there. 

Ann: Well, and Scandal of the Summer… The premise of that is a Lady Caroline Lamb spiritual-type person, like, spiritually a person who is a kind of rebellious, young aristocrat in the Regency era, yes? 

Alexandra: Yes. I think the thing that she takes the most from Caroline Lamb is just that she can’t stop telling the truth, and that she is just really committed to speaking her mind, even when that gets her into big trouble, and people are not a fan of her speaking her mind. I based her father off of Lord Elgin, who is the guy who stole the Parthenon marbles from Greece and sold them to the British government. So, he’s bad, obviously. 

So, yes, the premise of that one is that she and her friends decide they’ve had enough of society and its judgments, and they decide that they are going to forge a letter saying that they are the ladies-in-waiting of a princess. They frolic off to the princess’s country house, which is abandoned, only to find out that it is not so abandoned because a gang of smugglers have been operating their smuggling ring out of this abandoned country house. So, that’s the premise of that one. 

Ann: That’s fabulous. I love… Because when we first connected about having you on the podcast, I think you’d mentioned Lady Caroline Lamb, but I love the we’re promoting… We’re doing this episode now, when you have this book coming out with kind of like, Lady Caroline Lamb vibes, so it all kind of pairs up nicely. 

And how can people… Just tell everybody about your website and stuff and your social media, so they can keep up with… Because your book is coming out and what events you’re going to be at, and how people can keep up with you. 

Alexandra: Absolutely, yes. Well, you can sign up for my newsletter if you would like updates about all of those things, books, events, et cetera. You can find that on my website, which is AlexandraVasti.com, or all the major social media sites @AlexandraVasti. 

Ann: I’m just going to mention also, I wrote my book, nonfiction book, Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Queen Without a Crown. You can get all the information about that at RebelOfTheRegency.com. It’s available in North America, soon to be in the United Kingdom as well. That book is also sort of like, interrogating the myths we have about the Regency era and, like, what was it actually like. Turns out a lot more riots than you might be led to believe from various historical costume dramas. 

Anyway, Alexandra, thank you so much for joining me. I did not know anything about Caroline— All I vaguely knew about Lady Caroline Lamb was like, “Oh, she was involved with Byron. Didn’t she, like, threaten to kill herself at a party?” Like, that was literally all I knew. And now I’m just obsessed with this little costume-wearing little freak. I love her. 

Alexandra: Yes, yes. I’m so glad. Thank you so much for having me back. I had a blast once again, and I’m happy to join you to talk about rebellious historical women anytime. 

Ann: Fantastic. And to all my listeners, we’ll be back next week. I don’t know, maybe you picked up on some of the clues, but we’re going to be talking about somebody next week in the finale of the Regency Era series who connects very specifically with this… It’s kind of the next generation of people after Lady Caroline Lamb. So, stay tuned for that next week. And until next time, listeners, keep your pants on and your tits out. 

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I’m so happy that Alexandra mentioned how historians are considering the potential queerness of Mary Shelley’s life, and we also talked about Mary Wollstonecraft as well, because those are two of the people included in a new design that I have that I’m doing a fundraiser for. 

So, I got my friend, Jan Jupiter, who is a queer artist, to make a design called the Regency QueERA, Regency era, but queer in it, it features all of the queer, potentially queer people we’ve talked about this season: Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Anne Lister, the Chevalière d’Éon, and the Ladies of Llangollen and their cat, Sappho, are all featured in this design. So, what I did is I put this design on a ringer T-shirt. If you don’t know what that is, it’s like a white T-shirt with a colored collar and coloured cuffs. The colour you can do is red, or navy, or black. 

Anyway, all the funds raised from sales of this T-shirt are going to go towards supporting the Trevor Project. The Trevor Project is an American organization that focuses on suicide prevention efforts for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth. They offer a toll-free telephone number that’s available 24/7, where confidential assistance is provided by trained counsellors. I wanted to do this fundraiser because it’s such a wonderful organization, such a wonderful cause. There’s been so much discussion recently in the wake of the announcement of the new upcoming sapphic season of Bridgerton about like, “Oh, but were there queer people in the Regency era?” And this season, we’ve talked about a bunch of them, and they’re all featured in this beautiful, colourful design. 

To support this fundraiser, go to VulgarHistory.com/Trevor, that’s VulgarHistory.com/Trevor, because it’s a fundraiser for the Trevor Project, and you can purchase one of these T-shirts and/or make a donation to them at that link until the end of May, until May 31st. So, you can get your shirt in time to wear it in June for Pride, if you want to show the Regency QueERA vibes for whatever you’re doing in June. Anyway, I just want to let everybody know about this fundraiser, VulgarHistory.com/Trevor.

Vulgar History is researched, scripted, and hosted by Ann Foster. Editor is Cristina Lumague. Theme music is by the Severn Duo. Regency Era artwork by Karyn Moynihan. Social media videos by Magdalena Denson. Transcripts of this podcast are available at VulgarHistory.com by Aveline Malek. You can get early, ad-free episodes of Vulgar History by becoming a paid member of our Patreon at Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. Vulgar History merchandise is available at VulgarHistory.com/Store for Americans and for everyone else at VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com. Follow us on social media @VulgarHistoryPod. Get in touch with me via email at VulgarHistoryPod@gmail.com.

References:

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