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CHAPTER 21.
HEIGHTS OF GLORY.
1824.
Byron had been hoping for some news of his daughter Ada. He had asked several questions about her in a letter to his sister. To these questions Lady Byron had supplied the answers, and forwarded them to him through Augusta. He learnt that Ada was a strong, healthy child, preferred prose to poetry, and had a taste for mechanics. This report was a great comfort to him. “I wanted some comfort,” he wrote to Augusta, “having been recently unwell.” Although he had recovered from his seizure, there were times when dizziness and nervous sensations came over him. His responsibilities were increasing, and he began to feel the strain of his position. The Suliotes were a continual source of trouble. He began to lose faith in these hardy warriors and to feel that all he had done for them was of little value.
There were times when he began to lose heart. One day when he was walking with Gamba he said, “I begin to fear that I have done nothing but lose time, money, patience, and health; but I was prepared for it; I knew that ours was not a path of roses, and that I ought to make up my mind to meet with deception, calumny, and ingratitude.” If only the different factions had been prepared to unite, there would have been some hope of success; but what was it possible for him to do with Mavrocordato, Odysseus, and other leaders, hating one another, and each jealous of one another’s success.
Colonel Stanhope did not make things easier for him. The two were working on entirely different lines. It must, therefore, have been a relief to Byron when the Colonel signified his intention of going to Athens.
Heartening news came to him on April 9. He received letters from England, which told him that a Greek loan had been floated, and that two and a half million pounds had been subscribed. This news revived his spirit, and he saw the possibility of reorganising the Greek forces, and strengthening the defences of the town.
Later in the day he went out riding with Gamba. When they were some three or four miles from the town, a violent storm burst upon them, and they arrived home with soaking clothes and in a violent perspiration.
Two hours after his return, he felt a fever coming over him, and he complained of rheumatic pains, but he had little thought of himself; he sent for Parry, told him of the good news that he had received in the morning, and discussed plans for a summer campaign. The following morning he seemed a little better, but it was obvious to all his friends that he was desperately ill.
Parry’s anxiety led him to make plans to send Byron to Zante, where he could have better attention in much more healthy surroundings, but weather conditions made it impossible for these plans to mature—a violet hurricane was sweeping over Missolonghi, and no ships could put to sea.
Dr. Milligen and Dr. Bruno did not at first consider that his illness was serious. They said that it was merely a chill which he had contracted.
There was, however, no sign of any improvement in his condition during the next five days. His friends, Gamba and Parry, and his servants, Fletcher and Tita, were frequently in and out of his room desperately anxious to render any service within their power.
On April 15, Byron had a long talk with Parry. He said that he felt better, that the pains in his head had gone, and that he had no doubt that he would recover.
During the evening the fever returned, and he became delirious. Dr. Milligen and Dr. Bruno were bent on bleeding him, and with great difficulty persuaded him to consent to this mode of treatment. The doctors were disappointed that no improvement followed. Other expedients, cold compresses, blisters, leeches, were tried, but all to no purpose.
On April 18 his condition was so grave that two other doctors, Dr. Treiber (Milligen’s assistant) and Dr. Lucca Vaya, Prince Mavrocordato’s physician—were called in for consultation, but the four doctors could not agree as to diagnosis and treatment. It was quite evident that the case was beyond them.
Byron did not respond to any treatment. His strength was failing fast, and he knew it. “Your efforts to preserve my life will be in vain,” he said to Milligen. “Die I must: I feel it. Its loss I do not lament, for to terminate my wearisome existence I came to Greece. My wealth, my abilities, I devoted to her cause. Well: there is my life to her . . . . ”
It was Easter Day. He was aware of the fact that the people of the town were exchanging their Easter greeting. “The Lord is risen”—“The Lord is risen indeed.” Can we believe that this great Festival of the Christian Church had no message of hope and comfort for him in his hour of extremity? He would have been the last man in the world to admit it, but what did he mean when he said, “I am not afraid of dying. I am more fit to die than people think.” He must have found some firm ground into which to cast anchor.
He had some lucid moments during the day. In the morning he was able to read a few letters, although he found it an effort to do so. At four o’clock in the afternoon he had an interview with Fletcher. Several accounts of this interview have come to us, but there is no essential difference between them. “It is now nearly over,” he said, “and I must tell you all without losing a moment.” Fletcher suggested fetching pen and paper. “Oh, my God! No, you will lose too much time, and I have it not to spare, for my time is now short. Mind you execute my orders. Oh! my dear child! my dear sister! You will go to Lady Byron and say . . . ” and then those who were watching beside him, could only catch a few names —Ada, Augusta, Hobhouse, and others uttered under his breath too indistinctly for them to hear. Can we doubt that one of them was the name of his Morning Star— Mary?
But a short time before he had written: —
She had thought him unworthy of her hand. How could a crippled schoolboy make a husband for Miss Chaworth of Annesley? She wanted a husband of strong physique, capable of noble deeds, who would rise—and lead her with him—to heights of glory. Lame brat that he was, had he not proved himself capable of noble deeds? Had he not attained the heights of glory? In his last hours what proud satisfaction must have been his, as he thought of the story of his sacrifice, even unto death, for the cause of freedom, being carried over to her. He had won through at the last. The laurels were his. She might have shared them with him. There would be nothing left to her now but a memory—the memory of one whose hand she had once scorned, but who had vindicated his right to have asked her in marriage.
Byron was sinking. In his delirium he spoke and spoke again, but only an occasional word or sentence could be heard—“My hour is come! I do not care for death.” And later, “I am leaving something dear in the world.”
At six o’clock in the evening he was heard to say, “I want to go to sleep.” He turned over and fell into a heavy slumber. Fletcher and Tita were at his bedside. They occasionally raised his head to help his breathing, but he showed no signs of consciousness. The doctors were at hand; they could do nothing. For twenty-four hours he remained in this condition. At a quarter past six on the evening of April 19 he opened his eyes, only to close them again immediately. “My God!” said Fletcher, “I fear his lordship is gone.” He was right. His spirit had flown. Outside a terrific thunderstorm was raging—the lightning flashed—the thunder rolled round the hills—the rain beat fiercely on the windows of the house where the body of Byron lay in its last sleep. In the fury of the storm, which Parry said was the most terrible he had ever witnessed, the news spread rapidly through the town that Byron was dead.
The effect of the news was overwhelming. Orders were given that thirty-seven minute guns—he was in his thirty-seventh year—were to be fired from the Grand Battery—that all public offices were to remain closed for three days—that all shops, other than provision and medicine stores, were to be shut—that all Easter festivities were to be cancelled, and general mourning observed for twenty- one days, and that prayers and a Requiem were to be offered in all Churches. Gamba tells us that “a silence, like that of the grave, prevailed over the whole city.”
On April 22, Byron’s body was borne to the church by his officers in a hastily-constructed coffin, covered with a black cloak, and on the cloak a helmet, a sword, and crown of laurel. There it lay in state, until the evening of April 23, when it was carried back to his own house.
Where was his body to be buried? The Greeks naturally wanted to find a grave for it in their own country. It would be fitting for him to be buried in the land for which he died; and they suggested Athens as the place of burial. Dr. Milligen asserted that Byron on his death-bed had requested him to arrange for his burial “without pomp and nonsense” in some comer of Grecian soil.
On the other hand, Parry declared that Byron had said to him: “If I should die in Greece, and you survive me, do you see that my body is sent to England.” Fletcher, his servant, supported this statement.
It is impossible to say which of these conflicting statements is true. The wishes of the Greeks, however, were over-ruled, and arrangements made for the burial to take place in England. The body, which had been opened and embalmed by the doctors, was placed in a tin-lined coffin and, with the heart, brains and other organs in a vessel of spirits, sent back to England on the Florida in charge of Colonel Stanhope, Dr. Bruno, and Fletcher.
The news of Byron’s death reached England on May 14; a bundle of letters had arrived, one from Gamba, and the others from Fletcher. The latter had written to Lady Byron, Mrs. Leigh, and Captain George Anson Byron who had now succeeded to the title, giving them an account of Byron’s last illness.
Byron’s friends, Hobhouse, Moore, Murray and Hanson were overcome by the news. Hobhouse undertook to deliver Fletcher’s letter to Augusta, and Captain George Anson Byron went to see Lady Byron. Hobhouse reported that Augusta was prostrate with grief, and Lady Byron, according to Captain Byron’s statement, was deeply affected by the news of Byron’s death.
By the evening of May 14, it was generally known in London that Byron was dead, and his name was on every Up. Even his adversaries were affected, and the Press, which had attacked him most ruthlessly, was generous in its references to him.
This is an extract from the Morning Chronicle: “Thus has perished, in the flower of his age, in the noblest of causes, one of the greatest poets England ever produced.”
The Morning Herald is no less generous in its praise of him. “The poetical literature of England has lost one of its brightest ornaments, and the age decidedly its finest genius.”
Eminent men have added their testimony to his greatness. Goethe declares that “Byron must without doubt be regarded as the greatest genius of the age; the glory which he has reflected on his country is without bounds in its splendour, and incalculable in its consequences.”
“The death of Lord Byron necessarily struck us as a domestic calamity,” says Victor Hugo.
Tennyson speaks of the day of his death as “a day when the whole world seemed to be in darkness for me.”
Disraeli in 1875 refers to Byron “as the most distinguished Englishman of the nineteenth century .... He died not only admired in his own country, but reverenced and adored in Europe.”
It was on May 2, under a salute from the guns of the fortress at Missolonghi, that the body of Byron was embarked, and on Thursday, July 1, the Florida sailed into Stangate’s creek. Hobhouse and Hanson, as Byron’s executors, claimed the body, and it was under their directions that it was removed to 20, Great George Street, Westminster. On July 9 and 10 the body lay in state, and was visited by a very large number of people.
Those who had known him well bore testimony to his not being much altered in appearance by death—his face was unchanged, it bore no mark of suffering, and he appeared as if he were in a deep sleep.
Meanwhile the funeral preparations were going forward. Lady Byron had no wishes to express with regard to these. In consequence, it was left to Augusta to decide on the place of burial. When it was understood that the authorities of Westminster Abbey had refused to receive Byron’s body, arrangements were made for interment in the family vault at Hucknall Torkard.
At 10.45 on the morning of July 12 the hearse drew up at the door of 20, Great George Street, and the coffin, carried by eight men, was placed within it. A coach, drawn by six horses, followed, carrying the Urn containing the heart, brains, etc., of the poet, over which was a rich black velvet pall. After this there were numerous carriages provided for the mourners. Captain R. Byron, Colonel Leigh, and Mr. Trevanyon rode in the first coach. Hobhouse and Hanson, executors, Sir Francis Burdett and Edward Ellice in the second. In the third were Thomas Moore, Thomas Campbell, Samuel Rogers and Colonel Stanhope. A private carriage contained the household of Byron, and this was followed by numerous other private and empty carriages belonging to eminent noblemen and gentlemen.
The procession moved along Parliament Street, Cockspur Street, Haymarket, Coventry Street, Princess Street, Gerrard Street, Dean Street, and down Oxford Street towards Tottenham Court Road. Shortly after noon it reached St. James’ Chapel in Hampstead Road. Here the private carriages turned back, and the hearse set out on the journey to Nottingham. On the outskirts of London, Mary Shelley and Clare Clairmont watched it pass by, and as it entered Welwyn, Caroline Lamb, reclining in her carriage, saw it, but she did not learn until afterwards whose body is was that was being borne to its last resting place.
The cortege rested at Welwyn for the first night, the following night, the night of Tuesday, Higham Ferrers was reached, and on Wednesday, Oakham. The last stage of the journey was not completed until 5 o’clock on Friday morning, July 16, when the hearse drew up at the Black moor’s Head Inn in Pelham Street, Nottingham. The coffin was placed in a room which had been prepared for it, and until ten o’clock people were allowed in small groups to view it, and pay their tribute of admiration to the illustrious poet.
At a quarter to eleven the procession was formed again, at the head of which were two mounted constables, two bailiffs, and four mounted cloakmen. Behind these came the State Horse, the rider carrying a velvet crimson cushion, on which was Byron’s coronet—the hearse, “adorned with twelve large sable plumes, drawn by six beautiful black horses, each having a plume of feathers on its head”—a coach and six with the Urn containing Byron’s heart, brains, etc.—and another coach in which were the chief mourners, Leigh, Wildman (the new owner of Newstead), Hobhouse and Hanson. Representatives from Missolonghi followed, and behind these were the Mayor of Nottingham, two Aldermen, the Sheriff, the Town Clerk, and other members of the Council. The procession was about a quarter of a mile in length, and in the rear there were “forty gentlemen on horseback, two and two.”
The cortege left Nottingham by the Mansfield Road. It proceeded in the direction of Mansfield until just beyond the seven mile house, when it turned to the left through Papplewick and Lynby. There were crowds of people near the Church when the funeral party arrived at half-past three. They were met at the entrance to the churchyard, and led into Church by the Reverend Charles Nixon as he recited the sentences of the burial office. The Church was crowded to overflowing, and, as the service proceeded, it was evident that the congregation were deeply moved. At four minutes to four the coffin and urn were borne down the steps of the vault, and the solemn committal prayer was read. At ten minutes past four the service was over. The mourners stood for a few moments in silence, gazing into the vault. Fletcher broke down completely. Tita staggered in his agony, and had to clutch the back of a pew. Hobhouse tells us that “he was stunned.”
At last they moved away, and the stone slabs, which had covered the entrance of the vault for nearly two hundred years, were put back into position, and once more guarded the approach to the tomb.
"When Byron’s eyes were closed in death,
We bowed our heads and held our breath;
He taught us little, but our soul Had felt him like the thunder’s roll.”
Matthew Arnold.