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Through the coronet of Byron dates only from the time of the Civil Wars, yet the Byron family can boast of a noble descent, which they can trace back at least as far as the Conquest, when they were already the owners of extensive lands in Yorkshire. As they had not often to write their names, they figure as Birons and Burons, and even as Burrons, so little attention at that time
was paid to orthography. They were probably greater adepts with the sword
than with the pen; and they kept such state in their Castle of Horseley,
or Horeston, that they became famous throughout the length and breadth of
the land for hospitality.
At the time of the Doomsday Survey, Ralph de Buron
appears to have held divers manors in Notts and Derbyshire, as well as in
his own more northern county; and Burke tells us how his grandson Hugo,
retiring in middle life from secular affairs, from a feudal baron became a
professional monk, and died at the hermitage of Kersal, belonging to the
great priory of Lepton. He left, however, a son, whose descendant,
marrying a Nottinghamshire heiress, appears to have increased the wealth
of the house; and lair grandson, John Byron, received the honor of
knighthood from Henry VII. in reward of his valor at the battle of
Bosworth Field.
We pass from him over four generations, and come upon
yet another Sir John Byron, Knight of the Bath, whose seven sons all
either died or bled on the battlefield in support of the cause of royalty.
His eldest son, another Sir John, was in command of the reserve corps at
the battle of Edge Hill, and was the leader of the attack which at
Roundaway Down routed Waller and the other Roundheads, and forced what
Lord Clarendon calls the I impenetrable' regiment of Sir Arthur Hazlerig's
cuirassiers to save themselves by flight. Sir John was raised to the
peerage in reward of these services in 1643, and his brother and successor
held the castles of Newark and of Appleby for the king. One of his great
grandsons was the celebrated admiral Byron, who as a midshipman sailing on
board the Wager round the world, under the flag of Lord Anson, was cast
away on a desert island, where he endured great hardships for five years,
but at last was rescued and returned to England. He lived to become an
admiral, and was the grandfather of the poet George Gordon Byron, who has
twined the bay leaves with his ancestral laurels, and has immortalized by
his pen a name already well known to history.
This Admiral Byron's elder brother William, the fifth
wearer of the Byron coronet, was a person to whom a very painful notoriety
attached. He succeeded to the honors while quite a boy, and seems to have
been spoiled by the want of education and discipline. Left his own master
while still a youth, he became a man about town,' and indulged himself
freely in all the fashionable vices which marked the young scions of noble
houses in the last century. He still bears in the neighborhood of Newstead
Abbey the reputation of the 'Bad Lord Byron ;" and in his lifetime he bore
the character of a most passionate and vindictive temper. The story of his
duel with his neighbor and former friend, Mr. Chaworth of Annesley, which
took place at the Star and Garter hotel in Pall Mall, in January, 176, has
been often told, but will bear telling again.
The quarrel was a very silly and groundless one-a
dispute over their wine cups as to the actual amount of game on their
Nottinghamshire estates. Among the company present were several men of
fashion and ` quality,' as the
phrase then ran-Mr. John Hewett (who acted as chairman), Mr. Francis
Molineux, Mr. Willoughby, Sir Robert Burdett-almost all of them men
connected by the ties of family or property with Nottinghamshire, and
members of a county club which met once a month at that hotel. Some words
on the subject had passed between them, but the matter had dropped. But as
they were leaving the house Mr. Chaworth was enticed into a private room
by Lord Byron, whlocked the door, at once drew his sword, and made a lunge
at his neighbor, calling on him to defend himself. It was the custom then
for every gentleman to carry his sword, so the battle was
fought by the dim light of a candle, and so thoroughly did it prove a
combat á
outrance that Mr. Chaworth, though the better swordsman of the two,
was run through the body, and died a few hours afterwards. Mr. Chaworth
was sensible to the last, made his will, and wrote a letter to his mother
in the country, informing her of the 'unfortunate
accident.'
A coroner's inquest was held on the body of Mr.
Chaworth, and resulted in a verdict of manslaughter. In a few weeks after,
Lord Byron was put upon his trial before his peers, the members of the
House of Lords, to answer for his offence. The trial took place in
Westminster Hall, where also he was convicted of manslaughter. 'Peers, by
an old statute, in all cases where the benefit of clergy is allowed, are
dismissed without burning in hand, loss of inheritance, or corruption of
blood; his lordship was accordingly dismissed on paying the fees.' So
writes old 'Sylvanus Urban' in the Gentleman's Magazine, in the pages of
which is 'an authentic narrative of the late duel between Lord Byron and
William Chaworth, Esq.;' but it does not add much information to the
account given above, except that the party dined at the then fashionable
hour of four, and that after dinner a conversation arose on the game laws
and the preserving of game, in the course of which Mr. Chaworth and Lord
Byron came to high words, the former remarking that 'Sir Charles Sedley
and himself had more game on five acres than his lordship had on all his
manors.' A bet for a hundred guineas followed, and Mr. Chaworth called for
pens, ink, and paper, in order that the bet might be reduced to writing;
but another Nottinghamshire squire,
who was one of the company, treated it in a jesting manner, and said that
it was a foolish bet, and one that could never be decided. The talk,
however, ran on, Mr. Chaworth saying, in a chaffing way, that I if it were
not for his own and Sir Charles Sedley's care, Lord Byron would not have a
hare on his estate: This put his lordship on his mettle, and he asked,
with a smile, what and how many were Sir Charles Sedley's manors. Mr.
Chaworth answered, 'Oh, Nuttall and Bulwell.' Lord Byron did not dispute
Nuttall, but he claimed Bulwell as his own, on which it appears that Mr.
Chaworth said, if you want information as to Sir Charles Sedley's manors,
you know where to find him; and if he does not give you satisfaction, I
can; and you know where to find me, in Berkeley Row.'
It is more than probable that he purposely used the
word I satisfaction' with a double meaning; and therefore, when the party
broke up and they met on the stairs, Lord Byron asked him what be meant.
These words, too, could be taken, of course, in an offensive sense; and
probably, the Byron blood being up, his lordship did put upon them the
worst construction. The result has been told above. Lord Byron in the
first instance received a slight wound, but his return thrust proved
fatal. The door being opened, the peer and the squire were found locked
together in a death-struggle. A surgeon was sent for, and he at once said
that the wound was mortal, and that Mr. Chaworth had not many hours to
live. The family lawyer was summoned, and the wounded man was just able to
make his will, and expired, saying with his last breath that he would
rather lie on his death-bed than feel that he had wantonly taken away
another man's life.
'These,' writes Sylvanus Urban, 'are the particulars of
this unfortunate affair, by which it would seem that neither Mr. Chaworth
himself nor any of his friends could blame Lord Byron for the part that
lie had in his death. Mr. Chaworth himself, it is manifest, was under
apprehension of having mortally wounded Lord Byron, and Lord Byron, being
still engaged (in the duel), had a right to avail himself of that mistake
for the preservation of his own life. His lordship himself, no doubt,
might have wished that in that situation he had disabled his adversary
only; but, in the heat of duelling, who can always be collected? Mr.
Chaworth, as we read in another page, 'was a most amiable character, about
forty years of age, and a bachelor.' It is not a little singular that his
niece, Miss Chaworth, was the first object of the poet Byron's earliest
boyish affections.
Notwithstanding Lord Byron's formal acquittal of the charge of
manslaughter by the House of Peers, he was, however, regarded by the
public as a guilty man, and everybody 'fought shy of him,' both in town
and in the country. He betook himself to Newstead Abbey, and led a most
retired and secluded life within its dreary walls, uncheered by the
company of wife or child or brother, and almost entirely forsaken by his
former friends. The 'old lord' seems to have been a most spiteful and
unnamable character. He always carried firearms on his person, being
probably rather tired of using his sword, and his only companions were two
fierce dogs, a mastiff and a bull-dog. He quarreled with his only son, who
died before him, as also did his grandson; and to spite the former he cut
down almost all the timber on the Newstead estate, sold the family
portraits, and even dismantled the rooms of the Abbey. He had to follow
his daughters, all unmarried, to their graves; and, when he died, lie had
neither child nor grandchild near him to close his eyes, while he knew
that the Byron coronet must pass to an infant grandnephew whom he had
never seen, and whose name he scarcely knew or cared to know.
That grandnephew, he little then imagined, was destined
in the course of a very few years to restore by his pen its luster to the
tarnished shield of the House of Byron.
Chapters From the Family Chests, 1887
Chapters From the Family Chest |
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