Allegra Byron
Encyclopedia
Clara Allegra Byron initially named Alba
, meaning "dawn
," or "white," by her mother, was the illegitimate daughter of the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron
and Claire Clairmont
, the stepsister of Mary Shelley
.
Born in Bath, England
, she initially lived with her mother and Mary Shelley
and Percy Bysshe Shelley
, but was turned over to Byron when she was fifteen months old. She lived most of her short life with boarders chosen by Byron or in a Roman Catholic convent, where she died at age five of typhus
or malaria
. She was visited only intermittently by her father, who displayed inconsistent paternal interest in her.
poet and her starstruck teenage mother, who was living in reduced circumstances in the household of her stepsister and brother-in-law. Claire wrote to Byron during the pregnancy begging him to write back and promise to take care of her and the baby. Byron ignored her. After her birth, she was initially taken into the household of Leigh Hunt as the child of a cousin. A few months later the Shelleys and Claire took the baby back as an "adopted" child. Claire bonded with her baby daughter and wrote in her journal with delight about her close, physical connection with little Allegra, but she was also dealing with emotional and financial pressures from the Shelleys that made it difficult for her to keep the baby with her. The Shelleys were fond of Allegra, but Mary Shelley feared that neighbors would believe Percy Bysshe Shelley fathered her as the truth about her relationship to Claire leaked out. William Godwin
, Mary's father and Claire's stepfather, had immediately leaped to that conclusion when he learned of Allegra's birth. In an October 1817 letter to Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley remarked that their toddler son William disliked Allegra, but was fond of his baby sister Clara. She saw her son's reaction to Allegra, who was no blood relation to him, as "an argument in favor of those who advocate instinctive natural affection. The Shelleys were constantly in debt. Mary Shelley
wanted the baby to be sent to Byron and wanted her difficult and temperamental stepsister, who had too close a relationship with her husband, to leave her house.
After the child's birth, Shelley wrote to Byron "of the exquisite symmetry" and beauty of "a little being whom we ... call Alba, or the Dawn
." He asked Byron what his plans were for the child. Later, Shelley acknowledged the child's presence was becoming something of an embarrassment. Byron asked his half-sister Augusta Leigh
to take Allegra into her household, but Augusta refused. Hostile to Claire and initially skeptical that he had fathered her daughter, Byron agreed to take custody of Allegra under the condition that her mother have only limited contact with her. Shelley warned Claire that this might not, after all, be the best plan for Allegra, but Claire hoped that her daughter would be more financially comfortable and would have a better chance at a good life if she lived with her father. "I have sent you my child because I love her too well to keep her," she wrote to Byron.
Byron requested that her name be changed from Alba, which also related to "Albé," Claire Clairmont's nickname for Byron, to Allegra, an Italian
name meaning "cheerful, brisk" and relating to the musical term "allegro." During the journey to turn the child over to Byron, Claire wrote in her journal that she had bathed her daughter in Dover
, but then crossed the passage out, as if afraid to mention the baby's name. The child was baptized with the name Clara Allegra before her mother relinquished her to Byron. Byron discussed spelling Allegra's surname as "Biron" instead of as "Byron" to further distinguish her from his legitimate daughter, Augusta Ada Byron
. Byron offered to pay Shelley for the expense of Allegra's upkeep during her first months of life, but Shelley indignantly refused and said the cost was a trifle.
Mary Shelley had called the baby Allegra "the little Commodore" because of her sturdy body and alert, intelligent look. Byron was also pleased with Allegra's resemblances to himself in appearance and temperament. When she was eighteen months old, he wrote in a letter to a friend: "My bastard came three days ago—very like—healthy—noisy & capricious." In an 1818 letter to his half-sister Augusta Leigh
, Byron wrote that "She is very pretty—remarkably intelligent ... She has very blue eyes—that singular forehead—fair curly hair—and a devil of a spirit—but that is Papa's." In 1819, in another letter to Augusta Leigh, Byron described two and a half-year-old Allegra as "very droll" and again commented on her resemblance to himself in physical appearance, temperament and interests: "(She) has a very good deal of the Byron. Can't articulate the letter 'r' at all—frowns and pouts quite in our way—blue eyes—light hair growing darker daily—and a dimple in the chin—a scowl on the brow—white skin—sweet voice—and a particular liking of Music—and of her own way in every thing—is that not B. all over?" The child had forgotten any English she had learned and now spoke only Venetian Italian
. In March 1820, he complained in a letter that three-year-old Allegra was vain
and "obstinate as a mule". Her behavior was sometimes unmanageable, probably as a result of her unstable living arrangements and frequent changes in caregivers. At age four, the naughty child terrorized Byron's servants with her temper tantrums
and other misbehavior and told frequent lie
s.
As she grew older, Allegra also demonstrated a talent for acting and singing. Byron's mistress Teresa, Contessa Guiccioli, whom Allegra called "mammina," remarked on Allegra's talent for mimicking the servants and for singing popular songs. Byron felt her talent for mimicry, another talent she shared with him, might amuse other people in the short term but would eventually be a cause of trouble for her.
Stability and the affection of the nuns at the Capuchin
convent in Bagnacavallo
, where she spent the last year of her life, improved Allegra's self-control. Still, the nuns indulged her because of her charm
and she was rarely punished
for breaking the rules.
with Allegra, immortalized the toddler as Count Maddalo's child in his 1819 poem Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation
:
In the next stanza he imagines her grown to a woman: "A wonder of this earth ... Like one of Shakespeare's women."
. Byron sent her to stay for long periods with his friend, British consul
Richard Belgrave Hoppner, but Hoppner's wife didn't like Allegra and sent her to stay with three other families in as many months. Though he'd originally agreed to permit Claire to visit their daughter, Byron reneged on the agreement. Shelley often tried to persuade Byron to let Claire see her daughter and they thought of ways to regain custody
of her. Claire was alarmed by reports in 1820 that her daughter had suffered a malarial-type fever
and that Byron had moved her to warm Ravenna at the height of the summer. Claire wrote that Allegra must be moved to a more healthy climate if she was to survive and pleaded with Byron to send their daughter to her in Bagni di Lucca
, a town with a cool mountain climate. However, Byron didn't want to send Allegra back to be raised in the Shelley household, where he was sure she'd grow ill from eating a vegetarian diet and would be taught atheism
. He pointed out that all of the other children in the Shelley household had died. The Shelleys' first three children had all died young. Byron believed the rumors that a fourth child, Elena Adelaide Shelley, was Claire's daughter by Shelley and Allegra's half-sister. Elena died in a foster home in 1820 at age seventeen months. "Have they raised one?" Byron wrote in a letter to a friend in the fall of 1820.
Shelley wrote to his wife Mary that Allegra looked pale and quiet when he saw her in 1818. When he saw her again in 1821 at the Capuchin
convent in Bagnacavallo
, when she was four, he again felt she looked pale and delicate and was infuriated by the Roman Catholic education she was receiving, though he had initially told Byron he approved of her being sent to a convent. "(Besides) Paradise
& angel
s ... she has a prodigious list of saint
s—and is always talking of the Bambino
... The idea of bringing up so sweet a creature in the midst of such trash till Sixteen!" he wrote." However, though Shelley thought the little girl was more serious and contemplative than he remembered, he said she had not lost her "excessive vivacity." After five months in the convent school, her behavior had also improved; she obeyed the nuns readily and was well-disciplined, though Shelley didn't think the nuns had been too severe with her. The child asked Shelley to "tell her mother she wanted a kiss and a gold dress and would he please beg her Papa and Mammina to visit her." Allegra no longer had any real memory of Claire, but had grown attached to "her Mammina," Byron's mistress Teresa, Countess Guiccioli
, who had mothered her. Teresa gave the little girl her own childhood toys and played with her when she spent weeks recovering from a childhood illness.
Claire Clairmont had always opposed Byron's decision to send her daughter to the convent in March 1821. Shortly afterwards, she wrote him a furious, condemnatory letter accusing him of breaking his promise that their daughter would never be apart from one of her parents. She felt that the physical conditions in convents were unhealthy and the education provided was poor and was responsible for "the state of ignorance & profligacy of Italian women, all pupils of Convents. They are bad wives & most unnatural mothers, licentious & ignorant they are the dishonour & unhappiness of society ... This step will procure to you an innumerable addition of enemies & of blame." In March 1822, she dreamed up a plot to kidnap her daughter from the convent and asked Shelley to forge a letter of permission from Byron. Shelley refused.
Byron had arranged for Allegra to be educated in the convent
precisely because he, unlike his former lover Claire, thought favorably of the manners and attitudes of Italian women who had received convent
educations. He disapproved of what he called Claire's "loose morals" and "Bedlam
behavior" and didn't want her to influence Allegra. He also believed that his daughter, given her illegitimacy, would have a far better chance of marrying well in Italy
than she would in England
. A Roman Catholic girl with a suitable dowry
, raised in a convent, would have a decent chance of marrying into high Italian society. He wanted the child to become a Roman Catholic, which he viewed as the "best religion." "If Claire thinks that she shall ever interfere with the child's morals or education, she mistakes; she never shall," wrote Byron in a letter to Richard Belgrave Hoppner in September 1820. "The girl shall be a Christian
and a married woman, if possible." Her mother could see Allegra, he added, only with the "proper restrictions." Byron wrote to Hoppner in March 1821 that Allegra would receive better care in the convent than she would with him. His mistress, Teresa, Countess Guiccioli, had a happy experience at the convent boarding school where she had lived from the age of five, and had also persuaded Byron that a convent school would be the best place for Allegra. He also viewed the convent as the safest place for her with revolution brewing in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
.
Allegra was doted on by the nuns at the convent, who called her "Allegrina," and was visited once by Teresa's relatives. Probably with considerable assistance from the nuns, four-year-old Allegra wrote her father a letter in Italian from the convent, dated September 21, 1821, asking him to visit her:
The abbess of the convent included her own note inviting Byron to come to see Allegra before he left for Pisa and assuring him "how much she is loved." On the back of this letter, Byron wrote: "Sincere enough, but not very flattering - for she wants to see me because 'it is the fair
' to get some paternal Gingerbread
- I suppose." Byron never responded to Allegra's letter or visited the child during the thirteen months she was in the convent.
. Byron biographer Benita Eisler speculated that she died after suffering a recurrence of her malarial-type fevers
, which she had also suffered from the previous autumn.
Byron sent her body to England and wrote an inscription for her gravestone that read: "In memory of Allegra, daughter of G.G., Lord Byron, who died at Bagna Cavallo in Italy, April 20, 1822, Aged Five Years and Three Months,-'I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me.'-2 Samuel, xii, 23"
Byron felt guilty about his neglect of the child after her death, he told Marguerite, Countess of Blessington
, a few months afterwards:
The memory of Allegra haunted Shelley and her mother. Before his own death by drowning in July 1822, Shelley had a vision of the dead child in which she rose naked from the sea, laughed, clapped her hands, and beckoned to him. Claire Clairmont furiously accused Byron of murdering Allegra. She demanded that Byron send her a portrait of Allegra, a lock of the child's hair, and that she be placed in charge of the funeral arrangements. In the end, though, Claire could not bear to see Allegra's coffin or to hold a funeral service for her daughter. She blamed Byron for the rest of her life for Allegra's death.
Scandalized by Byron's reputation and the child's illegitimacy, the rector of St. Mary's Parish Church in Harrow
, Middlesex
, England
, refused to place a plaque on Allegra's grave and permitted her only to be buried at the entrance of the church without a marker. When Byron died two years later, the rector also refused to bury him at St. Mary's Parish Church in Harrow. He was also denied burial at Westminster
. He was ultimately buried at St. Mary Magdalens' Church in Hucknall Torkard, Nottinghamshire
, England
.
In 1980, The Byron Society placed a memorial plaque for Allegra at Harrow, inscribed with words from a letter Byron wrote to Shelley after her death: "I suppose that Time will do his usual work... - Death has done his."
Alba (poetry)
The alba is a subgenre of Occitan lyric poetry. It describes the longing of lovers who, having passed a night together, must separate for fear of being discovered by their respective spouses....
, meaning "dawn
Dawn
Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of the twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the presence of weak sunlight, while the sun itself is still below the horizon...
," or "white," by her mother, was the illegitimate daughter of the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
and Claire Clairmont
Claire Clairmont
Clara Mary Jane Clairmont , or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was a stepsister of writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra.-Early life:...
, the stepsister of Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
.
Born in Bath, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, she initially lived with her mother and Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
and Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
, but was turned over to Byron when she was fifteen months old. She lived most of her short life with boarders chosen by Byron or in a Roman Catholic convent, where she died at age five of typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
or malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
. She was visited only intermittently by her father, who displayed inconsistent paternal interest in her.
Early life
Allegra was the product of a short-lived affair between the RomanticRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
poet and her starstruck teenage mother, who was living in reduced circumstances in the household of her stepsister and brother-in-law. Claire wrote to Byron during the pregnancy begging him to write back and promise to take care of her and the baby. Byron ignored her. After her birth, she was initially taken into the household of Leigh Hunt as the child of a cousin. A few months later the Shelleys and Claire took the baby back as an "adopted" child. Claire bonded with her baby daughter and wrote in her journal with delight about her close, physical connection with little Allegra, but she was also dealing with emotional and financial pressures from the Shelleys that made it difficult for her to keep the baby with her. The Shelleys were fond of Allegra, but Mary Shelley feared that neighbors would believe Percy Bysshe Shelley fathered her as the truth about her relationship to Claire leaked out. William Godwin
William Godwin
William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...
, Mary's father and Claire's stepfather, had immediately leaped to that conclusion when he learned of Allegra's birth. In an October 1817 letter to Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley remarked that their toddler son William disliked Allegra, but was fond of his baby sister Clara. She saw her son's reaction to Allegra, who was no blood relation to him, as "an argument in favor of those who advocate instinctive natural affection. The Shelleys were constantly in debt. Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
wanted the baby to be sent to Byron and wanted her difficult and temperamental stepsister, who had too close a relationship with her husband, to leave her house.
After the child's birth, Shelley wrote to Byron "of the exquisite symmetry" and beauty of "a little being whom we ... call Alba, or the Dawn
Dawn
Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of the twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the presence of weak sunlight, while the sun itself is still below the horizon...
." He asked Byron what his plans were for the child. Later, Shelley acknowledged the child's presence was becoming something of an embarrassment. Byron asked his half-sister Augusta Leigh
Augusta Leigh
Augusta Maria Byron, later Augusta Maria Leigh , styled "The Honourable" from birth, was the only daughter of John "Mad Jack" Byron, the poet Lord Byron's father, by his first wife, Amelia Osborne .-Early...
to take Allegra into her household, but Augusta refused. Hostile to Claire and initially skeptical that he had fathered her daughter, Byron agreed to take custody of Allegra under the condition that her mother have only limited contact with her. Shelley warned Claire that this might not, after all, be the best plan for Allegra, but Claire hoped that her daughter would be more financially comfortable and would have a better chance at a good life if she lived with her father. "I have sent you my child because I love her too well to keep her," she wrote to Byron.
Byron requested that her name be changed from Alba, which also related to "Albé," Claire Clairmont's nickname for Byron, to Allegra, an Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
name meaning "cheerful, brisk" and relating to the musical term "allegro." During the journey to turn the child over to Byron, Claire wrote in her journal that she had bathed her daughter in Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
, but then crossed the passage out, as if afraid to mention the baby's name. The child was baptized with the name Clara Allegra before her mother relinquished her to Byron. Byron discussed spelling Allegra's surname as "Biron" instead of as "Byron" to further distinguish her from his legitimate daughter, Augusta Ada Byron
Ada Lovelace
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace , born Augusta Ada Byron, was an English writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine...
. Byron offered to pay Shelley for the expense of Allegra's upkeep during her first months of life, but Shelley indignantly refused and said the cost was a trifle.
Resemblances to Byron
Augusta Leigh
Augusta Maria Byron, later Augusta Maria Leigh , styled "The Honourable" from birth, was the only daughter of John "Mad Jack" Byron, the poet Lord Byron's father, by his first wife, Amelia Osborne .-Early...
, Byron wrote that "She is very pretty—remarkably intelligent ... She has very blue eyes—that singular forehead—fair curly hair—and a devil of a spirit—but that is Papa's." In 1819, in another letter to Augusta Leigh, Byron described two and a half-year-old Allegra as "very droll" and again commented on her resemblance to himself in physical appearance, temperament and interests: "(She) has a very good deal of the Byron. Can't articulate the letter 'r' at all—frowns and pouts quite in our way—blue eyes—light hair growing darker daily—and a dimple in the chin—a scowl on the brow—white skin—sweet voice—and a particular liking of Music—and of her own way in every thing—is that not B. all over?" The child had forgotten any English she had learned and now spoke only Venetian Italian
Venetian language
Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...
. In March 1820, he complained in a letter that three-year-old Allegra was vain
Vanity
In conventional parlance, vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others. Prior to the 14th century it did not have such narcissistic undertones, and merely meant futility. The related term vainglory is now often seen as an archaic synonym for vanity, but...
and "obstinate as a mule". Her behavior was sometimes unmanageable, probably as a result of her unstable living arrangements and frequent changes in caregivers. At age four, the naughty child terrorized Byron's servants with her temper tantrums
Tantrum
A tantrum is an emotional outburst, usually associated with children or those in emotional distress, that is typically characterized by stubbornness, crying, screaming, yelling, shrieking, defiance, angry ranting, a resistance to attempts at pacification and, in some cases, violence...
and other misbehavior and told frequent lie
Lie
For other uses, see Lie A lie is a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement, especially with the intention to deceive others....
s.
As she grew older, Allegra also demonstrated a talent for acting and singing. Byron's mistress Teresa, Contessa Guiccioli, whom Allegra called "mammina," remarked on Allegra's talent for mimicking the servants and for singing popular songs. Byron felt her talent for mimicry, another talent she shared with him, might amuse other people in the short term but would eventually be a cause of trouble for her.
Stability and the affection of the nuns at the Capuchin
Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an Order of friars in the Catholic Church, among the chief offshoots of the Franciscans. The worldwide head of the Order, called the Minister General, is currently Father Mauro Jöhri.-Origins :...
convent in Bagnacavallo
Bagnacavallo
Bagnacavallo is a town and comune in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. .The Renaissance painter Bartolommeo Ramenghi bore the nickname of his native city.- Main sights:*Castellaccio * Giardino dei Semplici...
, where she spent the last year of her life, improved Allegra's self-control. Still, the nuns indulged her because of her charm
Charisma
The term charisma has two senses: 1) compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others, 2) a divinely conferred power or talent. For some theological usages the term is rendered charism, with a meaning the same as sense 2...
and she was rarely punished
Punishment
Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....
for breaking the rules.
In poetry
Percy Bysshe Shelley, remembering his 1818 visit to Byron, when he rolled billiard ballsBilliard
-Games:* A , a type of shot in cue sports * Billiards: cue sports in general, including pool, carom billiards, snooker, etc.; the term "billiards" by itself is also sometimes used to refer to any of the following more specifically:...
with Allegra, immortalized the toddler as Count Maddalo's child in his 1819 poem Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation
Julian and Maddalo
"Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation" is a poem in 617 lines of enjambed heroic couplets by Percy Bysshe Shelley. It was written in the autumn of 1818 at a villa called I Capuccini, in Este, near Venice, which had been lent to Shelley by his friend Lord Byron, and it was given its final revision...
:
In the next stanza he imagines her grown to a woman: "A wonder of this earth ... Like one of Shakespeare's women."
Convent education
Shelley, who visited the toddler Allegra while she was being boarded with a family chosen by Byron, objected to the child's living arrangements over the years, though he had initially approved of Claire Clairmont's plan to relinquish her to her father. During the summer of 1819, Allegra stayed with four different families and was abandoned by her nursemaidNursemaid
A nursemaid or nursery maid, is mostly a historical term of employment for a female servant in an elite household. In the 21st century, the position is largely defunct, owing to the relatively small number of households who maintain large staffs with the traditional hierarchy.The nursery maid...
. Byron sent her to stay for long periods with his friend, British consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...
Richard Belgrave Hoppner, but Hoppner's wife didn't like Allegra and sent her to stay with three other families in as many months. Though he'd originally agreed to permit Claire to visit their daughter, Byron reneged on the agreement. Shelley often tried to persuade Byron to let Claire see her daughter and they thought of ways to regain custody
Child custody
Child custody and guardianship are legal terms which are used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent and his or her child, such as the right of the parent to make decisions for the child, and the parent's duty to care for the child.Following ratification of the United...
of her. Claire was alarmed by reports in 1820 that her daughter had suffered a malarial-type fever
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
and that Byron had moved her to warm Ravenna at the height of the summer. Claire wrote that Allegra must be moved to a more healthy climate if she was to survive and pleaded with Byron to send their daughter to her in Bagni di Lucca
Bagni di Lucca
Bagni di Lucca is a comune of Tuscany, Italy, in the Province of Lucca with a population of c. 6,500.-History:Bagni di Lucca was known for its thermal springs since the Etruscan and Roman Ages....
, a town with a cool mountain climate. However, Byron didn't want to send Allegra back to be raised in the Shelley household, where he was sure she'd grow ill from eating a vegetarian diet and would be taught atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
. He pointed out that all of the other children in the Shelley household had died. The Shelleys' first three children had all died young. Byron believed the rumors that a fourth child, Elena Adelaide Shelley, was Claire's daughter by Shelley and Allegra's half-sister. Elena died in a foster home in 1820 at age seventeen months. "Have they raised one?" Byron wrote in a letter to a friend in the fall of 1820.
Shelley wrote to his wife Mary that Allegra looked pale and quiet when he saw her in 1818. When he saw her again in 1821 at the Capuchin
Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an Order of friars in the Catholic Church, among the chief offshoots of the Franciscans. The worldwide head of the Order, called the Minister General, is currently Father Mauro Jöhri.-Origins :...
convent in Bagnacavallo
Bagnacavallo
Bagnacavallo is a town and comune in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. .The Renaissance painter Bartolommeo Ramenghi bore the nickname of his native city.- Main sights:*Castellaccio * Giardino dei Semplici...
, when she was four, he again felt she looked pale and delicate and was infuriated by the Roman Catholic education she was receiving, though he had initially told Byron he approved of her being sent to a convent. "(Besides) Paradise
Paradise
Paradise is a place in which existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It is conceptually a counter-image of the miseries of human civilization, and in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, but it is not necessarily a land of luxury and...
& angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
s ... she has a prodigious list of saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
s—and is always talking of the Bambino
Il Bambino
Il Bambino , the name given in art to the image of the infant Jesus in swaddling clothes common in Roman Catholic churches...
... The idea of bringing up so sweet a creature in the midst of such trash till Sixteen!" he wrote." However, though Shelley thought the little girl was more serious and contemplative than he remembered, he said she had not lost her "excessive vivacity." After five months in the convent school, her behavior had also improved; she obeyed the nuns readily and was well-disciplined, though Shelley didn't think the nuns had been too severe with her. The child asked Shelley to "tell her mother she wanted a kiss and a gold dress and would he please beg her Papa and Mammina to visit her." Allegra no longer had any real memory of Claire, but had grown attached to "her Mammina," Byron's mistress Teresa, Countess Guiccioli
Teresa, Contessa Guiccioli
Teresa, Contessa Guiccioli was the mistress of Lord Byron whilst he was living in Ravenna, Italy, and writing the first five cantos of Don Juan. She wrote the biographical account Lord Byron's Life in Italy....
, who had mothered her. Teresa gave the little girl her own childhood toys and played with her when she spent weeks recovering from a childhood illness.
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
precisely because he, unlike his former lover Claire, thought favorably of the manners and attitudes of Italian women who had received convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
educations. He disapproved of what he called Claire's "loose morals" and "Bedlam
Bethlem Royal Hospital
The Bethlem Royal Hospital is a psychiatric hospital located in London, United Kingdom and part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Although no longer based at its original location, it is recognised as the world's first and oldest institution to specialise in mental illnesses....
behavior" and didn't want her to influence Allegra. He also believed that his daughter, given her illegitimacy, would have a far better chance of marrying well in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
than she would in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. A Roman Catholic girl with a suitable dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
, raised in a convent, would have a decent chance of marrying into high Italian society. He wanted the child to become a Roman Catholic, which he viewed as the "best religion." "If Claire thinks that she shall ever interfere with the child's morals or education, she mistakes; she never shall," wrote Byron in a letter to Richard Belgrave Hoppner in September 1820. "The girl shall be a Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
and a married woman, if possible." Her mother could see Allegra, he added, only with the "proper restrictions." Byron wrote to Hoppner in March 1821 that Allegra would receive better care in the convent than she would with him. His mistress, Teresa, Countess Guiccioli, had a happy experience at the convent boarding school where she had lived from the age of five, and had also persuaded Byron that a convent school would be the best place for Allegra. He also viewed the convent as the safest place for her with revolution brewing in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, commonly known as the Two Sicilies even before formally coming into being, was the largest and wealthiest of the Italian states before Italian unification...
.
Allegra was doted on by the nuns at the convent, who called her "Allegrina," and was visited once by Teresa's relatives. Probably with considerable assistance from the nuns, four-year-old Allegra wrote her father a letter in Italian from the convent, dated September 21, 1821, asking him to visit her:
My dear Papa. It being fair-time, I should like so much a visit from my Papa as I have many wishes to satisfy. Won't you come to please your Allegrina who loves you so?
The abbess of the convent included her own note inviting Byron to come to see Allegra before he left for Pisa and assuring him "how much she is loved." On the back of this letter, Byron wrote: "Sincere enough, but not very flattering - for she wants to see me because 'it is the fair
Fair
A fair or fayre is a gathering of people to display or trade produce or other goods, to parade or display animals and often to enjoy associated carnival or funfair entertainment. It is normally of the essence of a fair that it is temporary; some last only an afternoon while others may ten weeks. ...
' to get some paternal Gingerbread
Gingerbread
Gingerbread is a term used to describe a variety of sweet food products, which can range from a soft, moist loaf cake to something close to a ginger biscuit. What they have in common are the predominant flavors of ginger and a tendency to use honey or molasses rather than just sugar...
- I suppose." Byron never responded to Allegra's letter or visited the child during the thirteen months she was in the convent.
Death, burial and a memorial
Allegra died on April 20, 1822, attended by three doctors and all of the nuns at the convent, of what some biographers have identified as typhusTyphus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
. Byron biographer Benita Eisler speculated that she died after suffering a recurrence of her malarial-type fevers
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
, which she had also suffered from the previous autumn.
Byron sent her body to England and wrote an inscription for her gravestone that read: "In memory of Allegra, daughter of G.G., Lord Byron, who died at Bagna Cavallo in Italy, April 20, 1822, Aged Five Years and Three Months,-'I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me.'-2 Samuel, xii, 23"
Byron felt guilty about his neglect of the child after her death, he told Marguerite, Countess of Blessington
Marguerite, Countess of Blessington
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington was an Irish novelist.Born Margaret Power near Clonmel in County Tipperary, Ireland, she was a daughter of Edmund Power, a small landowner...
, a few months afterwards:
Let the object of affection be snatched away by death, and how is all the pain ever inflicted upon them avenged! The same imagination that led us to slight or overlook their sufferings, now that they are forever lost to us, magnifies their estimable qualities ... How did I feel this when my daughter, Allegra, died! While she lived, her existence never seemed necessary to my happiness; but no sooner did I lose her, than it appeared to me as if I could not live without her.
The memory of Allegra haunted Shelley and her mother. Before his own death by drowning in July 1822, Shelley had a vision of the dead child in which she rose naked from the sea, laughed, clapped her hands, and beckoned to him. Claire Clairmont furiously accused Byron of murdering Allegra. She demanded that Byron send her a portrait of Allegra, a lock of the child's hair, and that she be placed in charge of the funeral arrangements. In the end, though, Claire could not bear to see Allegra's coffin or to hold a funeral service for her daughter. She blamed Byron for the rest of her life for Allegra's death.
Scandalized by Byron's reputation and the child's illegitimacy, the rector of St. Mary's Parish Church in Harrow
Harrow, London
Harrow is an area in the London Borough of Harrow, northwest London, United Kingdom. It is a suburban area and is situated 12.2 miles northwest of Charing Cross...
, Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, refused to place a plaque on Allegra's grave and permitted her only to be buried at the entrance of the church without a marker. When Byron died two years later, the rector also refused to bury him at St. Mary's Parish Church in Harrow. He was also denied burial at Westminster
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
. He was ultimately buried at St. Mary Magdalens' Church in Hucknall Torkard, Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
In 1980, The Byron Society placed a memorial plaque for Allegra at Harrow, inscribed with words from a letter Byron wrote to Shelley after her death: "I suppose that Time will do his usual work... - Death has done his."
