Byron | Page 2

---- | |- Frederick | | | | | GEORGE F.
WILLIAM, 9th and present | | Lord Byron. | | | |- GEORGE, 8th Lord
(1818-1870) | ------------------- | 1. Marchioness = John Byron
(1751-1791) = 2. Miss Gordon of Gight of Carmarthen | | | | Colonel
Leigh = Augusta GEORGE GORDON, 6th Lord | | (1788-1824).
Married Several daughters | Anna Isabella (1792-1860), | daughter of
Sir Ralph | Milbanke and Judith, | daughter of Sir Edward | Noel
(Viscount Wentworth), | and by her had ------------------------- | Earl
Lovelace = Augusta-Ada (1815-1852). |
-------------------------------------- | | | Mr. Blunt = Lady Anne. Byron

Noel Ralph Gordon, (died 1862) now Lord Wentworth
CHAPTER I.
ANCESTRY AND FAMILY.
Byron's life was passed under the fierce light that beats upon an
intellectual throne. He succeeded in making himself--what he wished to
be--the most notorious personality in the world of letters of our century.
Almost every one who came in contact with him has left on record
various impressions of intimacy or interview. Those whom he excluded
or patronized, maligned; those to whom he was genial, loved him. Mr.
Southey, in all sincerity, regarded him as the principle of Evil incarnate;
an American writer of tracts in the form of stories is of the same
opinion: to the Countess Guiccioli he is an archangel. Mr. Carlyle
considers him to have been a mere "sulky dandy." Goethe ranks him as
the first English poet after Shakespeare, and is followed by the leading
critics of France, Italy, and Spain. All concur in the admission that
Byron was as proud of his race as of his verse, and that in unexampled
measure the good and evil of his nature were inherited and inborn. His
genealogy is, therefore, a matter of no idle antiquarianism.
There are legends of old Norse Buruns migrating from their home in
Scandinavia, and settling, one branch in Normandy, another in Livonia.
To the latter belonged a distant Marshal de Burun, famous for the
almost absolute power he wielded in the then infant realm of Russia.
Two members of the family came over with the Conqueror, and settled
in England. Of Erneis de Burun, who had lands in York and Lincoln,
we hear little more. Ralph, the poet's ancestor, is mentioned in
Doomsday Book--our first authentic record--as having estates in
Nottinghamshire and Derby. His son Hugh was lord of Horestan Castle
in the latter county, and with his son of the same name, under King
Stephen, presented the church of Ossington to the monks of Lenton.
Tim latter Hugh joined their order; but the race was continued by his
son Sir Roger, who gave lands to the monastery of Swinstead. This
brings us to the reign of Henry II. (1155-1189), when Robert de Byron
adopted the spelling of his name afterwards retained, and by his

marriage with Cecilia, heir of Sir Richard Clayton, added to the family
possessions an estate; in Lancashire, where, till the time of Henry VIII.,
they fixed their seat. The poet, relying on old wood-carvings at
Newstead, claims for some of his ancestors a part in the crusades, and
mentions a name not apparently belonging to that age--
Near Ascalon's towers, John of Horestan slumbers--
a romance, like many of his, possibly founded on fact, but incapable of
verification.
Two grandsons of Sir Robert have a more substantial fame, having
served with distinction in the wars of Edward I. The elder of these was
governor of the city of York. Some members of his family fought at
Cressy, and one of his sons, Sir John, was knighted by Edward III. at
the siege of Calais. Descending through the other, Sir Richard, we
come to another Sir John, knighted by Richmond, afterwards Henry
VII., on his landing at Milford. He fought, with his kin, on the field of
Bosworth, and dying without issue, left the estates to his brother, Sir
Nicholas, knighted in 1502, at the marriage of Prince Arthur. The son
of Sir Nicholas, known as "little Sir John of the great beard," appears to
have been a favourite of Henry VIII., who made him Steward of
Manchester and Lieutenant of Sherwood, and on the dissolution of the
monasteries presented him with the Priory of Newstead, the rents of
which were equivalent to about 4000l. of our money. Sir John, who
stepped into the Abbey in 1540, married twice, and the premature
appearance of a son by the second wife--widow of Sir George
Halgh--brought the bar sinister of which so much has been made. No
indication of this fact, however, appears in the family arms, and it is
doubtful if the poet was aware of a reproach which in any case does not
touch his descent. The "filius naturalis," John Byron of Clayton,
inherited by deed of gift,