‘Hands Touchin’ hands Reachin’ out Touching me, touchin’ you’ Sweet Caroline, Neil Diamond
At the beginning of the 21st century, my stars must have been twinkling in some delightful arrangement that celebrated the name Caroline.
I’ve spent an extraordinary and extraordinarily happy time dealing with two fascinating Carolines.
Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828) and Caroline Norton (1808-77) had one tremendous connection through William Lamb, Lord Melbourne – Whig Prime Minister in 1834 and 1835-41.
Lady Caroline Lamb was married to him at 19. William succeeded his father to the Melbourne title only after her death – so she never bore the Melbourne name. Caroline Norton was accused of adultery with Lord Melbourne, by her husband George Norton.
In a famous trial, George Norton sued Melbourne for criminal conversation – or adultery. Melbourne was cleared by the jury.
I was attracted by the law case rather than by the alleged offence she committed with Melbourne.
The law had always attracted me. Wistfully, I had sometimes dreamt of it as a profession. I had to be content to have it pointed out in kindly fashion by the distinguished lawyers in my family that a barrister was a kind of biographer. Caroline Norton’s law case ended in a terrible way, with the removal of her three children from her care.
The boys were sent to a relation in Scotland. There the youngest, nine-year-old Willy, fell mortally ill after a riding accident. Caroline was summoned back into the family circle. Too late. She was met at the station by a certain Lady Kelly, whom she had never met before.
‘How’s Willy?’ she asked.
‘Dead’ was the brief, cruel answer.
The story of Caroline Norton became one of the struggle for the rights of the mother, which scarcely existed at the time. I loved writing about the case, alternately shedding inner tears over the fate of Willy – imagine that scene on the railway platform! – and exploding with indignation over the behaviour of George Norton.
Caroline Norton could not exactly be described as a feminist, but the delineation of her attitude towards women’s rights was a fascinating study. She herself, one of three beautiful Sheridan sisters, granddaughters of Sheridan the playwright, made for marvellous illustrations.
If a biographer can have a tiny, secret self-identification with the subject, I definitely felt something along those lines with Caroline Norton: not so much ‘That happened to me’ as ‘How terrible if that HAD happened to me’.
For Caroline Lamb, I had mixed emotions. But, whatever my irritation, shared by Lady Melbourne and no doubt at times by her lover Lord Byron, I always felt a kind of tenderness; a wish to take the naughty little creature under my wing. I had never felt that before with any of my subjects – and the list of them included not one, but four executions!
I never had any intention of writing about Lamb, one Caroline being sweet enough, until the spiritual darkness of lockdown. In a melancholy fashion, I was dusting where no duster had ever been before. Suddenly, a large book fell deliberately – as I perceived it – on my foot. It was a biography of Lady Caroline Lamb. I could take the hint.
And so I secured to myself five very happy years, writing about the Sweeties. There are plenty of romantic stories in women’s history, but the stories of the fight for women’s rights were more limited and therefore in a way more exciting.
Lady Caroline Lamb often took dramatic action. When her beloved William was about to make his first speech as an MP in the House of Commons, she found to her horror that women were not admitted. What did Caroline Lamb do? She dressed up as a boy with the help of her brother’s clothes and proceeded to attend in style.
Rather than just to look like a man, Caroline Lamb wanted to enjoy a man’s liberties and freedoms.
She taught me that the fight for liberty can take many forms – including that of a spritely page. As I gaze at my reproduction (pictured) of Caroline, dressed as a page, by Thomas Phillips, I reflect on what a delightful government minister she would have made today.
Antonia Fraser is author of The Case of the Married Woman: Caroline Norton – A 19th-Century Heroine Who Wanted Justice for Women and Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free Spirit
