While the first part of The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron focused on Byron’s youthful escapades, the concluding part of Rupert Everett’s documentary was a more melancholy affair covering his exile from England and his eventual death during the Greek War of Independence. Everett still managed a few cheeky moments though, notably while flirting with an unfeasibly attractive academic at Byron’s villa on the shores of Lake Geneva and during a bingo match in Gloucester where one lady accused him of being a “dirty old b****r.”
Perverse Passion and Byron’s Exile from England
Byron married a rather serious young society woman called Arabella Milbanke. Everett visited the novelist Edna O’Brien who described Byron and Milbanke’s rather torrid sex life in a little more detail than is probably necessary. Their marriage ended though when Milbanke realised Byron was a bit too fond of his half-sister Augusta Lee; “that perverse passion was my deepest.”
Milbanke publicly denounced Byron hinting at his affair with Augusta and his propensity for marital sodomy. Byron got out of town fast heading for Europe, although Everett had to take the Eurostar from Paddington, denying him the opportunity to gaze moodily at the English shore as he departs. Byron never returned to England nor did he see his family again. This exile was permanent.
Shelley, Mary Godwin and the Birth of Frankenstein
Byron settled on the shores of Lake Geneva where he became an object of fascination for visiting English tourists who would spy on him with binoculars. Byron’s contemporary Percy Bysshe Shelley was a regular visitor to his villa, together with his lover Mary Godwin (later Shelley) and her step-sister Claire Clairmont. One stormy night they told each other ghost stories giving Godwin the idea for her novel ‘Frankenstein.’ Ken Russell’s entertaining film Gothic (1986)re-enacts the events of that night in a typically outlandish fashion, with Gabriel Byrne and Natasha Richardson as Byron and Godwin.
Everett Follows Byron to Venice
Byron arrived in Italy while it was under Austrian rule and Venice was a hotbed of intrigue. During that time he claimed to have slept with hundreds of women and wrote Don Juan. Everett visited a museum preserving examples of human distortions including an exhibit of syphilitic male genitalia, or “spotted dick” as he succinctly put it. Cue Everett visiting a VD clinic to undergo the kind of test that no doubt left male viewers wincing and crossing their legs.
The Death of Shelley and of Byron
“So we’ll go no more a roving/So late into the night.”
Shelley drowned at sea during a storm. Byron was amongst the mourners as his friend’s body was cremated on the beach at Viareggio. Everett speculated this may have been behind is decision to fight in the Greek War of Independence. However Everett undercut any romantic notions about Byron’s involvement in the war. Byron was used simply as a figurehead and ornamentation. Overweight and balding, he had fallen in love with an indifferent young man who cared nothing for his reputation. Byron caught a fever whilst riding in a storm. There was no glorious end on a battlefield; it was the weather that killed him.
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