Clara Allegra Byron (12 January 1817 – 20 April 1822) was the illegitimate daughter of the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, and Claire Clairmont.
Born in Bath, England, she was initially named Alba, meaning "dawn", or "white", by her mother. At first she lived with her mother, her mother's stepsister, Mary Shelley, and Mary's husband Percy Bysshe Shelley. When she was fifteen months old, she was turned over to Byron, who changed her name to Allegra. Byron placed her with foster families and later in a Roman Catholic convent, where she died at the age of five of typhus or malaria.
Early life Allegra was the product of a short-lived affair between the Romantic poet and her starstruck teenage mother, who was living in reduced circumstances in the household of her stepsister and brother-in-law. Clairmont wrote to Byron during the pregnancy begging him to write back and promise to take care of her and the baby; however, Byron ignored her pleas.Eisler, p. 353 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 Clairmont took the baby back as an "adopted" child. Clairmont 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 neighbours would believe Percy Bysshe Shelley had fathered her as the truth about her relationship to Clairmont leaked out. William Godwin, Mary's father and Clairmont's stepfather, had immediately leapt to that conclusion when he learned of Allegra's birth.Seymour, Miranda (2000). Mary Shelley. London: John Murray, pp. 190–191 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 favour of those who advocate instinctive natural affection". In addition, the Shelleys were constantly in debt and 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.McCalman, Ian, Mee, Jon, Russell, Gillian, and Tuite, Clara (1999). An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture 1776–1832. Oxford University Press. , pp. 454–455
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 Leigh refused. Hostile to Clairmont and initially sceptical 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 Clairmont that this might not, after all, be the best plan for Allegra, but Clairmont 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.Eisler, p. 592 "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", 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, Clairmont 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 baptised 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.Eisler, pp. 587, 593
Resemblances to Byron
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."Benita Eisler, Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame,1999, p. 593. 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."Eisler, p. 594.
In 1819, in another letter to 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—ah, is that not B. all over?"Eisler, pp. 640–641 The child had forgotten any English she had learned and now spoke only Venetian Italian.Eisler, p. 640
In March 1820, he complained in a letter that three-year-old Allegra was quite vain and "obstinate as a mule".George Wilson Knight, G. Wilson Knight Collected Works, p. 79 Her behaviour was sometimes unmanageable, probably as a result of her unstable living arrangements and frequent changes in caregivers. At the age of four, the naughty child terrorised Byron's servants with her spectacular temper tantrums and other misbehaviour and told frequent lies.Eisler, p. 675
As she grew older, Allegra also demonstrated a talent for acting and singing. Teresa, Contessa Guiccioli, who was Lord Byron's lover while he was living in Ravenna and 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.Eisler, p. 597
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 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 nursemaid. Byron sent her to stay for long periods with his friend British consul Richard Belgrave Hoppner and his wife, who sent her to stay with three other families in as many months. Hoppner did not like Allegra. However, Hoppner's wife wrote to Shelley that they had grown worried because Allegra had grown quiet and serious while they cared for her. Byron demonstrated care for his daughter as well. He dismissed a servant who had allowed Allegra to fall. He also drafted a codicil to his will in which he bequeathed to her five thousand pounds.
Though he originally agreed to permit Clairmont to visit their daughter, Byron reneged on the agreement. Shelley often tried to persuade Byron to let Clairmont see her daughter and they thought of ways to regain custody of her. Clairmont 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.
Clairmont wrote that Allegra must be moved to a more healthy climate if she were to survive and pleaded with Byron to send their daughter to her in Bagni di Lucca, a town with a cool mountain climate.Eisler, pp. 667–668 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:Letters of George Gordon Lord Byron the Shelleys' first three children had all died young. Byron believed the rumours that a fourth child, Elena Adelaide Shelley, was Clairmont's daughter by Shelley and Allegra's half-sister. Elena died in a foster home in 1820 aged seventeen months.
Shelley wrote to his wife Mary that Allegra looked pale and quiet when he saw her in 1818. When he saw her again in August 1821 at the Capuchin Convent of Saint Giovanni in Bagnacavallo, a boarding school attended by the daughters of the nobility, he again felt she looked too pale. Allegra was tall and slender for her age, with curly blonde hair, blue eyes and delicate features. She moved gracefully. She wore a white muslin dress with a black silk apron and drawers. During her three-hour visit with Shelley, she showed him the bed where she slept, the chair where she ate dinner, and the little carriage that she and her best friend used during their strolls in the garden. "I had brought her a basket of sweetmeats, and before eating any of them she gave her friends and all the nuns a portion", Shelley wrote. Shelley 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. Allegra now knew certain prayers by heart."(Besides) Paradise & angels ... she has a prodigious list of saints—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.Eisler, p. 687
After five months in the convent school, her behaviour 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. Though Shelley thought the little girl was more serious and contemplative than he remembered, he said she had not lost her "excessive vivacity". The nuns did not scold her when Allegra played a prank on them during Shelley's visit. Some of the nuns had hidden from view while Shelley, who was playing with Allegra, raced about the convent. Allegra then rang the bell that was used to call the nuns to assemble and the prioress had to quickly tell the nuns to remain where they were so they did not come out in a state of disarray.
At the end of the visit, Allegra 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 Clairmont, 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.Eisler, pp. 666–667
Clairmont had always opposed Byron's decision to send Allegra to a convent, and shortly after the move, 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."Eisler, pp. 690–691 In March 1822, she created a plan to kidnap her daughter from the convent and asked Shelley to forge a letter of permission from Byron. Shelley refused.Eisler, p. 699