The Secret: The Strange Marriage of Annabella Milbanke and Lord Byron

The Secret is a non-fiction book by Australian author, Ashley Hay. It tells the story of the marriage of Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke. Hay states she began by focusing on all of the women in Lord Byron’s life, but later narrowed it down to concern Annabella and Byron themselves. She paints a picture of a marriage that happened for all the wrong reasons: Annabella wanted to save Byron’s soul; Byron, the first time he proposed, wanted to extricate himself from an inconvenient and rather bothersome relationship with Caroline Lamb; the second time, he wanted to extricate himself from crippling debt. When the marriage broke down after a mere fifty-four weeks, Lady Byron set out to destroy his reputation, and the secret she told her lawyer (but which was never revealed) set the tongues of Regency England and wider Europe wagging. Hay describes their courtship in an age when letters were written daily and preserved; that each never really appreciated what the other expected is understandable when one reads the veiled language that was commonly used. Hay’s meticulous research is apparent in every line. A very interesting read.