39 Facts About Allegra Byron

Clara Allegra Byron was the illegitimate daughter of the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, and Claire Clairmont.

Allegra Byron 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.

Allegra Byron 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 March 1820, he complained in a letter that three-year-old Allegra Byron was quite vain and "obstinate as a mule".

Allegra Byron's behaviour was sometimes unmanageable, probably as a result of her unstable living arrangements and frequent changes in caregivers.

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.

Allegra 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.

Allegra 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.

However, Hoppner's wife wrote to Shelley that they had grown worried because Allegra Byron had grown quiet and serious while they cared for her.

Allegra Byron dismissed a servant who had allowed Allegra to fall.

Allegra Byron drafted a codicil to his will in which he bequeathed to her five thousand pounds.

Shelley often tried to persuade Allegra 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 Allegra 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.

Allegra Byron pointed out that all of the other children in the Shelley household had died: the Shelleys' first three children had all died young.

Shelley wrote to his wife Mary that Allegra Byron looked pale and quiet when he saw her in 1818.

Allegra Byron was tall and slender for her age, with curly blonde hair, blue eyes and delicate features.

Allegra Byron wore a white muslin dress with a black silk apron and drawers.

Shelley was infuriated by the Roman Catholic education she was receiving, though he initially told Allegra Byron he approved of her being sent to a convent.

The nuns did not scold her when Allegra Byron played a prank on them during Shelley's visit.

Some nuns had hidden from view while Shelley, who was playing with Allegra Byron, raced about the convent.

Allegra Byron 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.

Byron had arranged for Allegra to be educated in the convent precisely because he, unlike his former lover Clairmont, thought favourably of the manners and attitudes of Italian women who had received convent educations.

Allegra Byron disapproved of what he called Clairmont's "loose morals" and "Bedlam behaviour" and didn't want her to influence Allegra.

Allegra Byron believed that his daughter, given her illegitimacy, would have a far better chance of marrying well in Italy than she would in England.

Allegra Byron wanted the child to become a Roman Catholic, which he viewed as the "best religion".

Byron had written to Clairmont that he paid double fees to the convent school to ensure that Allegra would receive the best possible care from the nuns.

Byron wrote to Hoppner in March 1821 that Allegra would receive better care in the convent than she would with him.

Allegra Byron viewed the convent as the safest place for her with revolution brewing in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Allegra Byron was doted on by the nuns at the convent, who called her "Allegrina", and was visited once by Teresa's relatives.

Probably with considerable assistance from the nuns, four-year-old Allegra Byron wrote her father a letter in Italian from the convent, dated 21 September 1821, asking him to visit her:.

The nuns called a doctor to see her, who determined that Allegra Byron was suffering "little slow fevers".

Allegra Byron's father was informed but Byron did not visit.

Allegra Byron approved the use of any medical interventions deemed necessary.

Allegra Byron felt guilty about his neglect of the child after her death; he told Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, a few months afterwards:.

Clairmont accused Byron of murdering Allegra and demanded that Byron send her a portrait of Allegra, a lock of the child's hair, and that she be placed in charge of the funeral arrangements.

Allegra Byron blamed Byron for the rest of her life for Allegra's death.

The memory of Allegra Byron haunted Shelley; before his own death by drowning in July 1822, Shelley had a vision of the dead child in which she rose naked from the sea, laughed, clapped her hands, and beckoned to him.

Allegra Byron immortalised the toddler as Count Maddalo's child in his 1819 poem Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation:.