More Literary Allusions in Downton Abbey — Stowe and Byron

dowager

There were two more literary allusions in this week’s episode of Downton Abbey, both of which connect to the Brownings.

When Lord Grantham and Mr. Drewe, the son of the recently deceased tenant farmer, are discussing whether or not he will be allowed to remain as a tenant, Lord Grantham says he is no “Simon Legree.” This, of course, is a reference to the cruel slave dealer in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century and the second best-selling book of that century, following the Bible.

harriet-beecher-stoweThe author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was one of the many American correspondents of the Brownings. (Soon the Armstrong Browning Library will shortly be featuring an exhibit, “…from America: The Brownings’ American Correspondents.) There are six recorded letters between the Brownings and Harriet Beecher Stowe between 1857 and 1861, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning makes references to Stowe in six more letters. One of these letters is in the collection at the Armstrong Browning Library.

Stowe Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Harriet Beecher Stowe
[?24 March 1860]

Fifteen Harriet Beecher Stowe books are in the ABL’s collection, including a first edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Among the books are two volumes of Stowe’s poetry, which are in the digital collection of 19th Century Women Poets

The other literary allusion focused on Lord Byron. Lord Grantham is complimented on his rather pithy statement about the past and the future. His dowager mother responds, “It was too good. One thing we don’t want is a poet in the family.” When Isobel Crawley asks if that would be a bad thing, the dowager answers, “The only poet peer I am familiar with is Lord Byron. And I presume we all know how that ended.” The dowager was referring to Byron’s divorce, remarriage, accusations against him of sodomy and incest, his affairs, and his eventual flight from England to Italy. Obviously, his lifestyle was not the sort that the dowager would approve.

The Brownings, however, admirers of Byron’s poetry owned ten copies of Byron’s work, two portraits of the poet, and a copy of Byron’s verses in an unidentified hand.

Robert makes this reference to Byron in a love letter he wrote to Elizabeth Barrett Browning on August 22, 1846:

Ba, Lord Byron is altogether in my affection again .. I have read on to the end, and am quite sure of the great qualities which the last ten or fifteen years had partially obscured- Only a little longer life and all would have been gloriously right again. I read this book of Moore’s [Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of His Life by Thomas Moore, 1830] too long ago: but I always retained my first feeling for Byron in many respects .. the interest in the places he had visited, in relics of him: I would at any time have gone to Finchley to see a curl of his hair or one of his gloves, I am sure–while Heaven knows that I could not get up enthusiasm enough to cross the room if at the other end of it all Wordsworth, Coleridge & Southey were condensed into the little china bottle yonder, after the Rosicrucian fashion .. they seem to “have their reward” and want nobody’s love or faith.

Byron 1 Byron2

Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett Browning
22 August 1846

Robert Browning’s life offers some parallels to Lord Byron’s and some differences. Although his marriage to EBB was clandestine, he was a devoted and loving husband. He did leave England to live in Italy, but his leaving was not under duress, and he did return to England often and freely.

Notes and Queries:

Could other similarities and differences be found in the lives of these great poets?

Melinda Creech

Literary and Historical Allusions in Downton Abbey, Season 4

kiriContinuing to tease out a bond between the historical milieu of Highclere Castle, which is the setting for the PBS drama Downton Abbey, and the real world of Robert Browning, I have found a literary and an historical allusion in Season 4 of Downton Abbey that may provide a tenuous connection to Robert Browning.

Trying to draw Isobel Crawley, mother of recently deceased Matthew Crawley, out of her mourning, Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, quotes the last two lines of Christina Rossetti’s poem, “Remember:”

remember-1

Christina Rossetti. “Remember”
from Goblin Market and Other Poems.  
Cambridge, London: Macmillan and Co., 1862, p. 58

Isobel reminds Dame Crawley that in the poem Christina Rossetti is talking about her own death, not the death of her child.

Robert Browning corresponded with Christina Rossetti. In fact, the Armstrong Browning Library owns a letter written by Christina Rossetti to Robert Browning, dated 21 December 1869, in which she extends an invitation to attend a gathering at her home. “Remember” was published in Goblin Market and Other Poems, which was part of Robert Browning’s library. The frontispiece and vignette title page were illustrated by Christina’s brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who also corresponded with the Brownings. The ABL’s advance copy of this work was sent to Robert Browning by the Rossetti family and remained in his library until his death.

Goblin-Market-1Christina Rossetti. Goblin Market and Other Poems.  
Cambridge, London: Macmillan and Co., 1862.

Also in Episode 1, a famous Australian opera singer, Dame Nellie Melba, sings “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” a song for voice and piano written in 1880 by Antonín Dvořák. It is the fourth of seven songs from his cycle Gypsy Songs. The English lyrics for the song are:

Songs my mother taught me, In the days long vanished;
Seldom from her eyelids were the teardrops banished.
Now I teach my children, each melodious measure.
Oft the tears are flowing, oft they flow from my memory’s treasure.

Antonín Dvořák, “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” (No. 4 in: Zigeunermelodien, Op. 55),German  words, Adolph Heyduk; English words, Mrs. Natalia Macfarren, Berlin: N. Simrock [1880].

Robert Browning and Antonín Dvořák were contemporaries. According to Musical World, 28 February 1885, the song, which was very popular at the time, was to be performed at St. James Hall that very afternoon. Antonín Dvořák visited England nine times in all, but I have yet to find evidence that their paths crossed.

Dame Nellie Melba, the character portrayed by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, is the first historical character to be featured on Downton Abbey. In the episode, she sang Dvorak’s “Songs My Mother Taught Me” and a selection from Puccini. Dame Nellie was a famous performer during Browning’s lifetime. In fact, Melba toast and peach Melba were created in her name by famed chef Auguste Escoffier. Her debut in London at Covent Garden was in May 1888, the year before Browning’s death. She was twenty-seven years old.

Dame-Nellie-Melba-as-Ophelia1_11402134_tcm11-17655Dame Nellie Melba as “Ophelie,” circa 1889.

Courtesy of the National Archives of Australia

Melinda Creech

Notes and Queries: Thus far I have not been able to directly connect Robert Browning to either Dvorak or Dame Nellie. Does anyone know of a connection?

Browning at Downton Abbey: The Rest of the Story

As the new season of Downton Abbey begins, I thought I should bring you up to date on the discoveries that have resulted from my investigation into Robert Browning’s visits at Highclere Castle.

My curiosity about Browning at Downton Abbey led me to begin a correspondence with David Rymill, archivist for both the Hampshire Record Office and the Highclere Estate. Mr. Rymill’s research revealed that there were three previously unrecorded Browning letters among the Earl of Portsmouth’s archives, a carte de visite of Browning in an album of photographs from Highclere Castle, and four signatures of Robert Browning in the Castle’s guest books.

Among the three letters from Robert Browning are two letters to Lady Portsmouth, Lady Eveline Alicia Juliana Herbert, first daughter of Henry John George [Herbert], 3rd Earl of Carnarvon. She married Isaac Newton Fellowes Wallop, 5th Earl of Portsmouth and became Lady Portsmouth.The other letter is to her daughter, Lady Catherine Henrietta Wallop, who married the Right Honorable Charles George Milnes-Gaskell.

These letters, which are part of the Wallop Papers in the Hampshire Record Office, were provided by the Earl of Portsmouth through David Rymill.

Robert Browning to Lady Portsmouth, 14 May 1877

Courtesy of the Earl of Portsmouth

Robert Browning to Lady Portsmouth, 14 January, 1870

Courtesy of the Earl of Portsmouth

Robert Browning to Lady Catherine, 26 May, 1887

Courtesy of the Earl of Portsmouth

Lord Carnarvon gave permission for Mr. Rymill to send the Armstrong Browning Library scans of Robert Browning’s signatures in the Highclere Castle guestbooks. These occur on December 13, 1869, November 16th and 21st of 1873 and March 10, 1878. This discovery has already helped scholars more accurately date Robert Browning’s chronology.

Highclere Castle Guestbook, 13 December 1869

Courtesy of the Earl of Carnavon, Highclere Castle Archives

Highclere Castle Guestbook, 16 November 1873

Courtesy of the Earl of Carnavon, Highclere Castle Archives

Highclere Castle Guestbook, 21 November 1873

Courtesy of the Earl of Carnavon, Highclere Castle Archives

Highclere Castle Guestbook, 10 March 1878

Courtesy of the Earl of Carnavon, Highclere Castle Archives

A signed photograph of Robert Browning  was also discovered in an album among the castle archives, and a scan was graciously forwarded to the ABL from Lord Carnarvon.

Courtesy of the Earl of Carnavon, Highclere Castle Archives

 I would like to express my sincere thanks to David Rymill. On December 2, Cynthia Burgess, Librarian/Curator of Books and Printed Materials at the Armstrong Browning Library, and Pattie Orr, Vice-President of Information Technology and Dean of University Libraries, Baylor University, were joined by Mr. Rymill as they attended a ceremony at the grave of Robert Browning in Westminster Abbey, commemorating his death on December 12, 1889, one hundred and twenty-four years ago.

Who knows what connections the new season might bring to light?

Melinda Creech

 Notes and Queries:

Can anyone add additional information about the signatures in the guestbooks or the other photographs on the album page?

Browning at Downton Abbey: Fathers and Children

by Melinda Creech

A photo of Matthew Crawley holding his newborn baby in Downton Abbey

Matthew Crawley of Downton Abbey (portrayed by Dan Stevens) holds his son. Photo courtesy of iTV.

Viewers were upset and angered when Matthew Crawley died at the end of the season just after holding his new-born son in his arms. Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey, explained his decision in an interview with the New York Times blog. Dan Stevens, the actor playing Matthew Crawley, decided to leave the show and having him die in a tragic accident seemed the best way to remove a major character from the story line.

Although the father and son story in Downton Abbey had a sad ending, the real story of fathers and children at Highclere Castle is a little more heartening. Robert Browning and Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, Fourth Earl of Carnarvon, seemed to have a mutual admiration for each other. Many of the letters from Lord Carnarvon to Robert Browning in the Armstrong Browning Library collection are simply personal invitations for Browning to come to Highclere. Robert Browning’s sister, Sarianna, confided in a letter to Joseph Milsand, November 1869, that “Robert writes me he feels tired of the life he is leading—and has declined another invitation somewhere. Still, he has accepted Ld Carnarvon’s for the beginning of Decr.” In another letter to Sarianna on November 20, 1873, Browning says “Ld. Carnarvon was so exceedingly warm in his manner last evening,–kind he can’t help being.” So what connected Lord Carnarvon and Robert Browning?

Although they died within a few months of each other, Robert Browning was born nineteen years before Lord Carnarvon. They both married for the first time in their thirties and lost their wives after fourteen or fifteen years of marriage. Lord Carnarvon married again, and his second wife outlived him by forty years. Browning never remarried, but outlived his wife by almost thirty years.

Browning’s correspondence with the Carnarvons began in 1868 and continued until at least 1885. When this acquaintance began Lord Carnarvon was thirty-seven and had a four-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son. Robert Browning was fifty-six and had a nineteen-year-old son.

A photo of Robert and Pen Browning

Photo of Robert and Pen Browning (1869) from Armstrong Browning Library

Near the end of their acquaintance in 1885, Robert Browning was seventy-three and Pen was thirty-six. Lord Carnarvon was fifty-four and had five children: Winifred, (21), George (19), Margaret (15), Victoria (11), and Aubrey (5).

A photo of Lord Carnarvon and his son, Aubrey Herbert Carnarvon

Photograph of Lord Carnarvon and Aubrey (1885) from The Life of Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, Fourth Earl of Carnarvon, 1831-1890, Vol. 3, by Arthur Henry Hardinge, 1925.

These two photographs present visual bookends for the beginning and the end of the relationship between Robert Browning and The Fourth Earl of Carnarvon. Both men faced death with a similar peaceful composure. According to The Political Diaries of the Fourth Earl of Carnarvon, 1857-1890, edited by Peter Gordon, Lord Carnarvon’s last words were “I am so happy.” A Browning Chronology by Martin Garrett reports that Robert Browning’s last words were “my son, my dear son.”

Resources are available for searching through the Browning correspondence online or through catalogues and documents in person here at the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Anyone with a modicum of curiosity can discover how the relationship between Robert Browning and Lord Carnarvon included shooting parties, trout-fishing excursions, late night literary discussions, comparisons of Greek translations, walks in the park, personal and political favors, delightful lunches, and extravagant dinners. Doubtless, some of the conversations at Highclere focused on the disappointments and joys of fathers and children.

Browning at Downton Abbey: Stalking in Scotland

by Melinda Creech

Inveraray Castle in Scotland

Inveraray Castle in Scotland – photo by Jim Brodie [http://www.flickr.com/photos/rojabro/4159089973/]


Most of the season three finale did not occur at Downton Abbey at all. The Crawley family traveled to the Scottish estate of Duneagle, belonging to their cousin “Shrimpie,” to enjoy stalking hinds, fishing, and dancing the Highland reel, and, of course, the season ended with a tragic accident.

The castle in the movie was actually Inveraray, the residence of the Duke of Argyll, in Browning’s day. Although I could not establish that Browning, who actually came from Scottish stock, visited Inveraray, he did visit all around the area. The Brownings travelled to St. Andrews (September 1868), Lock Luichart (August 1869), Loch Tummell (August-October 1872), Brahan Castle (October 1872), and Lamlesh (August 1876) all within 100 miles of the Inverary Castle that was featured in the season three finale.

In the letters here at the Armstrong Browning Library, I was surprised to find a very unusual coincidence, and a much happier ending. Robert Browning and his son, Robert Barrett Browning, affectionately known as “Pen,” went to Scotland on hunts and reading-parties several times. Pen’s Aunt Sarianna, Robert Browning’s sister, lamented the fact that “it is strange how little parents can prevent youths from following the current of his age. Here, in England, the tide set in for athletics—for rowing, shooting, and such like rubbish—in one sense, though useful in another” [Sarianna Browning to Joseph Milsand, November, 1869]. Three years later Robert Browning wrote to Isa Blagden that “Pen has been quite well and enjoying himself in Scotland: shooting, riding, & dancing the Highland Reel. He had a miraculous escape about a fortnight ago: driving a friend in a pony-chaise drawn by a big horse—he came to grief—by no sort of fault of his own—to grief in a place I know exactly, at the foot of a bridge over a ravine close by my last years abode: the carriage came to pieces, the horse rushed at the bridge, with the wreck on his heels, guiding him was out of the question, and Pen was sent flying over the bridge through a tree which broke the fall,–his companion, a man, going along with the cushions &c, over Pen’s head at the same time, with no hurt to either but a few bruises and general stiffness” [Robert Browning to Isa Blagden, October 3, 1872]. Have the writers at Downton Abbey been reading Robert Browning’s mail? Truth, it seems, is stranger than fiction.

A Letter from Robert Browning to Isa Blagden (1872)

A Letter from Robert Browning to Isa Blagden (1872) [Photo courtesy of Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University]

Browning at Downton Abbey: Conversations at Highclere

by Melinda Creech

The conversations at Downton Abbey propel the plot and leave us curious to know how the relationships will unravel or be knit together. Of course, many of the most interesting conversations occur in the hallways and behind doors in the servants’ quarters. However, some take place when the men gather by themselves after the meal in the smoking room. Others unfold as the visitors and residents stroll across the lovely grounds of Highclere Castle.

The Smoking Room in Highclere Castle

The Smoking Room in Highclere Castle [http://www.highclerecastle.co.uk/about-us/the-state-rooms.html]

Robert Browning found himself engaged in these conversations. The Political Diaries of the Fourth Earl of Carnarvon, edited by Peter Gordon (2009), contends that “Carnarvon’s greatest pleasure . . . was discussing literary matters with distinguished authors.” The conversations in the smoking room, according to Thomas Hay Sweet Escott in Anthony Trollope: His Public Services, Private Friends, and Literary Originals (1967) sometimes involved Browning and often focused on the literature of the Classics. The smoking room clientele included Lord Carnarvon, Browning, Anthony Trollope, J. R. Green, J. R. Seeley, Charles Kingsley, and H. P. Liddon and resembled “Cicero’s country-house parties at his Tusculum.”

Browning, however, also enjoyed those strolling conversations on the grounds. Lady Knightley in The Journals of Lady Knightley of Fawsley, edited by Julia Mary Cartwright (1915), has this recollection of a conversation with Browning at Highclere.

Talking to remarkable people is certainly very hard work! Here I have been divided between Count Beust and Mr. Browning nearly all day. The occupation, amusement, or whatever you like to call it, has been a walk and luncheon at a little house by a lovely lake. Mr. Browning is as different from his poems as anything one can imagine — a loud-voiced, sturdy little man, who says nothing in the least obscure or difficult to understand!

Perhaps it was just such conversations that caused Robert’s weariness as described by his sister, Sarianna Browning, in a letter dated December 1, 1869, to her dear friend in Paris, Joseph Milsand. She says: “Robert is with the earl of Carnarvon at Highclere castle since Saty [Saturday]. He will stay a few days longer but soon gets wearied.”

How delightful to imagine Robert Browning sitting in the smoking room at Highclere discussing Homer, strolling the grounds unveiling his poetry to Lady Knightley, or participating in a shooting party.

Be sure to check back later this week for the next installment in the Browning at Downton Abbey series!

Sarrianna's Letter to Joseph Milsand

Sarianna’s Letter to Joseph Milsand dated December 1, 1869 [Photo courtesy of Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University]

Browning at Downton Abbey: The Shooting Party

A Shooting Party scene from the set of Downton Abbey

A scene from the Christmas shooting party from Downton Abbey [http://rikravado.hubpages.com/hub/downton-abbey-isis-view-future-plot]


by Melinda Creech

The season two finale for Downton Abbey, entitled “Christmas, 1919,” showcased a shooting party at Downton Abbey. As Alastair Bruce, historical advisor for Masterpiece, explains in a supplemental video, the shooting party had several purposes. Of utmost interest to the participants was the social import of the event. It was an opportunity to see and be seen by the elite of the society, and often required the tailoring of a new wardrobe. The harvesting of game during the shoot supported the community’s needs, providing Christmas gifts of food for the participants, residents of Highclere, and the staff. The shoot also contributed to the ecological balance of the one thousand acre estate.

Browning’s involvement in the shooting party is a little unclear. The Political Diaries of the Fourth Earl of Carnarvon, 1857-1890, Colonial Secretary and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, edited by Peter Gordon (2009), indicates: “as a member of a shooting party there in 1873 Browning was able to claim in a single day 218 pheasants, 40 hares, 20 rabbits, and 1 partridge.” Gordon obtained this information from a letter from Robert Browning to Sarianna Browning, dated November 20, 1873. However, Browning writes to his sister, Sarianna, that “the main party of men are gone out to shoot” while he has “been walking in the park and after luncheon, shall begin again.” As almost a postscript in the last line of the letter he adds: “5 o’clock/ Day’s sport, (5 guns)—218 pheasants, 40 hares, 20 rabbits, 1 partridge.”

Whether as an attendee or a participant, Browning, no doubt, enjoyed the shooting party at Highclere, November 15-22,1873.

Shooting Party at Highclere Castle

Shooting Party at Highclere Castle [December 1895] with Lady Almina (center) and the Prince of Wales in attendance. Do you recognize any other famous faces?

Browning at Downton Abbey

by Melinda Creech

Highclere Castle

Photo by Eladesor (www.flickr.com/photos/northwalesphotographer/8395680028/)


While preparing the letters of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to be digitized for the Baylor University Libraries Digital Collection, I made an interesting discovery. A letter in the Armstrong Browning Library’s Browning Letters Collection, dated June 23, 1868, was sent by Robert Browning to Lady Evelyn Carnarvon. The name might have slipped my attention and remained one of the hundreds of correspondents of Robert Browning with whom I have little or no knowledge, however, last fall I joined the ranks of the army of fans devoted to the weekly viewing of the affairs of Downton Abbey.

I had watched with rapt attention “The Secrets of Highclere Castle,” a historical account of Highclere, the real “Downton Abbey,” which aired on January 6 as a prequel to the first episode of the third season. The character Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, living at Downton Abbey, is loosely based on George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, who resided at Highclere Castle. The 5th Earl of Carnarvon is best known as the financial backer of the search for and the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. I was delighted to discover that Robert Browning was acquainted with his father, Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon; and in fact, Peter Gordon in The Political Diaries of the Fourth Earl of Carnarvon, records that “Robert Browning was often a welcome visitor at Highclere.”

According to Baylor’s online database The Brownings: A Research Guide, there are twenty-six Browning letters to or from the Carnarvons, one supporting document that mentions the Carnarvons in relation to the Brownings, and at least one other Victorian letter that refers to the Carnarvons but does not mention the Brownings specifically. An in-house Browning database indicates that there are seventy references to Highclere or the Carnarvons in the Browning letters and supporting documents, and the Armstrong Browning Library owns nineteen of those letters or supporting documents.
During the next few weeks I plan to investigate the letters and supporting documents to find out more about Robert Browning at “Downton Abbey.” Upcoming blogposts will include a description of a hunt at Highclere where Browning was a participant, a diary account of Lady Knightley of Fawsley’s conversations with Robert Browning at Highclere, and an account of a conversation between Trollope and Browning in the smoking-room at Highclere Castle.

Stay tuned.