Lee Augusta

Augusta was the only daughter of Captain John Byron, nicknamed “Mad Jack” and his first wife, (1754-1784). Augusta's mother died when her daughter was only a year old, and at first her mother’s maternal grandmother, Mary Daublet, Countess Holderness, took care of the girl. A few years later, Countess Holderness died, and her relatives and friends were engaged in the education of Augusta.

Augusta married Dragoon lieutenant colonel George Lee (1771-1850), in this marriage they had seven children ^[2] . This marriage was unhappy, because George had a penchant for gambling and lowered all his fortune to them, leaving his wife and children nothing but debts ^[2] .

Augusta's half-brother, George Byron , did not know his sister until 1804. Only after the death of Lady Holderness did the brother and sister meet, and immediately liked each other. Although George was five years younger than Augusta, in the first letter to her written on Easter in 1804, he asked her to consider him not only a brother, but also a close friend: “Remember, dear sister, that you are the closest I’m a man ... in the world, not only thanks to the bonds of blood, but also the bonds of feeling ” ^[3] . For a number of years, George and Augustus communicated by correspondence. In the summer of 1813, Lord Byron gathered on a trip to Sicily with another passion - Lady Oxford, but having received a letter from Augusta in which she announced that she would come to London, the poet refused the trip and left his mistress. At this time, Byron was renting a house on Benet Street; for some time Augusta lived with him in this house. There were a lot of gossip in society about George’s relationship with Augusta, including the fact that they are in an incestuous relationship. In April 1814, Augusta gave birth to a third daughter, named , who was rumored to be Lord Byron's biological father. ^[4]

In 1815, Lord Byron married Anne Milbank , but this marriage was unsuccessful. Due to financial problems, Byron began to drink and pursue his wife, who turned to Augusta for help, believing that she could have a positive effect on her brother. Augusta failed to reconcile the spouses, and in April 1816 Byron signed the act of divorce and left England forever. For the rest of his life, Byron had a gentle correspondence with his sister, Augusta served as a mediator for him, when he needed to ask his ex-wife for something, and from her, he usually found out about his daughter Ada . Byron dedicated to Augusta the "Stans" (1816) and the Epistle to Augustus ^[5] .

Augusta Lee died in October 1851 and was buried in the London Kensal Green Cemetery . After her death, as well as the death of Lady Byron (1860), Byron’s widow’s friend, the famous American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, published a book describing the incestuous connection between Byron and Augusta ^[6] . This publication caused a scandal in both Europe and America, and contributed to the decline in popularity of the writer. The very fact of such a relationship between Lord Byron and his sister, however, remains in question and is the subject of debate among biographers and researchers of Byron's work. According to N. N. Alexandrov, the best evidence that the accusation of incestuous relations is false is that even after the poet’s divorce from his wife, the latter’s relationship with Augusta Lee continued to remain unusually friendly and remained so for several years after his death. The gap between Lady Byron and Augusta only occurred in 1830, that is, six years after the death of the poet, and at the same time had nothing to do with the accusation arising after 39 years.