This dramatic story took place in this rough village of Versols-et-Lapeyre that
is located on the banks of the river Sorgues, in south Aveyron, during the 19th century.

Elizabeth Medora Leigh

By Anne Knight, Abbey of Newstead collection, Nottingham Museum.

Elizabeth Medora Leigh, (April 15, 1814 – August 28, 1849) was the third daughter of Augusta Leigh.

However, she was as well the "natural" daughter of the great British poet Lord Byron, George Gordon Byron, meaning fathered by her mother's half brother.

In Aveyron, Elizabeth experienced the only happy period of her brief existence. The curse that weighed on her father, a dandy of genius and romantic hero, in fact hardly had her spared.

Birth

She was born the middle child of seven. Three days after her birth, Byron visited Augusta, his half-sister, and the baby. He later wrote to a friend, Lady Melbourne: "Oh! but it is 'worth while'—I can't tell you why—and it is not an Ape and if it is—that must be my fault."

lord byron

*A painting by Richard Westall, 1813*

The child's middle name was taken from the heroine of Byron's poem The Corsair. In the family, she was known as Elizabeth or "Libby", but she also later used the name Medora. In 1816, the scandal over his separation from his wife Annabella, rumours surrounding his relationship with Augusta, and mounting debts forced Byron to leave England. He never returned.

Early life

Augusta's husband, George, never questioned the paternity of Elizabeth Medora.
So that, she grew up among her brothers and sisters unaware that she might be the first of Byron's three daughters. As a young teenager, she was seduced by her brother-in-law, Henry Trevanion, unhappily married to her older sister Georgiana. She had accompanied the couple when they took up residence in Canterbury, England, in a house belonging to their aunt, Lady Byron.
When neighbours reported the scandalous appearance of an apparently pregnant unwed teenager to Lady Byron, she arranged for them to travel to France, where the child was born and placed for adoption.
Elizabeth Medora returned home, but the relationship continued and she became pregnant again. The three departed for Bath to stay in a house of one of Henry's relatives in an attempt to hide the second pregnancy from Elizabeth Medora's father, Colonel Leigh.
The Colonel was eventually informed, and after travelling to Bath with an attorney removed her from the Trevanions and sent Elizabeth Medora to an establishment in London, to give birth in secrecy.
After she miscarried, Henry arranged for her escape and in 1831 the couple eloped to France.

Marriage and life in France

Henry Trevanion and Elizabeth Medora set up in an ancient, tumble-down château near Morlaix, Brittany, in France. They were living under the surname of “Aubin”.
Then, by 1833 Henry and Elizabeth Medora were living in Carhaix, Brittany.

Elizabeth Medora became a Catholic and declared her intention of entering a convent; however, she was pregnant again. The Abbess found Elizabeth Medora lodgings outside the convent, where a daughter was born on May 19, 1834. The baby got baptised Marie Violette Trevanion on May 21, 1834.

Due to poverty and illness, the pair eventually had to beg their families for money. Henry's father, Major John Bettesworth Trevanion, eventually sent one of Henry's uncles to Brittany to persuade Henry to return to England. Henry refused to leave. Augusta Leigh was still sending what money she could to Medora. However, Augusta eventually lost touch with Elizabeth Medora, who had become ill in Brittany after a series of miscarriages.

In 1838, Henry Trevanion and Medora Leigh parted permanently.
In her 1844 autobiography, Elizabeth Medora later wrote of Henry that he "gave himself up to religion and shooting".

Elizabeth Medora and her daughter were supported financially and emotionally for a number of years by Byron's widow, Annabella Milbank, as well as Byron's only legitimate daughter, Ada Lovelace.

Milbank had told Ada Lovelace that Elizabeth Medora was her half-sister and had been fathered by Byron.

Subsequently, Elizabeth Medora had an affair with a French officer, who then abandoned her. She ultimately partnered with his servant, former sergeant Jean-Louis Taillefer.

Elizabeth Medora went to live with him in south Aveyron, in Versols-et-Lapeyre. They had a son, Elie (1846–1900). Elizabeth Medora and Jean-Louis Taillefer married on August 23, 1848.

Death

Elizabeth Medora Leigh died on August 28, 1849 from smallpox in Versols-et-Lapeyre, Aveyron, where a tombstone was erected in the 1960s, and taken care of by the local clergymen.
Henry Trevanion died in 1855 in Brittany, France.
Elizabeth's daughter Marie Violette entered a convent in 1856 under the name "Sister St. Hilaire" and is said to have died within the order in 1873.

But the mystery runs deeper and goes beyond...

Talking about the Byron family without mentioning Newstead Abbey would not really be possible.
Indeed, Newstead Abbey is intimately linked to the Byron’s family.

Would its strange history partly explains the curious and tumultuous life of its successive owners.
This abbey was a priory for almost 400 years.
The actual priory of Sainte-Marie of Newstead, of the order of Saint-Augustin, was founded by King Henry II of England around 1170, in repentance for the murder of Saint Thomas Becket.

During the 16th century's Reformation, while Protestantism was spreading throughout Europe, Henry VIII, who had already been excommunicated by the Catholic Church for having broken off his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, decided to eradicate everything that remained of Catholicism in his country. Hence, his decision to confiscate the church lands and distribute them among some aristocratic families.
In 1540, he subsequently sold Newstead Abbey to Sir John Byron of Colewycke for £810.
Thus it became the property of the Byron family and remained so for almost three hundred years.

The Byrons—probably the original name being Biron or Burun—came from Normandy, France, in the wake of William the Conqueror. Their motto was: “Crede Biron” or Latin for "Believe (or) Trust Biron".

In the 18th century, a violent family conflict—it would be neither the first nor the last—pitted the 5th Baron Byron against his son who wanted to marry his first cousin, which seems to be a relatively common practice in the family. The son having overridden the paternal opposition, the father, to take revenge, undertook to ruin the estate so that his son would inherit only debts and depreciated property.
However, the plan failed because the son and grandson died first!

Accordingly, on the death of the 5th Baron in 1798, the property passed on to his great-nephew, Lord Byron, the incestuous father of Elizabeth Medora. Although the estate made a great impression on the young poet who endeavored to restore it, its state of disrepair and the considerable costs of restoration forced him to put it up for sale in 1812.

When the legends started

Back in 1576, the illegitimate son of Sir John Byron, known as “Little Sir John with the Big Beard”, inherited the Newstead Abbey. Strangely, he and his wife died on the same day within hours of each other. It is said that after his death, his servants refused to go to the library at Newstead because now that their master was dead, they regretted that he could no longer sit in his chair by the fire smoking his pipe and reading a book. Even stranger, Sir John was seen several times sitting in his chair in the library after his death. This happened for about six months, then his sighting disappeared little by little and he was never to be seen again.

And another legend took off

An other specter has haunted the walls of Newstead Abbey for centuries now. This ghost is known as the "Black Monk" and is said to have the habit of appearing before a misfortune strikes the Byron family, such as the death of one of its members. Legend says that when one of the members of the family dies, the ghost of this black monk appears to rejoice in the tragedy, but appears with a sad face on happy occasions such as births. Although no one really knows who this ghost was during his lifetime, the fact that he has a dark face topped with a hood, recalls the men who usurped the church's lands.
Would the ghost therefore hold a grudge against the Byron family?

To note, George Gordon Byron said he encountered the ghost at his own wedding to Annabella Milbanke. A marriage which he described as "the worst event of his life", alluding to it in his poem Don Juan. But this was not the only time he met the black monk. Indeed, he says that one of the rooms near his was haunted and that he woke up one day with the feeling that something was climbing onto his bed: “He found himself face to face with a formless creature with no gaze, red and shiny."

In any case, George Gordon, 6th Lord Byron, came from a strange family to say the least although with a prestigious lineage.

Let us not forget that Byron's mother was descended from King James 1st of Scotland, and that the Byron family had been noble since 1643.
However, it is quite rare to see such a family tree counting so many members’ dysfunctions such as extramarital relations, marriage between cousins, adultery, multiple incests over centuries.