Anne Isabella Noel Milbanke (that was her maiden name) was an only child.  Her father, Sir Ralph Milbanke, was the sixth baronet of that name.  Her mother was a Noel, daughter of Viscount and Baron Wentworth, and remotely descended from royalty,—­that is, from the youngest son of Edward I. After the death of Lady Milbanke’s father and brother, the Barony of Wentworth was in abeyance between the daughter of Lady Milbanke and the son of her sister till 1856, when, by the death of that cousin, Lord Scarsdale, Lady Byron became possessed of the inheritance and title.  During her childhood and youth, however, her parents were not wealthy; and it was understood that Miss Milbanke would have no fortune till the death of her parents, though her expectations were great.  Though this want of immediate fortune did not prove true, the report of it was probably advantageous to the young girl, who was sought for other things than her fortune.  When Lord Byron thought of proposing, the friend who had brought him to the point of submitting to marriage objected to Miss Milbanke on two grounds,—­that she had no fortune, and that she was a learned lady.  The gentleman was as wrong in his facts as mischievous in his advice to the poet to many.  Miss Milbanke had fortune, and she was not a learned lady.  Such men as the two who held a consultation on the points, whether a man entangled in intrigues and overwhelmed with debts should release himself by involving a trusting girl in his difficulties, and whether the girl should be Miss Milbanke or another, were not likely to distinguish between the cultivated ability of a sensible girl and the pedantry of a blue-stocking; and hence, because Miss Milbanke was neither ignorant nor silly, she was called a learned lady by Lord Byron’s associates.  He bore testimony, in due time, to her agreeable qualities as a companion,—­her brightness, her genial nature, her quiet good sense; and we heard no more of her “learning” and “mathematics,” till it suited her enemies to get up a theory of incompatibility of temper between her and her husband.  The fact was, she was well-educated, as education was then, and had the acquirements which are common in every house among the educated classes of English society.

She was born in 1792, and passed her early years chiefly on her father’s estates of Halnaby, near Darlington, Yorkshire, and Seaham, in Durham.  She retained a happy recollection of her childhood and youth, if one may judge by her attachment to the old homes, when she had lost the power of attaching herself, in later life, to any permanent home.  When an offer of service was made to her, some years since, by a person residing on the Northumberland coast, the service she asked was that a pebble might be sent her from the beach at Seaham, to be made into a brooch, and worn for love of the old place.