Constance Smith (née Herbert)

Constance Smith, Mrs Spencer Smith (née Constanze Baronne de Herbert Rathkeal; 1785–1829) - wife of a British diplomat John Spencer Smith, known as Florence in several Byron's poems.

Daughter of baron Herbert, Austrian ambassador to Constantinople. Heroine of Marquis de Salvo's book about her escape from Napoleon and Memoirs of the Duchess D' Abrantés.

Poems

Lord Byron fell in love with her in Malta in 1809.

• To Florence (September 1809)
• Lines written in an album at Malta (September 14, 1809)
• Stanzas composed during a thunderstorm (October 11, 1809)
• Stanzas written in passing the Ambracian gulf (November 14, 1809)
• The spell is broke... (Athens, January 16, 1810)
• Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, II, xxxii-xxxiii.

Sources

• Marquis de Salvo. Travels in the year 1806 from Italy to England: through the Tyrol, Styria, Bohemia, Gallicia, Poland and Livonia : containing the particulars of the liberation of Mrs. Spencer Smith from the hands of the French police. (Translated from the original mss. in Italian, by W. Fraser) Troy, N.Y. : Wright, Goodenow, & Stockwell, 1808
• Memoirs of the Duchess D' Abrantés (Madame Junot). J. & J. Harper, 1832
• Francis Henry Gribble. The Love Affairs of Lord Byron.
• Grosskurth, Phyllis: Byron: The Flawed Angel. Hodder, 1997. ISBN 0-340-60753-X.

Links

• Letters
• Letters
• Autograph

References

1. John Spencer Smith
2. Frances Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne
3. Constance Naden
4. Anne Wignall
5. Raymond J. Barry
6. Elizabeth Herbert, Baroness Herbert of Lea
7. Charles Francis Adams III
8. Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton
9. List of American Academy of Dramatic Arts people
10. Lady of the Bedchamber
11. Prince Francis of Teck
12. Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore
13. Archibald Gracie IV
14. List of American heiresses
15. William Henry Redmond
16. Moyna Macgill
17. 1861 in literature
18. Zsa Zsa Gabor
19. Bill Hampton
20. Kathleen Turner