Afterword: The Merry Widower?
Lurid accusations have damaged Browning’s posthumous reputation
Within weeks Robert and Penn were heading back to England, where he became the most famous widower in town. In the 28 remaining years his own poetic reputation improved considerably but he remained publicly devoted to the memory of his wife. He never remarried.
Other stars orbiting EBB gradually span away. Elizabeth Wilson — who had married and had children in Italy remained loyal to her mistress to the end. In her later years she struggle with various failed business ventures and a wobbly marriage. Browning did make sporadic attempts to help out but Wilson was closer to his son. In the summer of 1902 Penn wrote
“where my old nurse Wilson… died this spring. For her, poor soul, this was what is rightly called a ‘happy release’ from much infirmity: for me it was the breaking of the last link but one with the past….”
Flush fared better. The doughty dognap survivor made the grand old age of thirteen. One in the eye for mean Mr Taylor.
The backlash
Elizabeth Barrett-Browning delightedly boasted to her sisters about the ‘perfection’ of her husband. They cheered the happy couple on but the ‘St Robert’ reputation has always ruffled feathers. As Browning’s public profile rose, tongues began wagging.
An early critic was Henry James. The novelist was shocked to discover that the boorish man he met on the literary circuit in the 1870s bore little resemblance to the grief-stricken tortured poet of legend. Browning is the model for Clare Vawdrey in James’s story A Private Life (1891
“He never talked about himself; and this was a topic on which, though it would have been tremendously worthy of him, he apparently never even reflected.”
Even those strongly in Browning’s corner, like Margaret Forster, concede that the poet was ‘far from unhappy’ during his long widowhood. This is a failing for some but not, it should be remembered, for the wife he lost.
A more recent allegation against Browning is far more serious and contentious. Did Mr Grieving Husband really murder his wife? Was he like the deplorable villain of a True Crime murder mystery?
Sleuths note that Browning administered his wife’s laudanum (at her request). There are also a fair few murdering husbands in his poems. You’ll need a top defence team to best this rap, Bob!
Elizabeth Lowry surveys the evidence here. She rejects the wilder allegations but implies an open verdict regarding his role in her death:
In reality Elizabeth Barrett Browning died as a result of a ruptured abscess on her lung, complicated by her long standing physical frailty. Yet the ultimate cause of death may perhaps not have been a pulmonary haemorrhage, but the excessively large measure of morphine given to her in her final hours to ease her pain. She died…not merely peacefully, but in a state of euphoria. Browning … administered the final dose.
Last word should go to the supposed victim, though. She was never in any doubt about her husband’s devotion and repeatedly restated the sentiment expressed in her most famous poem:
I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.”
