The Prisoner of Wimpole Street
Two poets, a mad dad and the most dognapped hound in history
It started with a fan letter cunningly disguised as a thank you note. “I love your verses with all my heart, Miss Barrett … and I love you, too.”
The verses were written by one of the most popular poets of the era. Her admirer, Robert Browning, was much more of an acquired taste. Alfred Lord Tennyson famously said of his Sordello (1840)
“There were only two lines in it that I understood, and they were both lies.[1]
Thomas Carlyle, big cheese on the cultural cocktail circuit was also unimpressed,
‘My wife has read through Sordello without being able to make out whether “Sordello” was a man, or a city, or a book.’
Mrs C was not entirely impartial, as Browning had managed to burn her new carpet with a kettle. And brainiac, Elizabeth Barrett relished intellectual challenge. She made a positive reference to the younger poet in a journal and even gave him a shout-out in verse.
This gave the intense, exuberant Robert his opening. Expressing love for her poetry ‘with all my heart’ was with just within protocol. But ‘I love you, too’? From an obscure poet and son of a bank clerk to an A list celebrity and future heiress? That was pushing his luck.
His beloved did come with what we might term issues. Pushing forty — she never did tell Robert her precise age — Elizabeth Barrett was the eldest of twelve children. She lost her mother when she was twenty-two. By that point she openly referred to as an ‘invalid’.
A cloud of speculation still surrounds the nature of her illness. Rheumatic fever, tuberculosis and a spinal injury have all been posited. The modern boffin best guess is hypokalemic periodic paralysis.
One thing everyone assumed, albeit sotto voce, was that a Little Nell-style tragic death-bed finale was only a matter of time
Central to this scenario was pantomime villain, Edward Moulton-Barrett. Dad ran a tight ship. A luxurious one, though it should be added. 50 Wimpole Street was (and is) a high end address. Paul McCartney lived seven doors down at the height of his fame.
For Elizabeth this meant a gilded cage or what Robert Douglas-Fairhurst calls ‘a nunnery of one’. The prisoner princess was confined to barracks, though she did not lack for attention. She had her faithful maid, (Elisabeth) Wilson, loving siblings and the admiration of the literary top brass.
Her biggest consolation, however, was celebrated in To Flush My Dog (20 verses at six lines a pop!). The superstar spaniel was high maintenance — insisting on his bread being thickly buttered and turning his nose up at mutton — but was the uncrowned King of Wimpole Street.
Fame literally opened doors for Elizabeth, most notably the front one in her case. Basking in his daughter’s reflected glory, Big Ed allowed the great and the good into the family home and up the stairs to where the celebrity poet (plus pooch) held court.
Marriage was out of the question, of course — and that rule applied to all the Wimpole inmates. Pop was a do-as-I-say guy, effectively condemning his multiple offspring to life-long celibacy. Besides, who, other than a squalid fortune hunter, would want to marry an invalid?
Enter Robert Browning, ‘that man’ as Edward darkly referred to him. The heart-on-sleeve ‘I love you’ letter’ initiated a flood of correspondence: 574 letters in under twenty months. This “talking upon paper” as Elizabeth described it was the Victorian prototype of a manic exchange of texts.
There were eight postal deliveries a day. Each created a feverish sense of anticipation. “I have heard the footsteps of a letter of yours the ten doors off,” as Elizabeth put it. That might have been the very busy postman.
Conversations veered wildly in topic and tone. Pointy-headed discussion of mythological and theological nuance morph into idle chatter about when it might stop raining. Both declared their passion. “You have come to me as a dream comes” Elizabeth wrote. “As the best of dreams come”
The letters lead to an invitation to Wimpole Street in May 1845. Characteristically, Robert nearly blew it on the first date. His talk of marriage and Italy and soul mates startled Elizabeth. This was a woman who had basically spent two decades in bed.
Robert’s grovelling apology was accepted and he was soon a regular visitor to Elizabeth’s room on the third floor. Flush, her unofficial chaperone, was not best pleased. And unlike Mrs Carlyle, the prima donna spaniel did not restrict his displeasure to an icy glare.
In July 1846 Flush delivered the first of two vicious bites. The visitor took his licks gracefully and the dog eventually calmed down. Edward Moulton was less easily appeased. Dad’s fury about that that man! increased with every visit.
Remarkably, the two men would never meet. Browning wanted them to do so, but Elizabeth resisted all his entreaties, dreading the confrontation that would inevitably follow.
There was already father/daughter tension regarding her treatment plan. Edward insisted that Elizabeth imbibe twice daily glass of porter (strong beer). Elizabeth preferred to stick to her laudanum (‘my welcome elixir’).
Then Mr Browning began sticking his beak in on medical matters. Perhaps his beloved’s immobility was not as absolute as feared? Exercises involving walking around the cell/salon/sick bed soon confirmed this.
Meanwhile, a wave of dognapping is sweeping the fashionable areas of London. Dog stealing — still not a crime — is a major criminal enterprise. In 1843 this nightmare reached Wimpole Street.
The story of Flush’s tribulations at the hands of the sinister Mr Taylor, shoemaker and dognap kingpin is told by Virginia Woolf in Flush — A Biography. Executive summary: a ransom was paid to Mr Taylor and the spaniel returned. Then he was dognapped again. And again.
On the first of September 1846 Flush is nabbed in broad daylight for the third time. Nerves are fraying on all sides but tiny, frail Elizabeth sallies forth into the notorious East End to face down the bad guys. Taylor (aka ‘Ginger’ to his fellow reprobates) returns Flush (again) in exchange for his ever higher finder’s fee.
Joyful celebrations at 50 Wimpole Street are short lived. Edward Moulton-Barrett is not in a party mood. He says that paying ransoms was a mug’s game (fair enough). More controversially he’s had his fill of the new feistier, physically improved Elizabeth. His daughter is not sticking to her script and fading away gracefully. Drastic action is required.
On September 10, days after Flush is safely back on his fine beef and macaroons, Mr Barrett makes a shock announcement. He is reversing his previous ‘fog-be-damned-we-are-staying-in-London’ policy. The Barrett family would be moving to the country in short order.
Elizabeth immediately writes to Robert. “Now! What can be done?’
A reply returns within hours. ‘We must get married directly and go to Italy.’
Read Part 2— The Portuguese in Florence
