Heritage the Royal Wedding of Victoria to her cousin Albert, was published in 1840, many thought Elizabeth deserved to be made Poet Laureate. But now fate intervened as tragic news confirmed her younger brother Sam had died of yellow fever in Jamaica. Worse was to follow. Her kindred spirit, brother Edward, who had remained in Torquay, was drowned in our bay. With three friends, he had set out for a day at sea on the vessel La Belle Sauvage and all had been lost. His body was discovered washed up on Thatcher Rock; today he lies in an unmarked grave in Torre Churchyard. In November that year, William Wordsworth came to ask Elizabeth to help him modernise Chaucer’s published works, which became the turning point in her tragic life. That year, Christmas was memorable as most of the family were with her including Charles and Octavius who were back from the West Indies. With the Wordsworth commission complete, her long convalescence was nearing its end and in September 1841 the group all returned to Wimpole Street London. Elizabeth now read and approved a poem entitled Lady Geraldine’s Courtship written by an aspiring poet, one Robert Browning. He visited the invalid Elizabeth 91 times and sent her no less than 600 letters before, against the wishes of her beloved father, she accepted his proposal of marriage. In accepting his proposal, more tragedy, her obsessive father disinherited her.
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The couple married at Marylebone Church on September 12th 1846 and after leaving England, travelled across France to Robert’s favourite country, Italy. Few friends expected Elizabeth to survive the journey but life she said, was to be lived not missed. Her father never contacted his daughter again and in spite of reams of letters to him he never opened any. A solicitor, decades later, having purchased Edward’s bureau, discovered the secret drawer in which the bundle of letters was hidden all unopened and outlined in black, with the wax seals intact. When Tennyson not Barrett-Browning became the next Poet Laureate it mattered little to Elizabeth, she had her new love and a life in Italy. She was pregnant four times before in 1849, three days after her forty-third birthday, she was blessed with a son, Robert Weidemann BarrettBrowning, later called simply “Pen”. One last tragedy awaited her when Italian doctors incorrectly diagnosed a chill, not her weakened heart, leading to her death on June 29th 1861. Clasped in her husband’s arms at their Florence apartment her last words but one were, “oh what a fine steamer and how comfortable” and on being asked how she was feeling she replied simply, “beautiful”. It would not be until 1988 that Torbay Civic Society unveiled its Blue Plaque at No 1 on Victoria Parade to honour Elizabeth’s stay in Torquay. o torbaycivicsociety.co.uk
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