Oh What A Time... - #120 Scandals (Part 2)

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!This week we are trawling the archives for scandals! (And let’s attempt this episode description in true tabloid fashion). Hear all about Lord Byron’s saucy behaviour! The blackmail of Alexander Hamilton! And (one of the all-time great scandals) you simply won’t believe the Profumo affair!And this week we’re asking: how on earth did anyone ever travel anywhere more than 50 years ago? And we’re also asking for more contributions to our hit new feature ‘COULD YOU BE ARSED THOUGH’? And also…PLEASE SEND US YOUR QUAINT LOCAL ATTRACTIONS! (With a pic of the leaflet if possible).Please email them in here: [e-mail] you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time Early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Hello. Welcome to part two of Political Scandals. Let's get on with the show. Back in the early 1790s, I'm taking you back, the United States, obviously such a new country, was rocked by its very first political sex scandal, the Hamilton Reynolds Affair. Sounds sexy, doesn't it? Oh, the Hamilton Reynolds Aff affair. Now at its heart was a love affair between Alexander Hamilton, then the Treasury Secretary during George Washington's presidency, and a serious political contender for the presidency

himself, and Maria Reynolds, the wife of Hamilton's friend, who was the New York financial speculator James Reynolds. Now Reynolds discovered the affair shortly before Christmas 1791 and he sent Hamilton a scathing letter which began, I'm very sorry to find out that I've been so cruelly treated by a persona that I took to be my best friend instead of my greatest enemy. Wow! You have deprived me of everything that is near and dear to me. Now what I like about that is that he wrote Hamilton a letter. This is Reynolds now. But James Reynolds, who was the financial speculator. Nowadays, as we've seen with

the Elon Musk and Donald Trump stuff, it would be a tweet, wouldn't it? Yes. That would be a tweet that would get 380,000 retweets and half a million likes. Now anyway, but obviously you've got, you can write more in a letter. So he continues, She called on you for the loan of some money, which you told her you would call on her the next evening, which accordingly you did. And there, sir, you took advantage of a poor, broken-hearted woman. Instead of being a friend, you have acted the part of the cruelest man in existence. You have made a whole family miserable. She says there is no other man that she cares for in this world now, sir. You have been the cause of cooling

her affections for me." Wow. That's the thing, we're writing a letter. You can't really fire off a letter in the way that you can fire off a tweet. Yeah, especially in 1790, you've got to get a quill. You've got to get a pen, you've got to get a quill. You've got to get a wax, you've got to heat up the wax, the wax seal. Yeah, now for his part, Hamilton explained in a pamphlet that was published in 1797 that

Mrs Reynolds had been the seducer, rather than the other way round. In his words, "'I inquired for Mrs. Reynolds and was shown upstairs, at the head of which she met me and conducted me into her bedroom. I took the money out of my pocket and I gave it to her. Some conversation ensued from which it was quickly apparent that something other than pecuniary consolation

would be acceptable.'" Hmm. So, sorry, they went up into his bedroom? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they went up into her bedroom. Her bedroom, OK. And for him to give her the money and then she... This is what he's saying, obviously. Now that tweet, I'd retweet that. Now needless to say, Hunky Punky was part of the art of the deal. So James Reynolds,

in his drive for revenge, blackmailed Hamilton and he received more than $1300 in hush money over the next year or so. So that stopped when some of Hamilton's political rivals, including James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson, learnt about what was going on and took the dealings to be indicative of corruption. So Reynolds was mired in a separate issue relating to non-payment of wages to the army. So Alexander Hamilton, just to recap, he was then the Treasury Secretary during George Washington's presidency and he was a big, serious sort of political contender for the presidency. And was he doing his sort of songs and cool raps at the stage?

Oh yeah yeah yeah. Okay. Who was that later? Is that what first attracted her to him? And Maria Reynolds, who was the wife of Hamilton's friend and the New York financial speculator James Reynolds. So, Keen to Destroy Arrival, they used the information to do just that. So a cryptic note written by Jefferson on the 17th of December 1792 this is a tweet from a bot if we're modernising it, referred to the affair of Reynolds and his wife in defending himself. Hamilton admitted that the payment had nothing to do with corruption but were in fact related to a sexual liaison. So he provided copies of the various letters

sent by the Reynolds as proof. Monroe promised to keep them private, but he immediately shared them with Jefferson. So for several years after, Hamilton was dogged by these persistent rumours about his private life. Rumours spread by Jefferson to undermine his rival. And at this time, that would have been absolutely poisonous to someone's political career. I mean, now Donald Trump will get away with it, let's face it, but back then. Now the entire scandal came to a head in the summer of 1797 when Hamilton published

his famous pamphlet, "'Observations on Certain Documents'." That's got quite a smug title, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. That was gonna exonerate himself in the eyes of the public. But it proved otherwise that he was cleared of the whiff of corruption, but his confession to the affair with Maria

Reynolds didn't do very much of his reputation. So this was Hamilton's defence. My real crime is an amorous connection with Reynolds' wife for a considerable time with the privacy and connivance, if not originally brought on by a combination between husband and wife, with the design to extort money from me. This confession is not made without a blush. I cannot be the apologit of any vice because the ardour of passion may have made it mine. I can never cease to condemn myself for the pang, which it may inflict in a bosom eminently entitled to all my gratitude, fidelity and love. Just say you love Shaggy, mate. You know when you read like old letters like that, people spoke so well in the past.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a real art to me. It's almost poetry, isn't it? I love the word pang. Pang's a great word. But that bosom will approve that even at so great an expense I should effectually wipe away a more serious stain from my name, which it cherishes with no less elevation than tenderness.

The public too, I will trust, excuse the confession. The necessity of it to my defense against a more heinous charge could alone have exalted for me so painful an indecorum. Come on, mate. I don't know what you're talking about. So Hamilton was so hot-headed and it would lead him to demand satisfaction from James

Monroe, who he challenged to a duel. Classic. So the contest was averted only by the intervention of Aaron Burr, who had gone to kill Hamilton in the duel in 1804. Burr's involvement was in fact even wider in this since he acted as Maria Reynolds' attorney when she divorced her husband James in 1793. So they all know each other. They're all involved. They all know what's going on. So nor did the pamphlet do much for Hamilton's relations with other senior politicians. John Adams and Abigail Adams, for instance, and a letter to her husband. Abigail was scathing about the audacious publication of that man. Meanwhile, Jefferson and his allies. – So many letters knocking about, aren't they?

– I know. Yeah, yeah. – Everyone's writing their feelings in letters. I suppose that is how you, you know, you voice and you publish. That's what you would do. Do you not get my letter? Shit, I forgot to post this. Sorry, I didn't have a stamp. Sorry, sorry. Honestly writing letters.

Jefferson and his allies, they were talking amongst each other. James Madison wrote of Hamilton using every rhetorical artifice to prop up his sinking reputation and called Monroe that scoundrel. But did the wider American public notice? Well some certainly did. There was a feeling among Hamilton supporters, including Patrioticus writing in the New York Gazette in September 1797 that the whole affair had been whipped up by those guided by the malignant spirit of faction and that Hamilton had atoned for his single transgression by

confessing to it and that the real problem was he'd not proved yet proved himself a modern democratic Frenchman. So like Jefferson and Monroe they were avid supporters of the French Revolution. So by playing up Hamilton's sort of sexual misbehaviour the democrats were creating the impression of these democrats as in people who like democracy, rather than the political party, were creating the impression of monarchical excess. They were like, yeah, they're just all at it, which was the opposite of their American Revolution. That's so interesting. These people at the top, they're just, yeah, yeah, they're not living in the way that we would expect

from our rulers. It's interesting, isn't it, how really with so many of these things, especially in terms of the opposition, often they don't really care about what has happened. They care about how they can weaponize it. Yeah, yeah, totally. So that's really what matters, isn't it? Let's say if there's any indiscretion on the part of a Democrat leader or Republican leader, whatever, here in this country as well, there's not really a moral outrage from the people on the other side. It's just like, what can we do with this information that's going to be useful for us?

Will Barron Is it not comforting that we think that is a modern trend, but here we are talking about it in 1790? Do you know what I mean? Is that not comforting to go like, this has always been like this? Neil Milliken Yeah, absolutely. Will Barron Well, obviously it's not ideal. Lots of political leaders and politicians have affairs. I always find it quite funny, like the Edwina Curry John Major affair I found hilarious. But obviously it's terrible for the families involved.

That came out years later. But you know, it is a funny idea. It's a funny image. It is a funny image. Especially because John Major's spitting image puppet was him being really grey and eating peas. a funny image, especially because John Major's spitting image puppet was him being really grey and eating peas. Have I ever told you that? My wife, where she grew up, John Major was her local MP. Oh, I didn't know that. Wow.

And so she grew up feeling like John Major was a hero. So when Labour come to power in 97, she looks at that event as a major tragedy for John Major. She talks of the fall of Major like it was the fall of Saddam. Will Barron I always remember when I stayed up to watch the 97 election and when they realised that they'd been obliterated, they went straight to your wife's constituency, because that's where John Major was. And I remember him going, so we lost and all the Tories laughed. And so we went, go on John, well done John. That was Sophie. The front row, the audience.

Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Look at the darts. Gorgeous! I guess when you go through my wife's pictures of her young growing up, like village fates and that, there's about four or five always blurry pictures of John Major from about 30 metres. Like, John Major was such a massive part of her life growing up.

Like a rock star. She's the only person that reads about the Edwina Curry major affair, not in a funny way. She finds it genuinely sexy. She's so jealous. Yeah, exactly. Fuming. Got a picture of Edwina Curry on a tarp. Well, it also implies that despite being PM, he was doing quite a lot of constituency work. He was.

It looked like he was opening a village hall every other week. If you go through my wife's photos. Wow, the Prime Minister. Yeah. Have we all seen the Alexander Hamilton musical? I haven't. I haven't. You haven't seen it?

Oh boys, you've got to see it. This affair does come up in the form of rap. What can you ask for? So to wrap up today's exciting sexy show I'm going to be telling you a story. It has been a sexy show, hasn't it? Yeah, absolutely. It has been a sexy show, hasn't it? I was expecting it. Yeah. You can't see this at home because you're just listening, but we're all wearing silk and lace. Yeah, yeah, I'm wearing a kimono. Just take it off any second. Slightly open, come on. So, what an image. So, putting the oh no into kimono. So, I'm going to… Thank you. I'm going to tell you today about a 19th century love affair between an aristocratic

lady called Lady Caroline Lamb and a member of the House of Lords, but not just any member of the House of Lords, and none other than the great romantic poet Lord Byron. Okay. Now, do you know anything about Byron and his rep? I don't know as much as I'd like to. Top Shaga. Yeah, I know the headlines. Well, today you will get the gist of the man.

Great. And he's quite the character. So, a bit of context. Lady Caroline is born in 1785, memory aristocracy. She's the niece of the future Prime Minister Lord Melbourne. And then age 19, she marries a man by the name of William Lamb. Five points if you can tell me why William Lamb is a name that should matter to you or should mean something to you. Larry Lamb?

What related to EastEnders actor? Billy Lamb. William Lamb went on to become Prime Minister. So he is not just any old man. This is a guy with rising profile, quite something on the Georgian scene who goes on to become the Prime Minister. And Caroline herself, she was intelligent, artistic, witty. March 1812, seven years after her marriage to William Lamb, she goes to a society event that would change her life.

And that event was Carl Cox at the Ministry of Sound this year. She did her first E and she said it was transformative. It was a society ball at Holland House in Kensington, London. And there she met George Byron, who was 24 at the time, already famous, really good looking, notoriously scandalous, who along with his poetry had this incredible allure amongst society women in Georgia and England. In fact, he was so loved, this is amazing, okay, he was so loved that he used to receive sack loads of fan mail every week from fans. And this was so intense, it was given the name Byromania.

Wow. So you know, like Beatlemania, it's a real thing. By Romania was one of the first real celebs. He would get so much fan mail from women who just loved him, basically. 90% from women. He was just such a sort of sex icon. They just thought he was so hot and he would get loads of these letters every week. Do poets still get that stuff? No, it's really changed, isn't it? Does Simon Armitage get sackfuls of bananil? I don't know. Another sackful, Simon. Oh, God. Here we go. So,

Byromania is what they call it. He gets all these letters. This is the guy we're dealing with, okay? So Caroline goes to the ball, she meets Byron and she's attracted to him instantly. She writes this about him and she says, that beautiful pale face is my fate. Imagine someone writing that about you. Do you reckon Izzy thought that? Yeah, Izzy wrote that. Did she? When she saw… Yeah, Facebook status, 2009. And I am very pale in fairness to it. You are actually, yeah. You do have a beautiful pale face. However, on the other

side, Caroline wasn't Byron's usual type. Caroline was tall, very thin, short, curly blonde hair, and after the meeting he told his friend Medwin the lady had scarcely any personal attractions to recommend her. Her figure was too thin to be good. So I think we're getting an idea that Byron is a bit of a wanker. Yeah, wanker. This is what we're dealing with. He's like a 90s lad. Yeah, absolutely. But because he was such a 90s lad, because he was such a cad, he still makes his advance, okay? He doesn't fancy it that much. He still leans in for the kiss and Caroline turns him down. However, it has the effect of Byron, because this is the sort of

person he is, and you've met this sort of person before, who has to win. He suddenly now becomes desperate to have her, because he can't have her because he's not interested. He's now desperate, okay? And he loves the chase, and he starts becoming intently sort of focused on winning Caroline's heart. It's basically treat and mean, keep and keen, working in 1812. That's what's happened. She's turned it down and it's worked. And he pursues her and very quickly she relents and is soon completely smitten, describing Byron as, and I love this quote, once again, imagine someone writing this about you, she describes Byron as mad, bad and dangerous

to know. Yeah, that's what he wrote on the second Facebook status. Saying, warning, if you meet this man, he's mad, bad and dangerous to know. Is that where mad, bad and dangerous to know came from? Yeah. It is. And it's a line which marked Byron's life throughout. Wow. It's something he couldn't escape from.

It makes you imagine him sort of like on Harley in a leather jacket. Yeah, he's the Fonz. He's the Fonz of 1800s poetry. Mad, bad, and dangerous, no. And so they start their affair, OK? They read together. They discuss poetry. God, mad.

They have heated, heated passionate arguments. Do you want to guess what they argue about? And I'm going to say that these arguments suggest that the relationship was unlikely to work out. What do you think they argued about most? Will Barron Interpretation of famous poetic works? Will Barron No. Good guess though? Will Barron I don't know. Whether monarchies were a better method of government than democracy. Will Barron

No. It's more of a fundamental thing to do with the relationship. It's just, you can see why this didn't fail. They constantly argue about his flirtation with other women, her open affection for her husband and her open affection for other admirers. So they were constantly arguing about the fact that they both fancied other people and were always flirting with other people.

What's that thing? Because obviously the three of us are married and have been married for a very long time. So none of us have ever been on the apps. What's that phrase? Is it ethical non-monogamous that people put? I don't know about this.

Yes, a friend of mine was telling me about this because he's on the apps. And you're basically saying oh yeah, I'll go for a date with you, but you know, I don't want to be in a relationship. I'll be going for dates with other people as well. So, ethical non-monogamous. Something like that. Yeah. God, well, the three of us are old married men. It's pathetic. We don't know what we're talking about.

Well, I would say it's almost not that because I think obviously it's not monogamous because she's having an affair but I think there is an intense feeling here, which is why there's anger that both of them continue to flirt. Byron also is particularly jealous of the fact that she would waltz with other men at the balls as he couldn't dance because he had a club foot. Caroline would therefore have to sit with him at parties rather than throwing himself into the fun, which created more arguments. He was also insistent that Caroline tell him that she loved him more than her husband. That's who he is. Something that she initially refused to do. But by May, which is less than two months into their affair, Byron has got what he's wanted. Caroline is thinking of leaving

her husband for him. At which point, and he guess what Byron does, okay? So now that she's interested saying she's going to leave the husband, what what Byron does, okay, so now that she's interested, saying she's going to leave the husband, what does Byron do? Now we know the sort of person he is. What does he do? Pulling right out of this, isn't he? Absolutely. He knocks it straight on the head. He's suddenly not interested anymore. He's not having to chase anymore. He ends the relationship now that she's into him. Absolute classic nobbed behaviour. And then on top of ending things, he flees the scene leaving London.

And Caroline does not take it well. Okay, first she bombards him with letters at his home in Newstead Abbey, to which he doesn't respond, which is like, as we discussed earlier, the Georgian equivalent's a text, basically saying, -"I'm missing you." -"He's ghosting her." -"She's sending..." -"Yeah." -"Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he is. He's ghosting her." She sends these letters. She's sending him. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he is. He's ghosting her. She sends these letters.

He doesn't respond. Next stage, when he visits London in July, she arrives at his home, number 8 St. James's Street, dressed as a page boy, okay? Byron's friend, John Hobhouse, recorded the events in his diary. So this is what happened. Wednesday, 29th of July,

went to Byron's in expectation of going to Harrow, a scheme he had resolved to avoid the threatened visit of a lady. At 12 o'clock, just as we were going, several thundering raps were heard at the door and we saw a crowd collected about the door and opposite to it, immediately a person in a most strange disguise walking up the stairs. It turned out to be the lady in question, so this is Caroline dressed as a pageboy. I did think that to leave my friend in such a situation when every soul in the house, servants and all, all knew of the person in disguise and not to endeavour to prevent the catastrophe of an elopement which seemed inevitable would be unjustifiable. Accordingly, I stayed in the sitting room whilst the lady was in the bedroom, which is such a funny image, pulling off her disguise. So she's actually removing all her different bits of disguise

now she's in the house. At last, she was prevailed upon to put on a habit, a bonnet, and shoes belonging to a servant at the house, and after much entreaty, did come out into the sitting room. I mean, how do you think it's going for you if you turn up at an ex's house in disguise and attempt to win them back? How do you think that's going down? I like the idea of turning up as a page boy.

Yeah. Byron's life sounds really stressful. It does. It's funny, isn't it? Because Byron, I always think is such a hero of like the dandy. I know, like Pete Doherty and Morrissey always feel like the Byron is their hero, but he's a bit of a you know it's such a chaotic life. Yeah. And it kind of ends in disgrace really. Really does, yeah completely.

I don't know why people love Byron so much, I don't get it. He's a bad guy. Yeah completely. Well maybe that's the attraction. You're quite right, Chris. His bad behaviour affects Caroline so much that when she's asked to leave the house, she grabs hold of a knife and starts stabbing herself, forcing Byron to hold her down till she's calm. This is the effect he's having on her. She's fine though. She doesn't hurt herself too badly but it shows you the mindset she's in. When that failed she leaves and she goes for the classic third option,

which I'm sure you've both done before in the past, which is to send Byron clippings of her pubic hair in the hair. Delete a number? No, no, no. A trick as old as time. We've all done it. But also I just do that for friends. You've both had it in the post. Exactly, yeah. I appreciate it. It's nice to hear, you know, to see that you're well. Well, that's how I said yes to Chris's idea of doing this podcast. So he sent me a text, do you want to do a history podcast with Tom Crane? Could be loads of fun. I didn't reply

to the text, just sent him clipping my pubic hair. I opened the pubes and I was like, it's a yes. He's in. He's in. So she's sending him pubes, she's turning up at his house in disguise, but none of this works. In an effort to save his wife, William Lamb takes Lady Caroline to Ireland. Even then she continues to write to him and Byron in return replies, which I think probably isn't that helpful. And although they never got back together, Lady Caroline's him and Byron in return replies, which I think probably isn't that helpful. And although they never got back together, Lady Caroline's obsession with Byron would define much of her later life, as well as influencing her work as a writer and also Byron's work. They'd write poems in the style of each other, about each other. They'd often

embed overt messages to one another in their verse. For example, in Lady Caroline's novel Glenarvon in 1816, she essentially cast herself as a tragic heroine and Byron as a villainous seducer, while Byron made jams at her in his poetry, especially in Don Juan. But the question I suppose is why does it matter? It matters because the affair is often remembered as the ultimate example of romantic obsession, celebrity scandal. That is what it is, it's proper celebrity scandal, an early feminist rebellion.

And you mentioned the idea that he was sort of like disgraced, Chris. What's interesting about it is that people like the idea of you seeming like you were a bad boy in poetry and all this sort of stuff. But actually when it tipped over into genuinely bad behavior and you were hurting other society people, that's when that sort of like, you know, it all broke. The idea of what it was became too real and society just weren't interested in it.

And they were like, this guy is just, he's just awful. We don't want him anymore, basically. So he kind of he broke his legacy through actually routinely being too horrendous. And as a final note, which shows the sort of person he was, his adultery didn't end there. He went on to have countless affairs, affair after affair after affair, including and I think this is the big one with his half-sister Auguste Lay. Oh my god. Yeah, there you go. For god's sake. I think no amount of good poetry is going to make me forget the fact you were sleeping with your half-sister.

No. I think for me that would be the big one and I'd probably, yeah, I'm sure you're a good poet, but that's, you did that. Also, half is enough. Yeah. Yeah. People like a bad boy, like a fake bad boy, not necessarily a real one. Do you know what I mean?

No, that's it. That is exactly what it is, Chris. And that's what happened here. That's a very good point. Yeah. They like the idea of it. They like Mick Carter, Frank Butcher, Daddy Dyer and EastEnders. They don't like Nick Cotton.

Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Exactly. And Byron was Nick Cotton. So there you are. That's the story of Lady Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron, which did not end well. Wow. Half sister.

Come on, man. No good, is it? Well thank you for listening to this episode, which was Political Scandals. That's it. But if you want more Oh What A Time, we do two bonus subscriber episodes every month and there is a whole archive of subscriber episodes to be enjoyed, plus ad-free listening, plus early release episodes. To get all that good stuff, you can become an Oh What A Time full-timer. And to become an Oh What A Time full-timer And to become an Oh What A Time full timer,

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