Elizabeth Medora Leigh

Elizabeth Medora Leigh (15 April 1814 – 28 August 1849) was the third daughter of Augusta Leigh. It is widely speculated that she was fathered by her mother's half-brother Lord Byron; this is supported by comments from his widow, even though her mother's husband, Colonel George Leigh, was her legal father.

Birth She was born the middle child of seven. Three days after her birth, Byron visited Augusta and the baby. He later wrote to a friend, Lady Melbourne: "Oh! but it is 'worth while' – I can't tell you why – and it is not an Ape and if it is – that must be my fault." The child's middle name was taken from the heroine of Byron's poem The Corsair. He never returned.

Early life Augusta's husband, George, never questioned the paternity of Medora, and she grew up among her brothers and sisters unaware that she might be the first of Byron's three daughters. As a young teenager, she was seduced by her brother-in-law, Henry Trevanion, unhappily married to her older sister Georgiana. She had accompanied the couple when they took up residence in Canterbury in a house belonging to their aunt, Lady Byron. When neighbours reported the scandalous appearance of an apparently pregnant unwed teenager to Lady Byron, she arranged for the trio to travel to France, where the child was born and placed for adoption. Medora returned home, but the relationship continued and she became pregnant again. The three departed for Bath to stay in a house of one of Henry's relatives in an attempt to hide the second pregnancy from Medora's father, Colonel Leigh. The Colonel was eventually informed, and after travelling to Bath with an attorney removed her from the Trevanions and sent Medora to an establishment in London, to give birth in secrecy. After she miscarried, Henry arranged for her escape and in 1831 the couple eloped to France.

Due to poverty and illness, the pair eventually had to beg their families for money. Henry's father, Major John Bettesworth Trevanion, sent one of Henry's uncles to Brittany to persuade Henry to return to England. Henry refused to leave. Augusta Leigh was now keeping her other daughter Georgiana's three children by Henry, Henry died in 1855 in Brittany, France. Her daughter Marie Violette entered a convent in 1856 under the name "Sister St. Hilaire" and is said to have died within the order in 1873.