In 1816, the scandal over his separation from his wife Annabella, rumours surrounding his relationship with Augusta, and mounting debts forced Byron to leave England.

Augusta's husband, George, never questioned the paternity of Medora,[3] and she grew up among her brothers and sisters unaware that she might be the first of Byron's three daughters.

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.

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.

[1] Henry Trevanion and Medora set up in an ancient, tumble-down chateau near Morlaix in France, living under the surname Aubin.

[1] Medora died on 28 August 1849 from smallpox in Versols-et-Lapeyre, Aveyron, southern France, where her grave can be visited (a tombstone was erected in the 1960s).