Constance Smith (née Herbert)
(1785-1829)
Constance Catherine Smith, Mrs Spencer Smith (née Constanze Baronne de Herbert Rathkeal; 1785–1829) - wife of a British diplomat John Spencer Smith, known as Florence in several of Byron's poems.
Daughter of baron Herbert, Austrian ambassador to Constantinople. Heroine of Marquis de Salvo's book about her escape from Napoleon and Memoirs of the Duchess D' Abrantés.
Poems
Lord Byron fell in love with her in Malta in 1809.
To Florence (September 1809)
Lines written in an album at Malta (September 14, 1809)
Stanzas composed during a thunderstorm (October 11, 1809)
Stanzas written in passing the Ambracian gulf (November 14, 1809)
The spell is broke... (Athens, January 16, 1810)
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, II, xxxii-xxxiii.
Arms
Sources
Marquis de Salvo. Travels in the year 1806 from Italy to England: through the Tyrol, Styria, Bohemia, Gallicia, Poland and Livonia : containing the particulars of the liberation of Mrs. Spencer Smith from the hands of the French police. (Translated from the original mss.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q94617688. VIAF identifies the subject as 125145541823896600415. The Library of Congress control number is no2015168754. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1785, 1829, 1809 and 1810.
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