Peter Cochran has recently argued that, apart from “protecting” Byron’s reputation, the three men had other, less noble, motivations. Hobhouse was embarking on a political career. Murray was worried that a rival publisher might secure the right to issue the memoirs. And both Murray and Hobhouse grappled with feelings of betrayal and a desire for revenge. Moore, for his part, seems to have been bamboozled into playing along; Corin Throsby pictured him “overwhelmed by what he called the “hoity toity proceeding”—complicated issues of copyright and payment, and Hobhouse’s self-righteous bullying.”
