daughter or son, or that he had passed forged cheques. The most likely explanation is Brontë's own account that he had an affair with Mrs Robinson which Brontë hoped would lead to marriage after her husband's death. For several months after his dismissal, he regularly received small amounts of money from Thorpe Green, sent by Mrs. Robinson herself, probably to dissuade him from blackmailing his former employer and lover. Brontë returned home to his family at the Haworth parsonage, where he looked for another job, wrote poetry and attempted to adapt Angrian material into a book called And the Weary are at Rest. During the 1840s, several of his poems were published in local newspapers under the name of Northangerland, making him the first of the Brontës to be a published poet. Soon however, after Mr Robinson's death, Mrs Robinson made clear that she was not going to marry Branwell, who then "declined into chronic alcoholism, opiates and debt". Charlotte's letters from this time demonstrate that she was angered by his behaviour. In January 1847, he wrote to his friend Leyland about the easy existence he hoped for: "to try and make myself a name in the world of posterity, without being pestered by the small but countless botherments." His behaviour became increasingly impossible and embarrassing to the family. He managed to set fire to his bed, after which his father had to sleep with him for the safety of the family. Towards the end of his life he was sending notes to a friend asking of "Five pence (5d) worth of Gin". Charlotte Brontë wrote to her publisher that Branwell died without "ever knowing that his sisters had published a line." However, according to Juliet Barker's biography, Branwell may have known about his sisters' publication of their poetry, having been the accidental recipient of some proofs since their pseudonyms were thought to be male. Barker also states that Branwell's friends said he claimed authorship of Wuthering Heights (though they may have said this out of loyalty). Death On 24 September 1848, Brontë died at Haworth parsonage, most likely due to tuberculosis aggravated by delirium tremens, alcoholism, and laudanum and opium addiction, despite the fact that his death certificate notes "chronic bronchitis-marasmus" as the cause. Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte reports an eye-witness account that Brontë, wanting to show the power of the human will, decided to die standing up,