H - Hamilton, Emma (1765? - 1815) and Vice-Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson
Emma Hamilton has always been a central figure in Nelson's story. Even during his lifetime, their defiantly public affirmation of their friendship attracted much attention in the gossip columns of the newspapers, and in the correspondence of those who met them.
During the 19th century historians argued over whether they had been lovers and then, when there could no longer be any doubt about the matter, tended to portray Emma as a scheming adventuress who had led the naïve hero astray. In the 20th century when there was a greater acceptance of their adultery, their love affair tended to be presented as one of history's great romances – especially by film-makers.
In fact their relationship was often very unromantic. It is important to remember that the lovers were hardly ever alone – for most of their time together they lived with Emma's husband, Sir William Hamilton, in a remarkable, but clearly amicable ménage à trois. It was also a very destructive affair – closer to a Shakespearean tragedy than a Mills and Boon bodice-ripper. All the participants became figures of fun, lampooned often cruelly in newspaper reports and caricatures.
Sir William and Nelson were both recalled home from Naples in disgrace in 1800, at least in part because of the scandal. Frances Nelson suffered the pain of being abandoned, not only by her husband but also by most of their family and friends. Emma herself lost her hard won reputation for respectability and never achieved the position in British society, which as the beautiful and talented wife of the former envoy to Naples, she might have enjoyed had Nelson not entered her life. As a result, her last years were unhappy, even tragic, with a slow descent into debt, drunkenness and death.
Emma's early history is shrouded in mystery – much of it of her own deliberate making. Even the exact date of her birth is uncertain. She always celebrated 26 April as her birthday but the year is given variously as 1763 and 1765.
We do know however that she was christened on 12 May 1765, and that she was the daughter of Henry and Mary Lyon. Henry Lyon was the blacksmith of the village of Nesse in the Wirral, Cheshire. At an early age Emma moved to London to work, where her striking beauty and innocence attracted a succession of unprincipled men by whom she was used and then passed on. Eventually in 1782, she became the mistress of Charles Greville, an earl's son and member of Parliament, who installed her in a small house in Paddington Green where he visited her over the next four years. It was during this period that she met the artist George Romney, who captured her unique combination of voluptuous beauty and girlish innocence in a remarkable series of paintings.
However, in 1784 Greville wished to marry, and so he sent Emma with her mother to visit his uncle Sir William Hamilton in Naples. Hamilton was a widower and it is clear that the two men had coldly decided that Emma should become Hamilton's mistress. At first she was distraught, writing anguished letters to Greville whom she obviously genuinely loved, but Hamilton, who was essentially a humane and decent man, gradually won her over, and by 1786 they had become close. They eventually married in 1791.
Marriage gave the new Lady Hamilton a place at the Neapolitan Court, and she quickly developed a close friendship with the Queen, Maria Carolina. Her extraordinary beauty was much admired and she became an accomplished singer. Moreover, under Hamilton's tutelage, she developed a striking series of poses, based on scenes from classical vases in her husband's collection, which she then put together into special solo performances known as 'attitudes'. So by the mid-1790s she had became a celebrity, and rising above the squalid exploitation of her early years, had won for herself a position in society and a reputation based on her own artistic and social talents.
Then in September 1798 Nelson came to Naples. They had met briefly before in 1793 when as captain of HMS Agamemnon, he had been sent to Naples by the Mediterranean commander-in-chief Lord Hood to persuade the King of Naples to send troops to help the British hold Toulon, which had been surrendered to them by French monarchists. They obviously liked each other and he wrote of her to his wife: 'She is a young woman of amiable manners and who does honour to the station to which she has been raised'. Since then, they had corresponded from time to time, especially during the Nile campaign in 1798 when realising the influence she had with the Queen, Nelson wrote to her about the progress of his chase of the French fleet and his urgent need for supplies. So Emma became personally involved in the almost unbearable tension preceding the battle and in the euphoric celebrations following it.
When Nelson arrived in Naples after the battle, he was a sick man. The strain of the campaign had undermined his health, which had in any case only recently recovered from the aftermath of the loss of his arm, and now he had been wounded again. Emma and Sir William took him into their home at the Palazzo Sesa where she and her mother nursed him back to health. Nelson and Emma very quickly became close and confidential friends.
This bond was further strengthened in December 1798, when they worked together in the secret and often dangerous operation to evacuate the King and Queen to Palermo, when Naples fell to the French army and a republic was established. Emma made most of the arrangements with the Court, and when the ships were hit by a violent storm, she rose magnificently to the occasion, dispensing help and encouragement to the terrified royal passengers. Inevitably, such courage struck chords in Nelson’s heart and they became inseparable. For perhaps the first time in his naval career, Nelson began to put personal considerations before his duty and was more often to be seen ashore at parties in Palermo than at sea with his fleet.
Historians have debated ever since just how much Hamilton knew about their affair. The consensus now is that he must have guessed that they had become lovers but that he was content to look the other way, so long as his wife did not abandon him. It is clear moreover, that he was genuinely fond of Nelson, regarding him perhaps as the son he had never had. Nelson for his part, seems to have admired the sophisticated and aristocratic man of the world. So Hamilton was far from being an unknowing cuckold – on the contrary, it is now apparent that he was a key player in what was, in a sense, a three-way relationship.
After an extended journey home through the German states in 1800, which turned into a triumphal progress, Nelson and the Hamiltons arrived in Great Yarmouth in November.
By now Emma was pregnant with Nelson's child. The gossip columnists and caricaturists sniggered at how large the famous beauty had become, but only a few of them seem to have guessed the true cause of her embonpoint. So when it became clear that he would have to chose between her and his wife, he parted from Fanny with cruel swiftness and not long afterwards told Emma in a passionate letter, that she was his wife: 'in my eyes and in the face of heaven'.
Nelson returned to active service in January 1801, which meant the lovers were apart when Emma gave birth to a daughter, whom they named Horatia. Emma allowed Nelson to think that this was her first child, but in fact she had been pregnant at least twice before. They had a pact that they would destroy all their letters – a pact that Nelson faithfully kept but that Emma did not. As a result, we have a detailed record of the progress of their affair – but only from one side.
For Nelson, any form of concealment was completely against his nature. Not for him a discreet affair, with clandestine and hurried meetings. He wanted to live with Emma openly – and remarkably, with Sir William's acquiescence he achieved this.
In the autumn of 1801 Emma arranged the purchase for him of a house in Merton in Surrey, and there the three of them often lived together, until Sir William died in April 1803, supported by his wife and holding his best friend's hand. During these happy 18 months, the relationship appears to have matured from a passionate love affair into a quasi-marriage. For when Nelson returned to sea shortly after Sir William's death, and the letters began again, they had none of the jealous anguish of the ones he had written in 1801.
Instead they resembled the letters he had once written to his wife – with complaints about Emma's inefficient packing, plans for improvements to the house and continued promises that he would be home before long, which he continually broke. Reconstructing Emma's letters to him, it would seem that they were not unlike the ones he had received from Fanny – with titbits of gossip about family and friends, intermingled with complaints that he was away for so long and pleas that he would not risk his life any more than was necessary.
They had one last brief time together in August and September 1805, when he came home on leave after chasing the French fleet to the West Indies and back.
For the first time, they were able to have Horatia with them openly at Merton, but even so they were hardly ever alone. The house was full of Nelson's relations and friends, and he was often absent in London consulting with the politicians and the Admiralty about the next stage of the campaign. However, on the day before he left to return to active duty, they did manage to find time to go to the parish church where in a conscious imitation of a marriage service, they received private communion and exchanged rings. As the Victory sailed into action at Trafalgar, Nelson's last private act was to write a codicil to his will, in which he implored his King and Country to provide for Emma and Horatia.
Emma was at Merton when the news of her lover's death arrived and was prostrated with grief. Once he was gone she was hurriedly abandoned by many of his family and friends, who had been so quick to court her when his marriage broke up; and she also found that no-one was prepared to honour her lover's last wishes and provide for her and their child.
Drink, always a weakness, became an addiction. Her debts began to mount up, forcing her to sell many of her possessions and then Merton, which Nelson had left to her. Eventually she was driven into a debtors' prison, where she was accompanied by Horatia who now lived with her permanently. The final blow came in 1814, when some of Nelson's letters to her were published, opening up a public debate about the exact nature of their relationship. The blame for this indiscretion fell on her but she always denied having anything to do with the book. Modern research suggests she was telling the truth, and that the villain was probably Francis Oliver who had been her secretary, and who it would appear had been blackmailing her and threatening publication.
Eventually in July 1814, Emma crossed the Channel with Horatia to Calais to escape her creditors, and six months later she died. She never acknowledged that Horatia was her daughter, and despite all the evidence, Horatia never accepted that Emma was her mother. Her verdict on the woman she had known only as her guardian was therefore emotionally detached and somewhat patronising: 'With all her faults – and she had many – she had many fine qualities which, had she been placed early in better hands, would have made her a very superior woman'.
It is Emma Hamilton's misfortune that most of her biographers have been men. Even her entry in the old Dictionary of National Biography was written by the naval historian John Knox Laughton – presumably on the curious grounds that he was a Nelson biographer.
As a result of their Nelson-centric viewpoint, she has generally been judged harshly, with A.T. Mahan even going so far as to claim, 'That she ever loved him is doubtful', which is about as cruelly unfair as it is possible to be. She was also judged harshly by the polite society that she dared to aspire to enter, and many of the bitchy and unkind contemporary descriptions of her accent and vulgarity are clearly influenced by snobbery. Even so, they have often been quoted by Nelson's biographers with relish, and little discernment as to their likely authenticity.
More recently however, Emma has been more generously treated and her latest biographer Flora Fraser, ends her book with the delightful tale of Sir Moses Montefiore who met the couple when a youngster and many years later, was asked for his impressions of Nelson: 'Ah, my boy,' he replied, 'I only had eyes for Lady Hamilton'.
P art of the Nelson A to Z, Edited extracts taken from The Nelson Encyclopædia by Dr Colin White, Chatham Publishing London, 2002.