Lady Emma Hamilton

1789 Engraving of Emma Hamilton – Wellcome Images/CC BY 4.0

– The Story of a Great Naval Hero’s Mistress

By Margaret Brecknell

A special ceremony is held each October to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and to commemorate Britain’s most famous naval hero, Admiral Lord Nelson.

Nelson was fatally wounded during the battle and was subsequently laid to rest amidst great ceremony in St Paul’s Cathedral. One significant person, however, was missing from the funeral, namely his long-time mistress, Lady Emma Hamilton. She was said to be inconsolable at not being allowed to attend.

Emma Hamilton was born here in the North-West on 26th April 1765, the daughter of the local blacksmith in the village of Ness on the Wirral Peninsula. Her father died when she was still a baby and she was brought up by her mother and grandmother just across the Welsh border in Hawarden.

She was seemingly determined to escape her humble background from a young age. By her early teens, she had found employment as a maid and was working in London. Not much is known about her early years in the capital, but it is believed that she subsequently turned to acting and modelling. Actresses were not highly regarded in the late 18th century and it has been suggested that Emma may have worked as a prostitute during her teens, but no concrete evidence has been found to prove or disprove this theory.

What is known, both from artists’ portraits and contemporary accounts, is that Emma was an attractive and vivacious young woman and she quickly became expert in using her charms as a means of escaping poverty and climbing the social ladder.

When still only in her mid-teens, she became mistress to Sir Henry Fetherstonhaugh and was invited to stay at his country estate in Sussex. By 1781, she had fallen pregnant and was swiftly abandoned by the aristocrat, although it

was rumoured he was the father of her child. Emma next turned her attention to Charles Greville, whom she had met through her association with Fetherstonhaugh. She sent him a despairing letter, effectively throwing herself on his mercy. “O for Gods sake tell me what is to become on me. O dear Grevell write to me. Write to me…”, she pleaded.

The letter inadvertently reveals Emma’s lack of formal education, but it appears to have done the trick. Greville offered the 16-year-old a home in London, together with her mother, under one condition. When the baby – a daughter – arrived, she was sent to live with Emma’s grandmother in Wales. Emma barely saw her daughter again throughout her childhood.

Emma’s first big break came when Greville arranged for her portrait to be painted by prominent artist, George Romney. It appears that Greville saw an opportunity to make money by selling pictures of his beautiful young mistress. However, he could not have envisaged the extent to which the artist would become obsessed with his young sitter, nor the way in which the portraits would propel Emma to celebrity status. The National Portrait Gallery estimates that in a four-year period between 1782 and 1786 Emma sat as a model for Romney on over one hundred occasions.

By the mid-1780s, Greville was facing financial difficulties and decided on a course of action followed by many cash-poor aristocrats of the time. He set out to find a wealthy young heiress, whom he could marry. The starting point was to break off his affair with Emma, which by this point was well-known in London circles.

He turned to his elderly uncle, Sir William Hamilton, for help. Hamilton, the British Ambassador in Naples, had reportedly been enchanted by his nephew’s young mistress, whom he had met on a previous visit to England. He was now living alone in Italy, having recently lost his wife, and Greville appears to have persuaded his uncle to take Emma off his hands.

She and her mother arrived in Naples for what they believed to be no more than a holiday in April 1786.

Painting of Nelson and Emma Hamilton in Naples

At first, they lived apart from Hamilton in Naples. From her correspondence it is clear that Emma expected Greville to join them in Italy at some point. “I am poor, helpless and forlorn”, she wrote to him. “I have lived with you 5 years and you have sent me to a strange place and no one prospect, me thinking you was coming to me…”

Greville, of course, never did join her in Naples. Finally accepting the situation in which she found herself, Emma became Hamilton’s mistress and moved into his apartments around Christmas the same year.

Eventually the couple were married in London in September 1791. Emma may have arrived in Italy in far from ideal circumstances, but, as Sir William Hamilton’s wife, she now found herself associating with some important people at the very highest level of Neapolitan society. She became a close friend of Queen Maria Carolina, the wife of the King of Naples and sister of Marie Antoinette. She also met Admiral Nelson briefly for the first time in August 1793, when he arrived in Naples on board HMS Agamemnon, of which he was then captain.

Nelson returned to Naples five years later, just after spearheading a famous British naval victory at the Battle of the Nile and shortly before his 40th birthday. Emma threw a grand party to celebrate his birthday. Nelson himself may have preferred a quieter celebration, as he arrived in Naples in poor health. Emma personally took on the responsibility of nursing him.

Nelson was already married and looked much older than his forty years, having lost an arm, one eye and most of his teeth during his actionpacked naval career. Yet it was not long before he and Emma Hamilton began an affair. It soon became public knowledge.

When Sir William Hamilton was recalled to London in 1800, Nelson travelled home with the couple across Europe. An Irishwoman named Melesina Trench described meeting Nelson and Emma Hamilton in Germany. “It is plain that Lord Nelson thinks of nothing but Lady Hamilton, who is totally occupied by the same object”, she wrote. “Lady Hamilton takes possession of him, and he is a willing captive, the most submissive and devoted I have seen.”

By the time of Sir William’s death in April 1803, Nelson’s marriage was over in all but name and the lovers set up home together at Merton Place, a country estate then just outside London. Nelson was often away at sea, but he was at home for a short while during the summer of 1805 and Emma wrote of her “fortnight of joy and happiness”, adding that “My beloved Nelson is so delighted with Merton and now he is here – tis a paradise”.

Sadly, Emma’s new-found happiness proved short-lived. Soon afterwards, Nelson returned to his ship, HMS Victory. On 21st October 1805, Britain’s great naval hero led his fleet into battle against the Spanish off Cape Trafalgar, close to the south-west coast of Spain. Despite being outnumbered, the British fleet triumphed. However, shortly before the battle ended, Nelson was struck by a musket ball whilst on the deck of HMS Victory and died of his wounds some three hours later.

Shortly before what proved to be his last battle, Nelson had added a codicil to his will in which he requested the government, in the event of his death, to provide financial support to Emma and their daughter, Horatia. In fact, Emma never received a penny from the state. She was left some money by both her husband, Sir William, and her lover, Nelson, but, with a reduced income, found it increasingly difficult to afford the luxurious lifestyle to which she had become accustomed.

Emma had reportedly been a heavy drinker for years, but following her lover’s death appears to have become increasingly reliant on alcohol as a means of escape from everyday life. Eight years after Nelson’s death, Emma faced the ultimate indignity when she was arrested for debt and sent to prison in London.

Upon her release the following year, she fled to Calais with her daughter, Horatia, but she remained deeply unhappy and died in France from dysentery the following year at the age of 49.

Much of Emma Hamilton’s life represents the type of classic rags to riches story so beloved of Hollywood scriptwriters. However, sadly for her, there was destined to be a sting in the tail, as she returned to poverty and died in tragically reduced circumstances far from home. Once she was no longer under the protection of the influential men to whom she had attached herself, there was no way of maintaining her previously affluent lifestyle. This only goes to illustrate the limited opportunities available for women of her class to better themselves during this era.

Lady Emma Hamilton as Cassandra by George Romney

According to Trench, Sir William Hamilton appeared strangely untroubled by the affair. “Sir William is old, infirm, all admiration of his wife, and never spoke today but to applaud her”, she wrote.

Upon their return to England, there began a strange ménage à trois, in which the two lovers lived, by all accounts quite amicably, under the same roof as the now elderly Sir William Hamilton. Even when Emma gave birth to Nelson’s daughter, Horatio, in January 1801, the arrangement continued. Bearing in mind that Nelson still had a wife, Fanny, who at that juncture was still patiently waiting for him to return home, the affair scandalised London society.

Photo of Horatia Ward née Nelson (Nelson and Emma Hamilton’s daughter) – Lilystyle/CC BY-SA 4.0