Sure of his inheritance, knowing Sir William could never cut him out, Greville told her to go ahead. He even advised her as to the best way to go about persuading Sir William to marry again at the age of fifty-six. Emma began to take the possibility seriously. She stopped merely threatening Greville, and got down to work. She polished her manners as her faithless master had taught her to do; she practiced her singing; she made up to the Neapolitans, who were not so strait-laced a crowd as the English would have been, until they forgave that past which most of them had already divined. Above all, she made herself thoroughly agreeable to Sir William. Mrs. Cadogan probably clinched the deal merely by being herself, the perfect, self-effacing housekeeper. Naples did not chatter overmuch: there had already been five years in which the world accustomed itself to the arrangement.
So far, save for the rather lurid light cast on the exchange of a mistress by our twentieth-century code, this is not an out-of-the-way narrative. It was Maria Carolina, Queen of the Two Sicilies, who gave the proceedings that something special which made Nelson’s love story extraordinary. She would have made friends, no doubt, with any woman Sir William married; love of England was her idiosyncrasy. But any other ambassadress than Lady Hamilton, any woman who had been with her husband from the first in the ruthless career most diplomats undergo, might not have gone overboard, as Emma did, on the friendship. A woman of Sir William’s own class would have been held back by her training: Emma was a better ambassadress in that Latin country.
Maria Carolina was Marie Antoinette’s sister. She looked like the Queen of France, but Marie Antoinette was a gentle soul, whereas Maria Carolina was of a strong, dominant nature, with ideas about how a country should be run. In the earlier days of her marriage to Ferdinand, who was no firebrand himself, the Queen of Naples had fancied herself as a social reformer, and made an experiment in founding a model community. Somehow, perhaps from her mother, she had acquired a passion for England and English ideas, and though she never learned to speak the language, she retained this prejudice for many years. The Prime Minister, Sir John Acton, was English. When Sir William married his beautiful young musician, the Queen began showing special favor to Lady Hamilton. By 1793 Emma was an intimate of the royal palace.
Fellow diplomatists and British envoys to neighboring countries tittered and twittered over Sir William’s misalliance, but they could not deny that Lady Hamilton in her warmhearted way was a great help to him. She was as much at home with the Queen as was any Italian member of the court. Indeed, she was more so, for Maria Carolina, like many another sovereign, found it safer to confide in someone who like Emma was not a compatriot. The plot was thickening, not only at the court of Naples but in most countries of the Continent, now that the nobles of France were overthrown. Republicanism was spreading like any plague; at least that is how it seemed to European princes. Queen Maria Carolina, who had longed ardently in the past to liberalize her government, thought of her sister in prison, awaiting trial and execution, and in self-defense and fear became a violent reactionary.
England, she felt, was her only hope. England was at war with republican France, and so the Anglophile Queen redoubled her favors to England’s envoy at her court, and to his wife. When she was not sending word-of-mouth messages about this to Sir William through Emma, or interviewing him in person, she wrote letters to her dear, dear Lady Hamilton, relieving her feelings and passing on useful information at the same time. The ladies’ friendship became animated, warm, and frenetic, as female friendships have a way of doing in southern countries, but the foundation of it all was policy. A few of the Queen’s most violent enemies were later to declare that she was actually in love with Emma, and that the women maintained a Lesbian relationship, but the story is manifestly false; just the sort of thing a diplomat dreams up when he needs a vacation. The suspect letters, when we read them today, do not sound in the least like passion. On the contrary, they are rather stately and stuffy, like that which Maria Carolina wrote to Lady Hamilton on the occasion of Louis XVI’s death:
Ma chère Miledy,
J’ai été bien touché de l’interet que vous prenez à l’execrable catastrofe dont ce sont souillés les infames françois.… Je compte le plus sur votre Genereuse Nation, … et pardonez a mon cœur dechire ses sentimens.
Votre attachee amie,
Charlotte.
King and Queen more than ever inclined to Anglophilia when they heard that Toulon, which the French had recaptured, was again in English hands. It seemed that a British captain, one Horatio Nelson, had been sent to Naples on a mission: he was on his way to collect as many soldiers as he could borrow from Their Majesties. The royal couple determined to give Nelson the red carpet treatment, and like the conscientious envoy he was, Sir William Hamilton too went to great lengths to render Nelson’s stay pleasant. The captain stayed at the Hamiltons’ house; the Hamiltons assisted the captain with supplies when he entertained his royal hosts aboard ship; Lady Hamilton and her housekeeper mother did all they could to make the guest comfortable. Nelson liked Lady Hamilton. He said so when he wrote to his wife.
Had Horatio Nelson been another sort of man, we might safely suppose that he began even in those early days to covet Emma Hamilton. But Nelson was dedicated to his work. He lived for ships, he dreamed of ships, he thought constantly of ships. Some years before, when he found himself being distracted from ships by falling in love with one girl after another, he did what, according to his lights, should have settled all that: he fell in love with someone who was conveniently near him at the time, and married her between voyages. She was a widow named Mrs. Nisbet, and she was not a good choice, though when Nelson first met Emma Hamilton it is most unlikely that he was so much as whispering this criticism to himself. The fact was, Mrs. Nelson was a moaner; she was hopelessly self-centered, thin, nervous, and complaining. One gets the impression that she was anemic, but whatever her state of health, she was definitely not an ideal helpmeet for a sailor. A sailor like Nelson doesn’t need a wife at all most of the time, but when he’s got one he wants a comfortable, admiring creature who sees to his food and lodging in a practical manner. Mrs. Nelson did not answer to that description.
Nevertheless and notwithstanding, she was Mrs. Nelson, and that was that. The captain was not a man to brood upon such matters. If he did think wistfully sometimes, after sailing away from Naples, about that comfortable, dazzlingly beautiful woman at the Embassy, the friend of the Queen, who kept such a lavish house—if he did reflect that Emma Hamilton probably saw to it that her husband’s linen was in excellent order, he did not realize he was making odious comparisons. Nelson was a thoroughly honorable gentleman.
They were leisurely times. Transport and travel were slow. A woman in Naples might easily wait five years before again encountering a chance acquaintance she had met in the way of a hostess’s duty. Five years did pass, and Nelson rose like a rocket, in the Navy and the world. They heard about his fame in Naples. He was now Sir Horatio and an admiral. In five years of unremitting war with a changing France he had lost an eye and an arm in honorable battle, and his popularity transcended everything one could imagine. The breath of scandal never smirched it; he was, according to hearsay, a perfect gentleman, whose devotion to his wife (on the rare occasions when he came to England and saw her) was beautiful to witness.
Now he was again in the vicinity of Naples, preparing for an important battle with Napoleon’s fleet, if only he could find it. As soon as he could send messages, Sir Horatio wrote affectionately to his old friends the Hamiltons. Maria Carolina, all alert and eager to continue being chummy with England, penned one of her effusions to Emma for his benefit, and Emma forwarded it to the battered hero while he was yet at sea and approaching.
Dear Sir, I send a letter I have this moment received from the Queen. Kiss it, and send it back by Bowen, as I am bound not to give any of her letters.
Ever yours,
Emma.
Some British admirals might have thought that not
e somewhat gushing, but not Sir Horatio. Nothing Lady Hamilton said could possibly be silly. He had always admired her, from the first moment he met her. He made no secret of his admiration, and often spoke to his wife about the remarkable woman in Naples who had so improved herself after a pitiful start in life. Someday, he promised Lady Nelson, he hoped to introduce her to the paragon.
Emma must have known she was in love with Nelson long before he did. It may have troubled her, for she had not indulged in falling in love since Sir William had made an honest woman of her. The fate of her love for Greville may have discouraged her softer sentiments; good fortune in marriage probably made her cautious too, unwilling to jeopardize her position. At any rate, since that triumph her behavior had been exemplary. Until now, when Nelson’s name sent her into ecstasies of hero worship that was bound to spill over somehow, she had been contented and happy, and very proud of her friendship with Maria Carolina.
Maturity and content together contributed, incidentally, to a worsening of her figure; Lady Hamilton was getting fat. But it was nothing to worry about; most people didn’t object to fat in those days. The world continued to admire her features, which were perfect and beautifully animated.
So there it was. Excited because Nelson was soon to arrive, and bubbling over with importance at being used by the Queen as a diplomat, Emma Hamilton told the admiral to kiss the Queen’s letter. The admiral did as he was told, and sent it back to her.
When the news of the Battle of the Nile reached Naples, the Hamiltons in all the rejoicing city were proudest and happiest. Sir William was stirred up, as befitted his country’s ambassador, but his wife’s excitement was so intense it surpassed even his. Emma had developed a great volatility since coming to Naples; she had acquired a Neapolitan sense of the dramatic. She had caught the Queen’s style of behavior; the incident of kissing the letter was a case in point. Now she outdid the Queen. Maria Carolina at news of the Nile victory wept and laughed and had hysterics all over the palace, but Lady Hamilton did better than that. Palpitating, she went out to the Vanguard to greet her hero in the ambassador’s barge, accompanied by Sir William and a band of musicians. Nelson wrote to his wife about it afterward.
“The scene in the boat was terribly affecting; up flew her ladyship, and exclaiming, ‘Oh God, is it possible?’ she fell into my arm more dead than alive.”
To receive the full effect of this scene we ought to remember that Sir Horatio was a slight, short man, whereas Lady Hamilton was neither slight nor short. It did not matter; the admiral loved her style. He may have reeled from the impact, but he was immensely flattered just the same. And that, no doubt, is how it all began.
The other day at a Dorset lunch party this writer mentioned Nelson. Someone at the table had just visited the nearby monument to “Kiss-me” Hardy, a tall gray chimney-looking affair which towers hideously over his village of Portisham.
“Nelson was a man whose private life had no effect, fortunately, upon his career,” said the writer.
“No effect?” repeated one of the men in horror. “No effect? Why, that woman ruined him! Nelson would have been a great and good man if it hadn’t been for Lady Hamilton.”
The writer felt a trifle cowed, but muttered defiantly into her pudding spoon that he was a great and good man regardless. There was a pause. Emboldened, she added, “Don’t you think he was?”
“After all,” said the man. “I mean to say. Great, perhaps. But after all, Lady Hamilton was a married woman.”
There was no denying it, and the writer allowed the conversation to wander off in another direction. But surely, she wanted to protest, there were circumstances which this dictum did not cover. The circumstances under which Emma married Sir William, for instance, and the later circumstance that he did not seem to resent her affair with Nelson. Were it not for the fact that the writer is prejudiced in Emma’s favor on general feminist principles, she might defend Nelson by making the obvious conjecture that Lady Hamilton threw herself at him.
Oh, never mind, she decided at last. Nelson has never asked anybody to defend him, so why should I trouble to do so? Nelson seems to have had no qualms about it. We know he was, in the ordinary way, fantastically conscientious. He was honorable not only in his capacity as a sailor; he did more than his duty toward his father and siblings, for one example. If Nelson felt all right about his relations with Sir William, I do think it’s not our place to carp.
Nelson gave in to his own feelings and Lady Hamilton’s, very likely soon after the fainting scene in the boat, during the tremendous celebration of his birthday which Naples offered him as a well-earned honor. It is possible that for a little while before the seduction he simply didn’t know what had hit him. He and his officers were treated like the greatest heroes of history, and the leader of all the festivity, the most assiduous adorer, was Emma Hamilton. Nelson probably fell then, but he would not have called it falling; he was uplifted.
One imagines Sir William, aging and tired, watching the situation with shrewd eyes. He knew his Emma. Approaching age had intensified his already strong selfishness. He wanted to retain his good name, naturally, but he also wanted peace and quiet in which to pursue his beloved antiquarian studies. As long as there was no open scandal, Sir William, I feel, could not have cared less about Emma and Lord Nelson.
But Gossip will not have it like that. Gossip always seeks a chance to feel righteously indignant. Not only did she fly to Sir William’s defense, righteously indignant on his behalf since he would not trouble to be that way on his own, but she made up other accusations to hurl at Nelson when the original one grew stale. One affair for Nelson, Gossip felt, was not enough. In fact, none of it was enough for anybody; all the actors must be dragged in and accused of more sins. There had been Greville and all those other lovers for Emma, and there was already the salacious hint about the Queen and Lady Hamilton; why not finish the circle by pairing off Maria Carolina and the admiral? Busily, Gossip set to work.
She did not have much to go on. There was that footnote of Emma’s about kissing the letter; there was Nelson’s reply and a few similar scraps of writing. There was Nelson’s private interview with the Queen. Certainly not much, one would say, but it was enough for Gossip. It was sufficient to start a rumor a generation later that Horatia Nelson, the child of Emma and the admiral, was not Emma’s child at all, but the Queen’s. Faithful Lady Hamilton, said Gossip, had promised to keep the secret forever, and so raised the child as her own.
Nothing discourages this sort of thing, least of all unromantic Fact. Actually, the Queen was probably incapable by that time of bearing children at all—she had already borne eighteen—and Nelson would certainly have been incapable in any case of indulging in such a fantastic intrigue. Even had he not been absorbed in his staggering affair with Emma it could not have happened. He did admire Maria Carolina, with all the fervor of his simple soul. She was a tragic figure, like her poor dead sister Marie Antoinette, and his heart would have gone out to her even if Emma Hamilton had not shared with her lover her own loyalty to the Queen, though of course the ambassadress’s dramatic urging just at that tender time had a tremendous effect on him. But as for an affair with that Queen, or any queen, one can only sigh wonderingly at Gossip’s greed. It was strange enough that Nelson did what he did. Surely the true story should have satisfied the most inveterate snooper and babbler.
Nelson was undergoing a transformation; the sailor’s heart burst its bounds. He was madly in love with Emma Hamilton, a fact which, apart from its effect on him, made for confusion in high places generally. And not that alone; on the face of it the honorable admiral had suddenly become dishonorable indeed. On the face of it, his behavior was shocking. He cuckolded his good friend Sir William, he outran his orders regarding the court of Naples and the Two Sicilies, and he took great liberties with his position.
He might with justice have protested far more indignantly than he did that he hadn’t joined the Navy to become embroiled in the politics of a
foreign court anyway. However, there was really no one else at that confused time to represent his country—no one save Sir William, that is to say, and Sir William was not so much in touch with home as was Nelson, in those telegraph-less, radioless days. Briefly, the situation was this: England wanted the rulers of Naples to attack France. The King of Naples wanted first to be assured of the Emperor of Austria’s support. The Queen, far more headstrong and courageous than her husband, did not wish to hesitate. She vehemently declared that such action was their only chance against republicanism, but her influence was small, and Ferdinand was reluctant to take a definite step, especially as the Emperor kept putting off his decision. At last, however, he allowed himself to give the order to march against Rome, with the aim of unifying the lower part of Italy and thus strengthening himself against France.
The Neapolitans had a brief success at Rome, but the tide soon turned and they were routed. Panic seized Naples. The royal family and court fled from the mainland, in Nelson’s ships, to Palermo, and the Hamiltons went with them.
So far, from the point of view of the British admiralty, Nelson had behaved in exemplary fashion, doing only what he was told to do. It was after the Sicilian interlude that his trouble really began and he incurred violent criticism. The Neapolitan panic subsided, the King’s forces got the upper hand, and Maria Carolina’s party, still accompanied by the Hamiltons, still most obviously supported by the English fleet, returned to Naples. The Queen’s passionate nature, already soured by months of terror and of brooding over her sister’s fate, demanded revenge, or, as she termed it, justice. Those of Ferdinand’s courtiers and officers who were suspected of treason were rounded up, and one who was held to have behaved particularly badly was executed out of hand.
Nelson, naturally, did not disapprove of this action. His reaction was quite simple; the fellow was a mutineer and of course must be dispatched. Nelson would have done exactly the same had he been in the Queen’s place. But his critics did not see it in that light. Nelson had no right, they said, to be helping in a foreign court of justice. Maria Carolina had been bloodthirsty and cruel, which was bad enough considering she was under the protection of the British, but what made it much worse was that Nelson was the lover of Lady Hamilton, the Queen’s confidential friend. The three of them together had been bloodthirsty and cruel. People who behaved like that would not stop short of sexual excesses and wickedness of all kinds.…