England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton (55 page)

N
elson had told Emma he wished her to sing during his funeral. They had even made plans to be buried together. The public agreed that Nelson and Emma were inseparable: print shops were full of etchings, drawings, and engravings in which Emma was depicted as mourner, a Britannia figure draped in white. One popular engraving showed Emma crowning Nelson's bust with a wreath. Even James Gillray produced a sentimental caricature of Nelson taken to the sky while Emma wept over him. The Admiralty took a quite different view. Nelson might have been Emma's in life, but now he was the property of the nation, and he would be commemorated in a service led by men.

The hero's body was preserved in a cask of spirits and shipped home, not to Fanny, not to Emma, nor even to his brother, but to the state. Emma had tried to view the body when it landed, but Captain Hardy discouraged her, knowing the sight of the swollen corpse would distress her. On December 24, Nelson, now laid in his coffin, was transferred to an official yacht and then taken along the Thames to Greenwich Hospital. He was placed in the Painted Hall on a platform six feet high, adorned with a black canopy spangled with gold and a wreath bearing the word
Trafalgar.
Emma probably queued with the crowds to enter the Painted Hall with Horatia, swathed in the huge black veil that Vigée-Lebrun had seen her wear to mourn Sir William. When the doors were open for two days on January 5, more than thirty thousand people surged past, pushed by overstressed guards.

The funeral was one of the most lavish commemorations in British history. Emma was firmly excluded. On January 8, 1806, Nelson's body was
taken upriver on a giant barge from Greenwich to the Admiralty at Whitehall, escorted by a procession of boats. Thousands gathered on the banks of the Thames to catch a glimpse of the coffin. The following morning, Nelson was driven to St. Paul's Cathedral in an opulent funeral car shaped to resemble the
Victory,
trailed by a procession of carriages two miles long. Hysterical crowds thronged the route, controlled by thirty thousand soldiers. Inside St. Paul's, seven thousand admirals, politicians, and aristocrats in their finest dress coats had been shivering in the pews since early morning. Although many of them had disparaged Nelson's reckless behavior while he was alive and mocked his lack of aristocratic pedigree, they were not about to miss out on the funeral of the century. A few fashionable ladies stole into the loft, but most contented themselves with watching the procession in the streets. At half past five the coffin was lowered into a crypt below the stone floor. The men of the
Victory
had been ordered to unfurl the flags of the ship over the grave. Instead, the church resonated with the sound of tearing as the forty-eight sailors ripped the largest flag apart with their bare hands, desperate to keep some small scrap of Nelson for themselves.

Emma spent the day in tears over her letters, accompanied by her mother, daughter, and Nelson's female relations. The men of the Bolton and Matcham families were invited to the funeral, and Emma gave both families dinner and breakfast, accommodated the Boltons, and probably also received William and Horace Nelson. A weeping female figure who looked very like Emma was carved on the coffin. Otherwise, she was absent, carefully written out of the heroic story. Nelson's body was interred in a ten-foot high slab of ornately carved porphyry—a huge grave for such a diminutive man. Ever thrifty, when asked to donate in the memory of Nelson, George III sent over a sarcophagus that had been hanging around in the cellars of Windsor Castle ever since Henry VIII seized it from scheming Cardinal Wolsey Still, as it cost only £6,300 to dedicate it to Nelson, the state saved some money. Now, Nelson's sarcophagus is the grand focus of St. Paul's Crypt, brilliantly lit, outdazzling the monuments to Wellington and Florence Nightingale, proudly on show to thousands of tourists every year.

The funeral cost the state £14,000. The
Morning Herald
derided the descent of Nelson's body into the crypt as a tasteless "stage trick," and the
Morning Chronicle
disdained the "meagre and monotonous music." Many judged the cost obscene, considering the dire poverty of so many injured veterans and sailors' widows and orphans.

More than anything, the funeral was an opportunity for hundreds to make a profit. Guests sold their invitations for a fortune, both before and after the event. The vergers at St. Paul's earned more than £40 a day allowing visitors to have a peep before the service, and accrued £300 a day after the funeral by charging a shilling to view the catafalque. London tradesmen sold special carriages, jewelry, and clothes to guests. Pie shop and tavern owners made massive takings from the crowds watching the procession. Thousands bought commemorative jewelry, prints, or boxes. Nelson relics—many fake—were changing hands for ridiculous prices. Emma, however, refused to sell any of her possessions. She was determined to be the keeper of Nelson's dignity and maintain his heroic reputation for the rest of her life. It was not going to be easy.

Nelson's death and his funeral fired a spectacular market in out-landishly expensive fashions aimed at women. Embroiderers worked overtime sewing Nelson's name onto drapery for tearful fine ladies to wear while they mourned the great hero. A sumptuous fashion plate in the February 1806 edition
of Bell's Court and Fashionable Magazine
illustrated a "Trafalgar Dress," which was another version of Emma's habitual costume: a white satin gown trimmed with gold, silver, or lace along with a turban embroidered with "Nelson" and topped with feathers. According to the March edition, the Bronte hat and muff were ideal for the "higher order of fashionables."
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Trafalgar even became the name of an embroidery stitch—perhaps a cross formation—which proved so newfangled and difficult that even experienced needlewomen (including Jane Austen's sister-in-law) found it tricky. William Tassie, one of the foremost cameo makers of the day, worked feverishly to satisfy the demand for heads of Nelson for jewelers to set in rings and brooches. Shopkeepers could not stock up fast enough with black-edged, sentimental commemorative tablecloths, napkins, clocks, boxes, trunks, plant pots, and door handles. Emma was the heroine of most of the items. She starred in prints as chief mourner, and lockets, boxes, and other decorated items were painted with her figure, a dark-haired woman, weeping and dressed in white.

Magazine stories and novels exploiting Nelson's love life poured off the presses. In them, a virginal, beautiful heroine named Amelia, Amy, or Ellen was courted by a brave sea captain, Horace or Horatio, the affair often sponsored by older characters called Sir William and Lady Frances.
In A Soldier's Friendship and A Sailor's Love
(1805) by Anna Maria Porter, the lovely young musical heroine (who has a very common mother) is adopted by a Lady Frances and educated by her neighbor the aged Sir
William Hereford, then courted by the handsome naval captain. In the second half of the book, another Nelson and Emma pair appears, but the hero may marry his beloved, Amelia, only after he meets a very rich widow with a young son in the West Indies, because she dies and leaves her money to him—an intriguing revision of Nelson's marriage.

Eliza Parsons's
The Navy Lieutenant
(1806) was the most blatant attempt to support Horatia and extol Nelson. Parsons's Henry Thompson, the "third son of a country curate" (Nelson was the fifth son, but two elder brothers died), goes to sea at eleven and is promoted to lieutenant, but although loved by his men, he offends his superiors and is retired on half pay. When he returns to sea, he meets a young woman, Ellen, who has suffered at the hands of men and begs him to care for her baby daughter. He calls the child Fanny Thompson and gives her to a nurse. Ellen's surname is later discovered to be Thompson, and so the story is about Henry Thompson and Ellen Thompson—a piquant twist, as Nelson and Emma had taken almost identical pen names. Ellen's history of exploitation by aristocrats resembles Emma's—even the ages of her seducers match those of Fetherstonhaugh and Greville at the time. The nurse becomes troublesome and demands a huge bribe to relinquish little Fanny. Parsons's novel implies that the public knew a lot about Emma's life: her previous lovers, Horatia, the Thompson letters, and even the payoff to Mrs. Gibson.
²

As soon as Nelson was buried, the begging letters began. His former friends and colleagues believed Emma was about to become vastly rich. Some wanted mementoes of the great man, but most desired money and favors. Even the King and Queen of Naples wondered if she might be able to press their cause with her influential friends. Greville wished for a piece of the French ship blown up at the Nile,
L'Orient,
which Nelson displayed in pride of place in his cabin, to decorate his church in Milford Haven. Only a few months after the funeral, Dr. William Beatty beseeched Emma to persuade the Prince of Wales to endorse his written account of the death of Nelson, which, he declared, would outsell any biography. Then, desiring a promotion for Mr. Magrath, an assistant surgeon on the
Victory,
he requested her to inform the prime minister of "the high opinion Lord Nelson entertained of his conduct and Professional acquirements."
³

William Nelson rebuffed anyone seeking favor. He firmly informed one Captain J. Yule, "You are in the same situation with many other Gallant officers who served with my poor Brother, & who I have no doubt would have been promoted by him had it pleased God to have preserved —but I am truly grieved to say I have no interest whatever at the Admiralty &
therefore have no power to be of the smallest service to you in furthering your wishes for employment." He explained he had been obliged to "give this answer to many other of my Brother's followers."
⁴
Earl Nelson would not help, and Fanny declined, so everybody turned to Emma. Dr. Beatty wrote, "I shall not now, My dear Lady, enter into a long apology for this my recent intrusion."
⁵
He never did thank her.

Emma spent 1806 keeping up the act. She was in demand: everyone wanted to dine with her or attend one of her parties. She continued to spend on the alterations to Merton, unfinished at Nelson's death. Nelson thought that the bequest of Merton would ensure his mistress's financial stability, but she would have been better off if he had left it to Earl Nelson. She was impoverishing herself trying to make it into a sentimental monument to him. Many goods that Nelson had ordered arrived and had to be paid for. The fine breakfast service that he had ordered from the Worcester porcelain factory while touring his adoring populace in 1802 was finally completed, and Emma had to pay for it and find space for it in her home. Other plates, pictures, ornaments, and jewels of him she bought new. Every salesman knew she was a soft touch, and they flocked to her, brandishing commemorative tat.

Emma attempted to pursue the subject of the codicil to Nelson's will. Everyone thought Prime Minister Pitt was "kindly intended towards Lady Hamilton."
⁶
Although he had ignored her entreaty for a pension before Nelson's death and would probably do so again, she was optimistic, but her hopes were dashed when he died unexpectedly in late January and was succeeded by Lord Grenville, who was unsympathetic to her pleas. When kindly Abraham Goldsmid offered to assist her, she pushed him to pursue the claims of Nelson's sisters. In May, Lord Grenville sent the codicil to Nelson's will to William Haslewood, Nelson's solicitor, with a note saying that nothing could be done. Instead, the Boltons and the Matchams received £10,000 apiece, while William Nelson was awarded £100,000 to buy an estate to be called Trafalgar, as well as £5,000 a year for life, which would also go to his descendants. Fanny received £2,000 a year. Grenville claimed the government had other families to care for, and they could not set precedent by paying for Nelson's mistress. "I am plagued by lawyers, ill-used by the Government," Emma despaired. "I was very happy at Naples, but all seems gone like a dream."

After advertising for owners of suitable estates, the government became hopelessly caught up in debating which house would best honor Nelson.
⁷
In the Public Record Office at Kew are dozens of heavy books full of doclamentation
on the purchase of Earl Nelson's Trafalgar. All the while, Merton was devouring money. The popular press weighed in on Emma's side, and even the morally conservative
Lady's Magazine
published an unctuous reminder that his home was Lord Nelson's greatest love. Readers were treated to a lavish depiction of Merton as a haphazard collection of towers and hexagonal buildings, as the journalist praised the "elegant and convenient house," its "delightful situation," and the tasteful grounds. The piece pointedly concludes, "It was at this seat that the gallant admiral, before he sailed on his last expedition, took leave of his friends, among whom were some of the most worthy, and also some of the most illustrious persons in the kingdom."
⁸

Furious at the government's dismissive treatment of her, Emma threatened public vengeance. "Let them refuse me all reward! I will go with this paper fixed to my breast and beg through the streets of London, and every barrow-woman shall say, ‘Nelson bequeathed her, to
us.
’ "
⁹
But the love of the ordinary people was worth nothing: the government had made its decision, and it wanted Emma to disappear.

Nelson had seen many women, including his first love, Mary Moutray refused pensions, and he knew that the government would not give Emma one for being an envoy's wife. Yet he seemed to think she would be given money for being his mistress. In the same codicil he had written, "My relations it is needless to mention; they will of course be amply provided for." Really, he knew in his heart how the government would distribute the honors. The situation might have been different if Horatia had been a boy, for the government would have been nervous that a little Horatio Nelson would become a focus for oppositional sentiment and a force to reckon with as a future political leader. Daughters were usually disinherited, for they were expected to make their fortunes by marriage. Always a dreamer, Nelson had believed that he was so great that the government would break all precedent and shower honors on his illegitimate daughter, elevating her as the inheritor of his blood.