In a
letter to Cassandra (8 January 1801), Jane Austen mentioned that their
sister-in-law Eliza Austen had met Lord Craven at Barton, and found his manners
‘very pleasing indeed. The little flaw of having a mistress now living with him
at Ashdown Park seems to be the only unpleasing circumstance about him’.
Although Jane does not mention it in her surviving letters, the
adulterous love affair with Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton caused a sensation
even in a society which often turned a blind eye when a married man kept a
mistress.
Emma’s story began in rural Cheshire. The
daughter of a blacksmith, Henry Lyon, she was baptised Emily in the spring of 1765.
Henry died when Emily was very young, so she was brought up by her grandmother
at Hawarden (on the Welsh border) while her mother Mary went out to work.
At some
point Emily changed her name to Emma Hart, and her mother took the name Mrs
Cadogan; they both moved to London. According to a scurrilous, anonymous early
biography, Emma found work as nursery-maid to a respectable family in Leicester
Square (Memoirs of Lady Hamilton, 2nd
edition, 1815).
By the early 1780s, Emma’s amazing beauty procured her a less
exceptionable role at Dr Graham’s infamous Temple of Health ‘in the Centre of
the Royal Terrace, Adelphi’ in London (Dr Graham, Medical transactions, 1780). Graham’s ‘Celestial Bed’ purported to
help couples achieve healthy offspring. Emma was one of the exhibits. She
displayed her figure draped with fine gauzes, posing as the Goddess Hygeia.
(Although fencing master Henry Angelo later loyally asserted in his Reminiscences (1830) that Emma was not
the female in question).
Sir William Hamilton. |
After a
brief spell as the mistress of Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh of Uppark in West
Sussex, Emma was befriended by Sir Charles Greville, the Earl of Warwick’s son.
She had a little girl (probably Greville’s) who was sent to Hawarden to be
cared for by her great-grandmother.
Greville, a parsimonious gentleman, settled down with Emma in a house on
the Edgware Road. Her mother was housekeeper and kept the accounts with strict
regularity. Greville allowed Emma to visit her daughter in Wales now and again,
but to her grief, refused to let her stay in London.
Two years
later, Emma was introduced to Greville’s uncle, Sir William Hamilton, the
British ambassador at the court of Naples, and a noted collector of antiques.
Greville hoped to inherit his estates.
Emma
loved the cold, calculating Greville with all her heart. She had no suspicion
of his real motives when he suggested she and her mother visit his uncle’s
residence at Naples for a holiday. Emma had a fine singing voice; she could
have the benefit of the best Italian masters there.
But
Greville wanted her out of his life. He was on the lookout for a respectable
bride. When Emma realized that Greville had sent her to Naples to warm Sir
William’s bed, she was completely heartbroken. But Sir William courted her with
kindness.
Marylebone Church. |
Emma
behaved like a woman of spirit. Reader, she married him – although it took her
several years. Sir William and Emma wed at Marylebone Church on 6 September 1791.
The newlyweds went to Naples, where two years later, Emma met a dashing naval Captain
Horatio Nelson, commander of the Agamemnon.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
You can find out more about the very public love affair between Lord Nelson and Emma in my latest feature for Jane Austen's Regency World.
Images
Emma,
Lady Hamilton. Heroes of the British Navy, Frederick Warne & Co., c.
1900. Nigel Wilkes Collection.
The
Cheshire seaside resort of Parkgate, where Emma Hart stayed in 1784. Illustration by
Roger Oldham for Picturesque Cheshire,
Sherratt & Hughes, 1903. Author’s collection.
Old
Marylebone Church, c.1750. Emma Hart married Sir William Hamilton here on 6 September 1791; her
daughter Horatia Nelson was baptised in the same church in 1803 (the present structure on
Marylebone Rd dates from the following decade). Old
and New London
Vol. IV, (Cassell, Petter & Galpin, c.1890). Author’s collection.
Sir
William Hamilton. An elderly Sir William Hamilton inspects his antiquities, all
of which refer to his wife, Lady Emma Hamilton and her lover, Lord Horatio
Nelson. Courtesy of Library of Congress: LC-USZC4-8796.
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