Kate Williams

by Unknown

  Nelson described the house as the “farm,” and he wanted the fashionable country life. Emma planned to turn the land around the house into expensive landscaped gardens, and use the rest as pasture for animals. She set about discussing plans with gardeners, buying shrubs and trees, filling the stream and ponds with fish, and populating the grounds with chubby pigs, poultry, and sheep. Sir William conjured a bucolic image of “Emma and her mother fitting up pig-sties and hen-coops, & already the Canal is enlivened with ducks & the cock is strutting with his hens about the walk.” Emma renamed the “ditch” the Nile and built an Italian bridge over it. She arranged to rent the nearby fields and granary for £55 per annum so that Nelson could control the land he saw from his window.8 Emma was soon growing vegetables and brewing beer, although their milk, cheese, and meat, as well as fruit, came from neighborhood farmers. Merton was not far from Marie-Antoinette’s fantasy of playing shepherdess: it looked like a pretty farm, but it was neither self-sufficient nor economical. The rustic vision depended on Emma buying animals ready grown and putting fish in ponds into which they would not breed.

  Emma planned to transform the house into a spectacular celebration of Nelson’s genius, lavishly stuffed with mirrors, thick carpets, gold trimmings, and memorabilia. She obeyed Nelson’s command to spare no expense and decided it should be an imposing double-fronted mansion atop a long sweep of drive and graceful gardens. They would build an enormous modern kitchen, suitable for extravagant entertaining, and develop a cubby into a proper cellar for their vintage wines. The bedrooms would be completely remodeled—fit to house the most eminent guests—and she planned to add a dressing room and modern water closet to the master bedroom, as well as put the eight servants’ rooms in the attic to house her visitors’ staff. Ambitious to make the house as light as possible, she resolved to add glass doors at the front, a long passage with glass doors opening into the lawn behind, and mirrored doors on the principal rooms. Large mirrors were a great luxury, and this was a crazily expensive innovation. Although the house was Nelson’s, Emma used her husband’s credit, as well as borrowing money herself, to pay for the extravagant alterations. She wished to turn Merton Place into a representation of her overwhelming love affair with Nelson and to cancel every trace of Fanny from his life.

  The interior was soon transformed into a temple to kitsch. Along with mirrors and gold, Emma adorned it with Nelson memorabilia. Her lover instructed her to take from Piccadilly only the portrait of her and a painting of the Battle of the Nile, and to buy the rest. Remembering the chill dreariness of his home with Fanny, Emma adorned Merton Place with Nelson-themed curtains, tea sets, draperies, and hangings, as well as paintings of him, swords, and relics, such as pieces of his ships. Bursting with brand-new goods, souvenirs of Nelson, and tributes to his great career, her home was a snub to those who decreed that interior decor should be restrained. Giant A.‘s festooned the walls, windows, crockery, and ornaments, as well as Emma’s dresses. After spending her youth in Sir Harry’s Uppark, which was covered wall to ceiling with pictures of the Fetherstonhaughs and their horses, she wanted to show that she owned Merton. Sixteen trunks of Emma’s belongings and dresses were still floating around Europe (they ended up back in Naples), but she no longer needed her old things. One early visitor, Lord Minto, the ex-envoy to Vienna who had entertained them on their visit to the city, was struck dumb by the decoration. Minto, who came from a class who inherited houses ready-furnished, goggled: “Not only the rooms, but the whole house, staircase and all, are covered with nothing but pictures of her and him, of all sizes and sorts, and representations of his naval actions, coats of arms, pieces of plate in his honour, the flagstaff of L’Orient etc.” He dubbed the house a “mere looking-glass to view himself all day.“9

  Lady Hamilton’s taste in decoration set the tone for a nation deep in the throes of a Nelson cult. Thousands of women expressed their fervent admiration for the hero by stocking their homes with Nelson dinner plates, drawer pulls, plant pots, chests, and pictures. Fashion plates showed whole rooms decorated in the style of Nelson and offered suggestions on how to decorate windows to pay tribute to him—blue curtains with anchors, gold ties with anchors, and a red swagging. In decorating their homes “alia Nelson,” Emma and the thousands of other Britons who followed her were displaying their political loyalties for all to see. Since there were no restaurants in which to entertain clients, friends, and family, nearly all social occasions from board meetings to job interviews, secret business coups and meetings with lawyers to firing employees, and christenings to marriage proposals were carried out in the home. The way in which a couple decorated their house directed the way in which they were perceived by friends, relations, colleagues, and clients. Led by Emma, British homes in the period of the Napoleonic Wars were a riot of brand-new glitz and color. Very far from the modern vision of the eighteenth century as the age of elegance and taste, homes were gaudy and cluttered, covered in bright clashing colors, the ornaments a mishmash of souvenirs and impulse buys.

  Emma’s taste chimed perfectly with the desire of those of the middle classes, many newly rich, to display their wealth and show themselves as Nelson’s fervid supporters. She was the high priestess of the Nelson cult, and he loved her for it. A man who preferred watching theatrical versions of his own triumph at the Nile to any other play, he was enchanted by a house in which everything he saw bore a picture of him.

  On October 23, Nelson arrived at dawn in a post chaise drawn by four horses, through a triumphal arch erected by the villagers at the front of the house. Emma had encouraged them to welcome her lover in style by setting off fireworks, illuminating their houses and lining the road to cheer. Delighted by his new home, Nelson was quick to take on the role of village squire by instructing Emma to use only local tradesmen and planning to patronize the parish church. “We are all so joyous today, we do not know what to do,” Emma gloried. She arranged for him to meet Horatia at 23 Piccadilly. It was ten o’clock on a Monday, and Sir William tactfully arranged to pay a visit to his dealers. Now a sturdy ten months old, Horatia was not shy. Father and daughter were immediate friends.

  The bustle of Merton made Sir William feel old. He knew he was too infirm to return to his beloved Naples, so he instructed his agent in the city to discharge the servants still waiting for him at the Palazzo Sessa. Vincenzo, his valet, was devastated that Hamilton had not offered him a pension or a lump sum for years of faithful service. He was soon, as the agent pleaded, struggling “in very narrow Circumstances, with a large family,” but Sir William ignored his plight. Neapolitan tradesmen tried to call in their debts from him.10 The government had awarded him a pension of just over £1,000 a year, but he still owed more than £12,000 (over $1 million in today’s money). Fortunately for him, Nelson was adamant that Emma’s husband would not own a single item in the house, although they split the day-to-day expenses of the house. Despite his debts, Sir William was a spendthrift and too old to change. Freed from the bother of having to buy new furniture, still convinced that the government would compensate him for the loss of his possessions in Naples, and confident that Nelson would secure a big prize at sea, he spent wildly on food, clothes, and antiques.

  At Merton, Emma addressed herself to winning over Nelson’s elderly father, inviting him to stay for ten days in November. The visit went off perfectly. Ill and weak, eighty-year-old Edmund welcomed Emma’s tender nursing, falling head over heels in love with her. He was tempted to move in full time, but he could not bear to leave his beloved Norfolk. Emma tried to mold Nelson’s greedy relations into the loving, unselfish, worshiping family he desired. His sisters, Kitty and Susanna, had married George Matcham and Thomas Bolton, respectively, men of energy but not much money, and they were always looking for help for their packs of children. Susanna had twin girls in their early twenties, a young son, and two pre-teenage daughters, and Kitty had five children under the age of twelve, and gave birth to another girl in 1801, naming her Horatia as a tribute to Emma’
s daughter. Kitty was almost constantly breast-feeding or pregnant throughout the early 1800s, and she relied on her brother and his mistress to help her make ends meet.

  Emma entertained the Matchams and Boltons to lavish dinners at Mer-ton and 23 Piccadilly and tried to mediate the demands of his brother, William, and his wife, Sarah, who wanted money and a promotion for her husband. “If we could but get some little addition to our Income, we should be more independent & be in Town whenever you liked,” pressed Sarah Nelson. She extracted favors from Emma by promising to win Nelson’s sister Susanna Bolton over to her side by telling her “howpleasant & good you are & that I loved you dearly, & tell them every thing you gave me. I did bring down one of Charlotte’s Frocks, which you gave her, which they shall see I Love.“11 Nelson paid the fees at Eton for their son, Horace, and she wanted Emma to transform her lumpy daughter into a society debutante. Emma, presumably using Sir William’s money, paid for thirteen-year-old Charlotte’s education at an expensive girls’ school in Chelsea, as well as dancing lessons, a singing teacher, outings, and plays for her and her school friends and cousin on weekends.12 Sarah wrote to Charlotte, without the “accomplishments” gained with Lady Hamilton, “you would be nothing.“13

  Nelson anointed Emma “Lady Paramount of all the territories and waters of Merton, and we are all to be your guests, and to obey all lawful commands.” Her frantic efforts won her his total loyalty. It appears that she finally felt sufficiently secure to tell him about Emma Carew. She found she had been worrying for nothing: Nelson seems to have been unruffled by the secret. Emma invited little Emma for a visit, but her husband worried about gossip if she stayed at 23 Piccadilly. As Nelson wrote to Emma, “if your relative cannot stay in your house in town, surely Sir William can have no objection to your taking [her] to the farm.” Emma’s female relations, such as Mrs. Cadogan’s sister Connor and her children, tended to visit in groups: this sole relation, unwanted by Sir William, was most likely Miss Carew.

  Fanny heard the news that her husband had set up home in Merton. She made a last-ditch attempt to regain her position. “Do my dear husband, let us live together,” she wrote. “I can never be happy till such an event takes place.” Alexander Davison returned it to her and curtly inscribed on the back, “Opened by mistake by Lord Nelson, but not read,”14 without adding another word of comfort. Nelson never wrote to Fanny again.

  Emma planned an elaborate first family Christmas. On December 14, Emma sent an urgent message to Mrs. Gibson demanding that she bring Horatia to Merton in a post chaise on the following day. “Do not fail,” she begged.15 Painstaking preparation went into her dramatic extravaganzas. To perform her piece “The Favourite Sultana,” Emma planned every detail of the opulent dress for herself and the company. She left extensive wardrobe notes on her own outfit and those of her attendants. She left her hair loose (and she had a turban behind the scenes, ready to whip on at any moment) and braided with strings of pearls, with two long locks of hair curling on the breast. A circlet of diamonds sparkled on her forehead, and draped over her head was a fine crêpe or muslin shawl so long that it reached the floor. Her pantaloons were twilled silk in bright colors—blue or green suited her—and she wore embroidered square-toed Turkish slippers and gold ankle bracelets. Over her pantaloons, she wore a colored shift and tied the ends of the wide gauze sleeves behind her back. The outer gown was half one color and half another, perhaps pink and red, and her jacket was a rich satin. Her arms glittered with dozens of bracelets, thick gold rings adorned her fingers, and her necklace was a long gold chain bearing a small perfume flask. The effect was truly spectacular.

  Emma gave intricate commands to her assistants. Nelson’s two little nieces, Kitty and Lizzy Matcham, as Moorish ladies, wore long pantaloons, gowns striped in two colors, embroidered slippers, and veils over their heads. Even dowdy Mrs. Cadogan became a Grecian lady, attired in a long white gown with wide embroidered sleeves and a short bolero-type jacket, and she wore her hair in small curls pinned under a cap. A “Miss K,” perhaps Emma Carew or the daughter of a neighbor, played a Negro sultana, dressed in a “negro mask,” a black dress, gold sandals, a colored turban with a long veil, gold girdle, and jewelry, and a rainbow train. The men had roles too: a Major Magra and Nelson’s secretary, Mr. Tyson, were “as magnificent as they can dress themselves; whiskers and no beards,” the neighbors Messrs. Blow, Cumyng, and Jefferson were “Moors of Quality,” and the artist Thomas Baxter and any other spare gentlemen played slaves, wearing Negro masks, long, wide sleeves, shawls, and “long pipes and bags.”16 After a sumptuous dinner, the lights were turned down, the candles were lit against the glittering glass windows, and Emma was the star of the show. She made sure that everybody knew that Nelson was her faithful devotee, wholly absorbed in her, his own “favourite Sultana” and lady of Paradise Merton.

  Soon the “favourite Sultana” had the answer to her prayers. On March 25, 1802, France and Britain agreed to the Treaty of Amiens. The war was over.

  CHAPTER 43

  Keeping Nelson

  The new peace released Nelson from service, and he contentedly settled at Paradise Merton. Although he was on half pay, for he was no longer on active service, he wanted to keep his newfound position in society by maintaining an aura of incredible wealth. “Nelson cannot be like others,” the hero insisted. “Everybody knows that Lord Nelson is amazingly rich.” Emma had to be the proof: fashionable, glamorous, and dripping with expensive jewels, a generous hostess to his relations, his friends, his captains, and the aristocrats he needed to cultivate, as well as being a doyenne of the arts, a charitable patroness, his tireless domestic manager, and a doting mother. In the four years after he bought Merton, Emma worked hard to live up to his dream.

  “I am as much amused by pigs and hens as I was at the Court of Naples,” wrote Emma with flourish to a friend. Nelson, she declared, “seldom goes to town and for that reason is much desired and sought for. ‘Keeping men off as you keep them on’ will do for men as well as women.”∗1 Emma splurged attention on her lover. As Lord Minto sneered, she was always “cramming Nelson with trowelfuls of flattery, which he goes on taking as quietly as a child does pap.” She invited writers and social commentators to report on their home, adorned with images of their love. Denied a lush wedding or an appearance at court on his arm, she staged extravagant entertainments. The newspapers reported her every move. She, rather than Lady Nelson, received all the requests for patronage, favor, and money that streamed toward the great Nile hero. Minto, now a frequent visitor, thought she wanted a reward for her exertions. “She looks ultimately towards marriage,” he decided.

  ∗ Emma quotes a famous description of the techniques of coquettish Polly Peachum from John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera.

  At the end of April 1802, Nelson heard that his father was seriously ill. Edmund wrote to his son he hoped to recover and visit him to “smell a Merton rose in June.” But he grew sicker, and by April 24 it was clear he was dying. Nelson did not visit him. Although Fanny was not nursing Edmund, for relations between them had cooled, Nelson dreaded encountering her if she returned to the deathbed. He was suffering from stomach pain and worried that the coach journey might make it worse. He stayed at Merton to celebrate Emma’s thirty-seventh birthday. To distract him from his worry, Emma threw a big party, and they gave themselves even more of an excuse for a celebration by christening Emma’s Sudanese maid. Fatima Emma Charlotte Nelson Hamilton was recorded in the parish register as “a negress, about 20 years of age.“2 On the same day, Edmund Nelson’s fragile grip on life loosened and he died at Bath. Many men tried to avoid deathbed scenes (it was seen as women’s work), but Nelson declined even to attend the funeral. Distressed that Nelson’s behavior might be considered callous, Emma publicly excused him by declaring that his stomach was causing him such pain that he might need a surgical operation.

  Meanwhile, Sir William was making plans to visit his Welsh estates. Emma decided to turn his summer business trip into a t
riumphal tour for Nelson. Tours were the business of royals, and the idea that a mere admiral might saunter around the country charming the ordinary people was unprecedented. Emma’s plan was shrewd: the king hated traveling and visited only the west country for holidays, and his provincial subjects were starved of glamour and celebrity. In planning their tour to cities that never saw anyone from London but merchants, she was determined to capitalize on public affection for Nelson and make herself as famous as Queen Charlotte.

  Emma invited the William Nelsons to accompany them, and left her mother in charge of Merton. On June 21, four carriages loaded with servants, maids, secretaries, and endless changes of outfit rolled out of London and westward to Wales. Oxford awarded Nelson the freedom of the city, and he and Sir William received the honorary degrees of doctor of civil law. Shops along the way did a roaring trade in Nelsonia, and the whole population of Gloucester came out to wave Nelson portraits, hats, and ribbons at them. At Ross on Wye, on the way into south Wales, the party took a boat garlanded with laurel for the seventy-mile journey to Monmouth, escorted by hundreds of little boats, while thousands of fans cheered from the banks of the river. The mayor of Monmouth received them on the banks while cannons sounded a salute from a nearby hill. After traveling up through mid-Wales, they reached Milford Haven by nightfall, where a cattle show, a rowing match, and a fair had all been laid on in their honor. Nelson and Emma basked in the adoring attention.