Kate Williams

by Unknown

  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, illused 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.

  Nelson should have predicted Emma’s fate. He had left her a house, but £500 a year was not enough to maintain it, as well as a child, even if Emma had been a skilled and frugal housekeeper. A man, when he died, usually impoverished his wife and daughters by willing his property to his closest male relation, but then asked in his will that his heir care for them. Usually, the heir gave them little, an outcome scathingly laid bare by Jane Austen when she described the penurious state of the Dashwood sisters in Sense and Sensibility.10 Now that he was the heir, William, Earl Nelson, wanted every penny of Nelson’s estate for his son. Nelson’s vision of Emma after his death, singing at his funeral, happy with his family, bringing up Horada in security, may have comforted him as he faced death, but it was a fantasy.

  Inspired by the torrent of gossip and scandalous novels, would-be writers and biographers were demanding to read Emma’s letters. William Nelson was the most pressing of all. Intending to commission a biography that would outsell all the others being discussed, he wanted the whole cache, even the most explicit. In between sending her cheering verses, her old friend, the poet William Hayley expressly told her “as your very sincere friend, I should advise you to retain these Letters in your own Custody, & not suffer even me, your old and faithful Friend, to persuade you to impart them to the Public, except at some distant day, as a Legacy to your Country from yourself”11 Emma followed his advice, much to Earl Nelson’s anger. Her relations with him quickly became strained. Sarah, now Countess, Nelson wrote to Emma demanding the bloody coat, “in point of right there can be no doubt to whom this precious relic belongs.“12 Emma kept the coat but behaved emolliently, still hoping that William Nelson might give money to Horada. She was disappointed. He was infuriated by Nelson’s provision that his estate should pay the expenses and bills at Merton for six months after his death and he was utterly unable to feel sympathy for the child. He accused Emma of adding on bills accrued before Trafalgar and demanded that Mrs. Cadogan show him the accounts. At the same time, he failed to pay the £500 pension due her from Bronte. Believing his brother’s lies that he loved Emma and Horada, Nelson had dreamed that Horatia might marry William Nelson’s son, Horace, and mentioned this hope in his will. While his brother was alive, William enthused about the idea and encouraged him to fund his son’s education. As soon as Nelson died, he forbade Horace to visit Emma a
nd made plans for his son to marry a rich aristocrat.

  In Emma’s time, only the very richest woman could survive without the legal protection and financial support of a man. Emma’s only chance of keeping herself and Horatia in a genteel manner was to remarry immediately. But she could not bring herself to look for another partner. Despite Grenville’s refusal, she still hoped that the government would honor the codicil. She threw herself into society once more, anxious to make herself so conspicuous that she could not be overlooked.

  CHAPTER 50

  Fashion on Credit

  In the two years after Nelson’s death, Emma was the most popular guest in London. Everybody clamored to meet the mistress of a national icon. In an attempt to numb her grief and gain support for her mission to win a payout from the government, Emma attended every event. From 1806 to 1808 she retained her central place in the premier society of the Prince of Wales and his chatterbox brothers Clarence and Sussex, and continued to be one of London’s leading charitable patrons, as well as a cultural doyenne hosting splendid performances by singers Madame Bianchi and Mrs. Billington. She was playing a role that was impossible to sustain.

  Emma received only a few thousand pounds from Nelson’s will, and it was on the annual £800 left to her by Sir William (given to her net of tax by Greville) that she tried to maintain her role as the inheritrix of Nelson’s glory. In December 1806, the will was published in the press. The nation read that Nelson entrusted Lady Hamilton and Horatia to the care of the government and assigned Horatia Thompson to the guardianship of Lady Hamilton, also decreeing that the child’s surname be changed to Nelson. Since women were treated as juveniles under the law, unable to retain their money and entirely subject to the will of their husbands or male relations, children were always left to the guardianship of a man, never a woman. The publication of his will made it obvious to everybody that Horatia was Emma’s daughter.

  Sarah and Charlotte moved swiftly to sever their links with Emma. “Is it true that Lady Charlotte Nelson can be ungrateful,” marveled Emma. About £2,000 of her debts had been accrued paying for Charlotte’s education, clothes, presents, holidays, and board for seven years, as well as many of Horace’s expenses, but, Emma wrote resentfully, “they have never given the dear Horatia a Frock nor a sixpence.”1 She had cared for Charlotte in order to please Nelson and to seem respectable, but she had soon become genuinely fond of the teenager and she missed her deeply. Emma had spent hundreds of thousands supporting Nelson’s bid for celebrity, but it was grasping William who benefited from it all. A letter remains in which Sarah invited Emma to dine at half past five but communicated that the Connors and Horatia were not welcome until the other guests had left. As Sarah commanded, “Whatever young people you may have with you, we shall hope to see them at eight o’clock, as we have some other friends dine with us.” She signed herself “Nelson and Bronte,” the title Emma so wished to possess.2

  Charlotte’s exit did not reduce Emma’s expenses. The Boltons and the Matchams deposited their adolescent daughters with her to educate, clothe, and introduce into society. Incensed that Earl Nelson had refused to give them anything, they inundated her with begging letters. Emma handed over more cash she did not have and implored the government and her famous friends for money on their behalf. Susanna Bolton thought that Emma’s “affairs were drawing to a crisis” and encouraged her to focus on her own needs. “With or without the child, if you are well provided for, she can never want,” she pressed. “Depend on it she will marry well.”3 But she continued to ask for favors. She shied from begging for further help from the Prince of Wales, declaring, “You must deliver the message in your own name, we are not in the habit of sending & speaking to such great personages.” Since Nelson’s will was published in the newspapers, every one of them should have realized that Emma had little to give, but it suited them to believe her act of being a wealthy woman. “I only wish you had fortune equal to your generosity,” Susannah sighed, but by then she had helped herself to a large amount of Emma’s “fortune.”

  Emma moved from Clarges Street to cheaper lodgings in 136 New Bond Street. But she could not relinquish the monument to Nelson’s glory she had so lovingly created, and Merton creaked on, guzzling every penny from her purse. By February 1806, the unpaid bills had reached £1,300. Struggling to borrow and scrimp, Mrs. Cadogan had no spare money for her relations, so they began to blackmail Emma. Her older brother, feckless, hard-drinking William Kidd, was nearly seventy and wanted to live out the rest of his life in ease, thanks to his famous niece. He had plenty of ammunition: details about Emma’s early adulthood and, most terrible of all, insinuations about the mysterious death of her father. Emma had paid him off before, but she could no longer meet his demands. He threatened to come and occupy Merton until she gave him the hundreds he required. Mrs. Cadogan vowed to bar the door against him, staunchly declaring that she would never let him under her roof, “never does he sleep in the house where I do.”

  Ann, the youngest daughter of Mrs. Cadogan’s sister, Mrs. Connor, was proving equally troublesome. She felt she deserved some of her aunt’s riches, since Emma had adopted her elder sisters, Cecilia and later Sarah, as nursery governesses on huge salaries, and Nelson had bought her brother, Charles, a commission in the navy. Ann whipped herself up into a state of furious resentment, soon so angry with her mother for holding her back (as she saw it) that she convinced herself she was not her parents’ child. In the autumn, she wrote blackmailing notes, threatening to expose Lady Hamilton as her mother and, as Emma despaired, “persecuted me by her slander and falsehood.“4 Emboldened to bully Emma for money because she had no male protector, Emma’s family was battering at her door. After Emma Carew came on a short summer visit in late June, Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh sent £500 for the benefit of mother and daughter (perhaps as a bribe to ensure Emma kept his parentage a secret), but few others showed her any generosity.

  By September 1806, it was clear that the government was ignoring Nelson’s last request. “It seems that those that truly loved him are to be victims to hatred, jealousy and spite,” Emma lamented. Sir William’s old secretary, Francis Oliver, had solicited her help for his journalist friend James Harrison and his large family. She invited them to live at Merton and paid their expenses for at least six months while she employed Harrison to write a two-volume Life of Nelson. Published at the end of 1806, Harrison’s Life ran rapturous on the virtuous nature of her affair with Nelson, while making it clear that Horada was his child, and it pressed the government to honor the codicil.

  Creditors were still pursuing Emma, but no one in high society suspected that Nelson’s glamorous mistress was poor. When she emerged from mourning, she was once more at the helm of style. The classical look had slipped slightly out of favor, but after Nelson’s death, the season’s most sought-after look was once more “petticoat white crape, a Grecian drapery elegantly drawn up,” and flat slippers, just as Emma had worn in her Attitudes.5 Everywhere she went, she took her belongings with her: the Nelson souvenirs, the relics, and most dramatically his blood-spattered coat, which servants in the houses of her guests fought to have the privilege of airing.6 Afraid of losing her friends, Emma tried to be an exciting guest. Discussing Emma’s visit to town, Lady Abercorn commanded, “We hope you will not forget any of your shawls or things for attitudes.” Emma had previously experimented with different kinds of performance, and before Nelson’s death, she had often refused to perform the Attitudes. Now, frantic to keep her place in high society, she had to recreate the old favorites she had perfected at twenty-six.

  Dreary supper parties across London perked up when Lady Hamilton arrived. George Villiers, Hyde Earl of Clarendon asked to meet her. Delighted by “her talent and cleverness at conversation,” he encouraged Emma to describe her sea voyage from Naples to Palermo in 1799.

  Her picture of the danger and horror which had surrounded her was awful almost to reality, and it was diversified by the introduction of some ludicrous incide
nts, which had occurred at the time, in a manner not unlike that of Shakespeare—particularly an anecdote of the pursuit of an old Duenna after her confessor, in the utmost eagerness to say a sin or two before she sank.

  Since her audience seemed so interested in imitations of peasant women, Emma performed another act.

  Lady Hamilton arose from table to address herself to the supposed image of the Virgin, in the character of a young Italian peasant, who wished for permission to remarry. Her shawl was adjusted as if mantling an infant, and she supplicated her patroness with every possible in-treaty… interrupted only by soothings and caresses of her child. The Saint being supposed to remain unmoved by her prayers, they were heightened into expostulations, and, at length, with an apparent impulse of forwardness, she arose and turned from the image—But, after having retired a few paces in disdain, she seemed to recollect herself, and again turned, her countenance and attitude changing, at once into an expression of resignation and humility so captivating that she seemed to have reserved the full effect of her genius for the conclusion of the personification, which ended in her again casting herself at the feet of the image.7