From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Emma Hamilton, in one of dozens of portraits by George Romney, at the height of her beauty in the 1780s

Emma, Lady Hamilton (born 1761); baptized April 26, 1765 – January 16, 1815) is best remembered as the mistress of Lord Nelson. She was born Amy Lyon in Neston, Cheshire, England, the daughter of a blacksmith, Henry Lyons, who died when she was two months old. She was brought up by her mother, formerly Mary Kidd, at Hawarden, with no formal education. She later changed her name to Emma Hart.

By 1782 the 21-year-old Emma was already very well known in London society, having been taken from a brothel "into keeping" as the mistress of several men, and as the model of the "Goddess of Health" for James Graham, a Scottish "quack" doctor. (In 1780, at the age of 19, she reportedly had a daughter by a "patron", Sir Harry Featherstonhaugh, named Emma Carew, who was brought up by her grandmother in Wales. As a young woman, Emma Carew saw her mother reasonably frequently, but later when her mother fell into debt, Emma Carew was forced to leave the country to work abroad as a companion or governess, and probably died not long after her mother).

Emma lived with the Honorable Charles Francis Greville (1749–1809), (son of Francis Greville, 1st Earl of Warwick) a young aristocrat who was deeply in love with her and sent her to sit for his friend, the painter, George Romney. In 1786, needing to find a rich wife to replenish his finances, he sent her to Naples to be the mistress of his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, British Envoy to Naples, in return for making Greville his heir.

Emma Hamilton, after the portraits by George Romney

Sir William was smitten with Emma and, to Greville's shock, married her on September 6, 1791 at St. George's, Hanover Square, London. As Sir William's mistress and then wife, Emma developed what she called her "Attitudes", a cross between postures, dance, and acting, that took Europe by storm. Using a few shawls, she posed as various classical figures from Medea to Queen Cleopatra, and her performances charmed aristocrats, artists, writers — including the great Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — and kings and queens alike, setting off new dance trends across Europe and starting a fashion for a draped Grecian style of dress.

Lady Hamilton became a close friend of Queen Maria Carolina, wife of Ferdinand I of Naples. As wife of the British Envoy, she welcomed Nelson in 1793, when he came to gather reinforcements against the French. He returned to Naples five years later, a living legend, after his win at the Battle of the Nile in Aboukir. However, Nelson's adventures had prematurely aged him: he had lost an arm and most of his teeth, and was afflicted by coughing spells. Emma reportedly fainted when she saw him. Still, she nursed him under her husband's roof, and arranged a party with 1,800 guests to celebrate his 40th birthday. They soon fell in love and their affair seems to have been tolerated, and perhaps even encouraged, by the elderly Sir William, who showed nothing but admiration and respect for Nelson, and vice-versa. On Nelson's recall to Britain shortly afterwards, Nelson, Emma and William meandered back to Britain via Central Europe (hearing the Missa in Angustiis by Haydn that now bears Nelson's name in Vienna in 1800), and eventually arrived in Britain later in 1800 to a hero's welcome. The three then lived together openly, and the affair became public knowledge, which eventually induced the Admiralty to send Nelson back to sea, if only to get him away from Emma.

Emma gave birth to Nelson's daughter Horatia, on January 31, 1801 at Sir William's rented home in Clarges Street, 23 Piccadilly, London. By the autumn of the same year, Nelson bought Merton Place, a small ramshackle house on the outskirts of modern day Wimbledon. There he lived openly with Emma, and Sir William (along with Emma's mother) in a ménage à trois that fascinated the public. The newspapers reported on their every move, looking to Emma to set fashions in dress, home decoration and even dinner party menus.

Sir William died in 1803 and Nelson returned to sea soon after, leaving Emma pregnant with their second child. She was desperately lonely, preoccupied with attempting to turn Merton Place into the grand home Nelson desired, and frantic for his return. The child, a girl, died a few weeks after her birth in early 1803. Emma reportedly distracted herself by gambling, and spending lavishly.

After Nelson's death in 1805, Emma (who had quickly exhausted the small pension Sir William had left her), fell deeply into debt. (Nelson had willed his estate to his brother; he gave her Merton, but Emma exhausted her finances by trying to keep it up as a monument to him). In spite of Nelson's status as a national hero, the instructions he left to the government to provide for Emma and Horatia were ignored (they showered honours on his brother instead).

Emma was to spend a year in debtor's prison (Horatia was with her at the time), before moving to France to try to escape her creditors. Turning to drink, she died in poverty of liver failure in Calais in January 1815.

Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante, by Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, 1790–1791. Vesuvius, an interest of Sir William's, is in the background.

Horatia subsequently married the Rev. Philip Ward, and lived until 1881. She had ten children: Horatio Nelson (born 8 December 1822); Eleanor Phillipa (born April 1824); Marmaduke Philip Smyth (born 27 May 1825); John James Stephen (13 February 1827–1829); Nelson (born 8 May 1828); William George (born 8 April 1830); Edmund Nelson (1831); Horatia Nelson (born 24 November 1833), Philip (born May 1834) and Caroline (born January 1836).

The Italian dessert Zuppa Inglese, a more alcohol-laced version of the English trifle, is claimed to date from Lady Hamilton's time in Naples.

• Jasper Fforde wrote Emma Hamilton into his book Something Rotten where Emma was brought back from the past to the year 1988, and enjoyed a short relationship with the fictional character Hamlet.
• Susan Sontag authored a novel based on Emma, Hamilton, Nelson, and their historical position called The Volcano Lover.
• Terence Rattigan published A Bequest to the Nation in 1970, based on his 1966 television play Nelson.
• Miranda Hearn wrote a novel about both Horatia Nelson and Emma Hamilton in 2005, called Nelson's Daughter.
• Geraldine James played Lady Hamilton in the 1982 television miniseries I Remember Nelson.
• Glenda Jackson starred as Lady Hamilton in the 1973 film The Nelson Affair.
• Corinne Griffith starred as Lady Hamilton in the 1929 film The Divine Lady.
• Vivien Leigh starred as Lady Hamilton, with Laurence Olivier as Lord Nelson, in Alexander Korda's 1941 film Lady Hamilton (released in the U.S. as That Hamilton Woman), a film which Winston Churchill is reported to have seen "more than a hundred times".
• In the BBC comedy Blackadder the Third (Series 3) Lady Hamilton is referenced in recurring similes meant to question the chastity and virtue of women promoted as chaste yet known not to be, including a fictitious quote attributed to Lord Nelson, mocking his famous signal at Trafalgar: "England knows Lady Hamilton is a virgin; poke my eye out and cut off my arm if I'm wrong!"

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Emma Hamilton

• Kate Williams England's Mistress (October, 2006).
• Flora Fraser, Beloved Emma (1986)
• Mollie Hardwick, Emma, Lady Hamilton (1969)
• Norah Lofts, Emma Hamilton (1978)
• Oliver Warner, Emma Hamilton and Sir William (1960)

• 'Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante' in the Lady Lever Art Gallery