Who’d vegetate in English fog? Letter reveals rage of exiled Lady Hamilton
SHE was the blacksmith’s daughter whose seductive charm and stunning looks captured Lord Nelson’s heart.
But any hopes Emma Hamilton harboured of being equally adored by the public were dashed after Nelson was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Now a previously unpublished letter written by Hamilton reveals the extent of her despair at being pursued by creditors and forced to flee to France to avoid prison.
As Nelson lay fatally injured aboard his flagship having won a famous victory against the French, he whispered: ‘Look after Lady Hamilton.’ However, his dying wishes were ignored. Experts believe she was smeared because the mood in Britain was to see Nelson as a national hero – and his adulterous relationship with Hamilton could not be tolerated.
In her letter, which last week went on public display for the first time at a major exhibition on her life, Hamilton rages: ‘Who wou’d vegetate in fog and vapour when they can live cheaper and better and breathe pure air in another country. England has never done anything for me.’ She continues: ‘Yet I trust there are souls who will feel I have done my Country great Services.’
The letter, dated July 16, 1814 and written while Hamilton was in exile in Calais, was sent to Alexander Davison, one of Nelson’s great friends. It is on display at the exhibition – Emma Hamilton: Seduction and Celebrity, at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
Exhibition curator Quintin Colville said: ‘Emma lived a dazzling existence from poverty to wealth and back to destitution. She was smeared because Nelson was seen as a pre-eminent example of British greatness and people were keen to exculpate him of any failings in his life for passion or indulgence.’ Lily Style, a great-granddaughter of Hamilton who runs the Emma Hamilton Society, said: ‘Emma has been condemned for her immorality. It is important that people realise what she did for the country.’ Born in 1765 in a Cheshire mining village, Hamilton was a blacksmith’s daughter who had an impoverished childhood. She was drawn to London aged 12, becoming a dancer and mistress to rich men. As a society beauty, she was a muse for artists including George Romney. She eventually married Britain’s ambassador to Naples, Sir William Hamilton. She became the favourite confidante of Queen Maria Carolina of Naples and Sicily, and they worked to combat the threat of invasion by Napoleon. Crucially it was Hamilton who intervened to help Nelson counter Napoleon’s incursion of Egypt. The pair fell in love in 1798 after a wounded Nelson returned from the Battle of the Nile and was nursed back to health by Hamilton. She was later forced to flee to Calais with Horatia, her illegitimate daughter by Nelson, and died within six months at 49 from alcoholism.