England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton (27 page)

A tender intimacy commenced; and when our hero chooses a relaxation from severer duties, he pays his devoirs to our beautiful young heroine. But in these agreeable
rencontres,
nothing impure or impassioned is admitted: as an
artist,
he admires the figure of the lady, not as a
lover;
as an
artist
his adoration is enthusiastic, as a
lover
his sentiments are too refined to relish sensualities. His fair advocate is however, infinitely serviceable to him in his professional line. She is the standard of female perfection, a comparison is therefore made between her limbs and those of the ideal females which his ministers delineate for him on canvas.
³

Sir William ignored the barbs of the gossip magazines. "No Princess cou'd do the honours of her Palace with more care and dignity than she does those of my house," he decided. Since he had given up expecting a promotion to Paris or Madrid, he was more tempted to marriage. He would have had an uphill struggle introducing Emma to French or Spanish society, but the Neapolitans loved her and would accept her as his wife.

Emma shared Sir William's interests in music, sailing, and travel and his fascination with the Neapolitan court, and they had realistic expectations of each other. She knew she had to keep cheerful and could not make emotional demands on him. Tolerant of her noisy restlessness, he ignored her tendencies to take on too much, to interfere, and to hog the limelight. Although he knew her history, he knew that if she had been a respectable young lady, he never would have met her, and she would not have the same energy and willingness to please. He was also grateful to her: she had been faithful to him in Naples despite offers from elevated men, and she had been good-natured and uncomplaining about his frequent absences to visit the court or hunt.

A visit from Greville's friend Heneage Legge cemented his resolve. Emma had become fond of Legge when he visited Edgware Row—she had written in an early letter to Greville from Naples that Legge and his friends had better "take care of their hearts when I come back." But when he arrived, Legge bluntly informed Sir William that Emma would be "in-admissable" to his wife's company, for they "had no reason to think her present different from her former line of life." He was scandalized to find his old pet as Sir William's hostess, "much visited by ladies of the highest rank, & many of the
Corps diplomatique,
" and he dashed to inform Greville. "Her influence over him exceeds all belief; his attachment exceeds admiration, it is perfect dotage," he spluttered. Although he admitted she "does the honour of his house with great attention & desire to please" and described the Attitudes as "beyond description beautifull and striking,"
he still considered her as a mistress, hinting salaciously "you will find her figure much improved since you last saw her."

Legge reported,

She gives everybody to understand that he is now going to England to sollicit the K.'s consent to marry her, & that on her return she shall appear as L[ad]y H. She says it is impossible to continue in her present dubious state, which exposes her to frequent slights & mortifications; & his whole thought, happiness & comfort seems so center'd in her presence, that if she should refuse to return on other terms, I am confident she will gain her point, against which it is the duty of every friend to strengthen his mind as much as possible.

He told Emma that "she could never change her situation for the better, & that she was a happier woman as Mrs H. than she would be as L[ad]y H., when, more reserved behaviour being necessary, she would be depriv'd of half her amusements, & must no longer sing those comic parts which tend so much to the entertainment of herself & her friends." Little was more likely to convince Emma in her resolve to cajole William into marriage than Legge declaring she would be happier (and more amusing to men like him) as a mistress. He admitted, "She does not accede to that doctrine." Legge instructed Greville that "unless great care is taken to prevent it she will in some unguarded hour work upon his empassion'd mind, & effect her design of becoming your aunt." Greville did not protest. He guessed it would be futile and he hoped that Emma, unlike a society lady, would agree to Sir William settling his estate solely on him.

At the same time, William's friends in Naples, including the queen herself, encouraged him to marry Emma. Maria Carolina had not forgotten Emma's tactful rebuff to her husband and also guessed that she would be a more malleable conduit to British influence than Catherine Hamilton had been. By February, the journey to England had been planned. Sir William had become increasingly infuriated by the gall of pompous English visitors telling him what to do. Their efforts to dissuade him had only pushed him further toward marriage. "She will be my wife, no matter what they say," William confided in secret to Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. But he had one condition: King George had to agree.

By April, Emma, Sir William, and Mrs. Cadogan were visiting Venice, where the lovers toyed with more art and socialized with embittered
French emigres, including the Comte d'Artois, Louis XVI's brother, the future Charles X They continued through Brussels and on May 16,1791, arrived in London's Nerot's Hotel, the same hotel where William had stayed when he first met his "fair tea maker." In geographical terms, Emma was just around the corner from Madam Kelly's and not far from the house that had been the Temple of Health. But she was a different person from Amy Lyon. Mrs. Hart was about to become Lady Hamilton.

CHAPTER 24
Engaged for Life

W
hen Emma arrived in London, everyone wanted to meet her and find out whether she had hooked the "consular artist" as a husband. Greville's sister, Lady Frances Harpur, comforted her relations that his "making a Shew of her
Graces & Person
to all his
acquaintance
in
Town"
was hardly "a
preliminaryfor Marriage."
¹
She was wrong.

A few days after her return, Emma burst into Romney's studio dressed in a fantastic Turkish dress and turban. He immediately canceled his other engagements. "At present, and the greatest part of the summer, I shall be engaged in painting pictures from the divine lady. I cannot give her any other epithet, for I think her superior to all womankind," he enthused. Romney painted her throughout sweltering June and July, thirty-eight times in all. Emma's arrival was serendipitous: John Boydell wanted paintings for his paying gallery of Shakespearean scenes in Pall Mall. Romney had already worked from memory and sketches to paint Emma as Miranda in a scene from
The Tempest,
unveiled to great excitement in the previous year. Now, he took sittings for her to be Cassandra in drapery wielding an axe (which the poet William Hayley later praised as showing her "beauty blazing in prophetic ire") and Joan of Arc, in which she poses similarly to Circe. He also painted her as Ophelia and Titania fromy4
Midsummer Night's Dream,
as well as Terpischore, the muse of dance, and half topless as Euphrosyne or Mirth. He had to hurry, for as Emma had told him, "everything is going on for their speedy marriage."

By July, Romney could hardly believe how "all the world [is] following her and talking of her." People crowded into his studio to see paintings of
Mrs. Hart. He promoted her effusively, inviting guests to watch her model and hosting parties to showcase her singing and Attitudes. After one performance, he declared the "whole company were in an agony of sorrow." Ever keen to be fashionable, the Prince of Wales commissioned Romney to paint her as Calypso, reclining in a cave and wrapped in pale purple drapes, and also as St. Cecilia, a limpid-eyed nun gazing to the heavens, a wry joke about her life as one of Madam Kelly's "nuns." The prince liked to spend time with her in Romney's studio, but that was as far as the relationship went: he did not invite Emma or Sir William to his brilliant thirtieth-birthday gala on July 29.
²

Soon Romney began to detect signs of "neglect." Emma had other claimants on her time. Many painters wanted to enhance their portfolios by taking sittings from her. Thomas Lawrence had heard that she was "the most gratifying thing to a painter's eye that can be." Jibing that Romney's paintings were more revelatory of the "artist's feebleness than her grandeur" and "frightened… she will soon be Lady Hamilton and that I may not have such another opportunity," he pressed Richard Payne Knight to introduce him. After a few short sittings at Knight's Down ton Castle he produced a full portrait,
³
La Penserosa,
which caused a sensation when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1792.

Emma was the talk of the town. Sir William Lock reported that "All the Statues & Pictures he had seen were in grace so inferior to Her, as scarce to deserve a look."
⁴
A Mrs. Preston was so eager to "hear her softly sing & see her sweetly smile, & exhibit a variety of attitudes & passions" that she put herself "as much as possible in the way to see Mrs Hart but always faild." Many were disappointed in the crush to see the new superstar.

Sir William was excited by the adulation Emma received and deeply relieved that she did not demand to meet his family. When Emma showed no sign of distress after meeting Greville, the last twinge of jealousy disappeared. He visited his friends, and the Society of Dilettanti presented him with twenty-five copies of his work on penile cults,
The Worship of Priapus,
a sly reference to his life with Emma. Otherwise he parried his family's questions about his marital intentions. Although unhappy about Emma's background, they would have detested the thought of any wife, for they wanted his fortune intact. He promised his sister that he "did not think it Right to marry Mrs Hart; from respect to his King," even though she was the "Happiness of his Life."
⁵
He was playing for time. In May, he had written to the Archbishop of Canterbury to request a special license to be married
in a place other than a church, for "I wish my marriage to be secret untill I have left England."
⁶
The archbishop refused his request but did allow him to escape the exposure of having the banns published. Sir William made a new will, settling a yearly income on Emma, and bequeathed his estate to Charles Greville, knowing that if he died after marriage without updating his will, Emma could try to claim more of his fortune.

In August, Sir William, Emma, and Mrs. Cadogan visited Sir William's niece Mary Dickenson and her husband in Derbyshire, then traveled to visit his friend and relation, William Beckford, England's richest man and biggest hedonist, at his eccentric mansion, Fonthill Abbey, near Bath. Fonthill cost the extortionate sum of £250,000. Covered with oriental trappings, it was staffed by a pet dwarf and—gossips claimed—slaves. Very few were allowed to enter its opulent doors. The visit was a great success. Beckford wrote to Sir William, "The only glorious object I have set my eyes upon since my arrival in this foggy island is the Breathing Statue you have brought over."
⁷

The party traveled on to Bath. Emma met Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was holidaying in the town with her sister, Lady Harriet Duncannon, and Lady Elizabeth (Bess) Foster, sometime mistress to the Duke of Devonshire, along with their children and Bess's daughter by the duke. The usually sparkling Devonshire set was in anxious disarray. Lady Harriet was suffering, reviled by society after an affair with Emma's old manager, Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The Duke of Devonshire was so furious with his wife about her debts that he had stayed away, and Georgiana was reeling from her discovery that she was four months pregnant by the young Whig politician Charles Grey.

The duchess aimed to cultivate the future wife of the envoy to Naples, for she thought she might have to flee to Italy with her illegitimate child. She believed Emma's claim that she had been married to Sir William for two years, and sympathized with her that she had not been invited to meet the Queen of England. Bess jealously decided that the "celebrated Mrs Hart" was "a very handsome Woman" but "vulgar." The word
vulgar
had a particular meaning: a social arriviste who behaved above her station and was insufficiently humble. Like most of those who met Emma, Bess praised her Attitudes wildly but slyly referred to her past: "as an excuse for that vulgarity and as a further proof of the superiority of her talents that have burst forth in spite of these disadvantages, that Mrs Hart was born
and lived in the lowest situation till the age of 19, and since that in no higher one than the mistress of Sir W Hamilton."
⁸