England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton (42 page)

At the end of August, the royal family moved to their summer residence at Baden. Nelson and the Hamiltons visited for court dinners and smaller lunches, but Nelson was growing increasingly frustrated by Emma's efforts to catch the queen's attention. It was quite obvious to him that Maria Carolina, preoccupied by the advance of Napoleon and marrying off her children, had no more use for Emma, the wife of an ex-envoy He steered his darling toward accepting an invitation from the young Prince Esterházy, a friend from Naples, to his splendid palace in Eisen-stadt, a day or two's drive away. At Esterházy's glittering receptions, upward of sixty dined every evening, and a hundred Hungarian bodyguards waited behind the banqueting table. After dinner, Emma performed her Attitudes, whipping guests into states of high emotion, according to the effusive reports in the newspapers. The prince put on fanfares and salutes and balls for his guests. Sir William hunted (to the amazement of the other guests, he shot 122 birds in a single session) and Emma won a great prize: the admiration of Josef Haydn, Esterházy's court musician and one of the most illustrious composers alive.

Sixty-eight-year-old Haydn was captivated by Emma's voice and her powers of expression, and practiced songs with her every day. She sang "Ariadne auf Naxos," one of his favorite pieces, and they tried out some of his new songs. Emma even managed his mournful "The Spirit's Song," a
difficult piece in a high register. She asked him to set to music a poem by one of her English hangers-on, the impecunious would-be writer Cornelia Knight, and he did so in two days and named it “The Nelson Aria.” He also revised part of a piece he had already written to create “The Nelson Mass.” A beaming Nelson gave Haydn his watch in exchange for the pen used to create the composition. Pretty girls with good singing voices often accosted Haydn, and he was frequently called upon to entertain the prince's musically inclined female visitors. His interest in Emma was different: he found something original in her approach to performance. Just as Romney had been delighted by her plasticity, her imagination, and her willingness to try new creative experiments, so Haydn relished her open expressiveness. Fine ladies were almost always stolid singers: they refused to alter the usual rendition of a performance and were particularly nervous about expressing fervent emotion, running the risk of being accused of exciting the passions of the men in the audience. Emma threw her emotions into her performances and sang madness, anger, fear, and love as if she was really feeling them.

One Hungarian newspaper was bowled over by “her clear, strong voice with which, accompanied by the famous Haydn, she filled the audience with such enthusiasm that they almost became ecstatic. Many were reminded of pictures of the ‘goddesses Dido and Calypso.’”
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Haydn came to her inn to wish her a fond farewell as they prepared to leave Vienna at the end of September. He gave Emma her own copy of “The Spirit's Song” and presented Nelson with a copy of “The Nelson Aria.” The Princess Esterházy wrote to Emma “you will always exist in my heart and in my memory, and that I shall never forget your kind friendship to me.” She cherished “the flattering hope of seeing you here again in the spring.” They all thought they would be on their way back to Italy in the New Year.

Now that Emma was leaving, Maria Carolina was terribly sorry to see her go. “At all times and places and under all circumstances, Emma, dear, dear Emma shall be my friend and sister,” she effused. She paid her the compliment of begging her to return to Naples with her, and wrote a letter to give to Queen Charlotte, which Emma presumed was a letter of recommendation guaranteeing her entry to the English court.

In Prague, crowds draped in Nelson regalia mobbed them as soon as they arrived. Weary after their two-hundred-mile journey from Vienna, Nelson and Emma were thrilled to find that their hotel was covered in illuminations to celebrate their arrival. They were later somewhat startled to see the cost of the lights charged to their bill. Without Maria Carolina
to cover the travel expenses, both Nelson and Sir William were living well beyond their means. Charles Greville's blood pressure shot up as he read about their extravagance in the English newspapers. "I had prepared a plan for cheap residence but this establishment confounds all," he fumed, almost weeping to see his long-desired inheritance squandered on turning the
tria
into megastars.
⁶
The party's expenses were mounting well past £4,000 ($380,000). Still, in Prague, it was Nelson's birthday, and it was no time to economize—after a large dinner at the palace of the Archduke Charles, where Emma sang a version of "God Save the King," adding a final stanza commemorating Nelson, they invited their fellow guests back to their hotel for a second dinner and more singing.

At Dresden, celebrity spotters, autograph hunters, and ordinary people craving a glimpse of Nelson surrounded the hotel. According to the newspapers, the Electress of Saxony refused to receive them on account of Emma's rakish past, although the truth was that the elector was worried about antagonizing Napoleon. Nelson did not care, blustering cheerfully that if there was "any difficulty of that sort, Lady Hamilton will knock the Elector down," socializing instead with the recently appointed British envoy, Hugh Elliot, his wife, and their guest, Melesina St. George Trench. Elliot became rather a fan, admiring Emma for her lack of airs and graces, comparing her to King Charles IPs mistress, Nell Gwynn, recalling the story in which she allayed the anger of the masses by identifying herself as "Protestant Whore." Like many, he decided her a second Cleopatra, manipulating her Antony, and he believed she had bigger fish to fry than Nelson: "She will captivate the Prince of Wales, whose mind is as vulgar as her own, and play a great part in England."

Melesina was in love with Elliot and painfully jealous of Emma's electrifying effect on him, resenting her flamboyant behavior and her efforts to steal the limelight by flattering her lover. "It is plain that Lord Nelson thinks of nothing but Lady Hamilton, who is totally occupied with the same object," declaring him "a willing captive, the most submissive and devoted I have seen." Emma, she mocked, "puffs the incense full in his face; but he receives it with pleasure, and snuffs it up very cordially." Sir William was dismissed as "old, infirm, all admiration of his wife," and Mrs. Cadogan was a trial: "Lady Hamilton's mother, is what one might expect from the purlieu's of Dr Giles's whence she really comes"—an accusation so shocking that it was cut from the version of her journal later published by her son, but remains in the original manuscript in Hampshire Record Office.

Melesina wished she had Hugh Elliot and his malleable wife to herself, but she could not deny Emma's beauty. “She resembles the bust of Ariadne, the shape of all her features is as fine as her head, and particularly her ears,” and even the brown spot in one light blue eye “takes nothing away from her beauty of expression.” The pregnancy was now obvious: her feet were heavy and swollen and she was “exceedingly embonpoint,” or bosomy, a phrase used to signal pregnancy. Although she admitted that Emma was entertaining and that she “did not seek to win hearts, for everyone's lay at her feet,” she complained she was more “stamped with the manners of her first situation than one would suppose, after having represented Majesty and lived in good company, for fifteen years.”

Melesina was, however, won over by her Attitudes, for which Emma cunningly made them wait five days.

Several Indian shawls, a chair, some antique vases, a wreath of roses, a tambourine, and a few children are her whole apparatus. She stands at one end of the room with a strong light to her left, and every other window closed… her gown a simple calico chemise, very easy with loose sleeves to the wrist. She disposes the shawls as to form Grecian, Turkish and other drapery, as well as a variety of turbans. Her arrangement of the turbans is absolute sleight-of-hand, she does it so quickly, so easily, and so well…. Each representation lasts about ten minutes. It is remarkable that, though coarse and ungraceful in common life, she becomes highly graceful, and even beautiful during this performance.
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In the cold light of morning, Melesina judged her dress “vulgar, loaded, and unbecoming.” Emma preferred an obvious look—bright colors, cleavage, heavy jewelry, and tight drapes—but there were few men who were not attracted by it. Melesina's scornful remarks are often quoted, but she was acerbic about everybody she met (apart from Hugh Elliot). And Melesina's pen did not reflect her behavior to her visitor's face: she was a frequent visitor to Emma's homes after both had returned to England. While Emma flattered Hugh Elliot, Nelson ordered Dresden porcelain in his honor and arranged for Saxony's foremost artist, Johann Schmidt, to paint him and his Emma. He was determined to have his own set of portraits of her in which she was herself, not a model playing glamorous roles, tainted by the paw marks of William or Greville.

On October 10, Nelson and the Hamiltons caught a barge along the
Elbe. Spectators crowded along the bridge and the shore, and the crushes when the party disembarked were so intense that those at the front almost fell into the river. When they disembarked at Magdeburg, farther up the Elbe, Emma was the star of their lunch engagement, interpreting for her lover, showing where he had been wounded, and boasting about his 120 sea battles. Onlookers jostled to peer in while Nelson dined, and boats full of cheering spectators escorted his vessel as it set off once more.

On October 21, they finally reached Hamburg. The frigate that Nelson had requested the Admiralty send to transport them home was nowhere to be seen, and they had to buy places on a ship transporting mail. Amongst the dignitaries they met in the ten days they waited to depart was the poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. Utterly charmed by Lady Hamilton, the elderly intellectual would not let her out of his sight. He enjoyed a private performance of the Attitudes and wrote to a friend that she had given him a kiss.

The English in Hamburg put on a play depicting the Battle of Aboukir and then threw a party in Nelson's honor for over a thousand guests, including a twelve-year-old Arthur Schopenhauer, already showing hints of the genius that would make him the age's most respected philosopher. Nelson was so carried away by the riotous celebrations that he lost a giant yellow diamond from the sword that Ferdinand had only recently given him. Just before they embarked on the
King George
on October 31, the hung-over hero sheepishly bought his wife a black lace cloak and a package of fine lace to decorate a court dress. None of the fashion reports ever noted that Fanny wore it.

They arrived home on November 6. The triumphal journey was only a trial run. Emma was about to become the most famous woman in England.

Scandal and Stardom

CHAPTER 37
Cleopatra Arrives

T
he whole of East Anglia seemed to have arrived at Yarmouth, on England's eastern coast, to welcome the hero of the Nile and his friends. It was Emma's first glimpse of her home country in nearly ten years. Boats flying every color came out to meet them, and excited crowds teemed on the shore. When they landed, burly men removed the horses from Nelson's carriage and dragged it to the inn themselves. There, to the delight of the crowd, Nelson and Emma waved from the balcony as the local infantry struck up a congratulatory march. No representative from the Admiralty was present to greet the hero, but the mayor of Yarmouth staged a lavish banquet in their honor and offered Nelson the freedom of the city.

Despite the raw November chill, crowds in Nelson hats and badges thronged their route to Norfolk, waving flags, singing, and weeping with joy. Though Emma delighted in the adulation, she dreaded meeting Fanny. Nelson vowed that he adored Emma because she was so different from his wife, but she was anxious that he might feel a twinge of guilt when he saw Fanny again. She was nervous that Nelson at heart was too conventional to abandon his marriage.