That Hamilton Woman

Emma and Nelson

Barry Gough

• Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781473875654
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Emma Hamilton, much maligned by her contemporaries and later by historians and commentators, rose from the most humble beginnings to play a startling role in Britains naval victory over France and Spain in 1805. In this new book Barry Gough, employing the letters between the protagonists, and the unpublished examination of her career by famed American historian of the Royal Navy Arthur Marder, strongly defends Emma. He shows how this most talented of women and the beauty of her age fell victim to innuendo, slander and cruel caricature. She was to die in poverty in Calais in 1815, just months before Napoleons final defeat. Englands greatest sailor fell deeply in love with Emma in the years before Trafalgar. This, together with his quest for glory and victory entangled him in an inescapable web of circumstances and calumny. The author explores the evolving scandal, the high political stakes that were involved, and the love affair itself which so influenced the fortunes of Englands glory and the fate of her Wooden Walls. No novelist could have created such a tortuous scenario, charged as it was with high emotions, slurs, insults and slander. Richly illustrated throughout, the book shows Emma, probably the most painted woman of her age, in all her glories; it also shows how heartlessly caricaturists treated her. That Hamilton woman will long remain a controversial figure but here the author places her as one of the forces that gave the Royal Navy its will to fight and conquer. He depicts sympathetically a woman entrapped in circumstances of her own making, her saga reminding us of how frail is human fortune.

Chapter 1 Patroness of the Navy: the Women Behind the Fleet

In the system of Nelson’s time when interest and patronage were not only rife but also essential to advancement in rank and station, friends were essential. Navy wives made it their business to ‘talent-spot’ rising young midshipmen and lieutenants. From their own experiences, as navy wives and mothers, they knew the perils of upward mobility, for some had become navy widows. Many had sons in the service. Nelson had his own special patroness in Margaret Lady Parker, wife of Admiral Sir Peter Parker. Margaret had known Nelson since his days in the West Indies, and after he had been struck down by malaria contracted during the Nicaragua expedition upriver to San Juan fort, a very foolish venture, she had nursed him to health. She was of a nervous disposition and was wholeheartedly solicitous to the point of anxiety about her charge. Years later, when she knew of Nelson’s further injuries and precarious health, she urged him to return home, sending letters to him directly. And by communicating by letter with Fanny (for those two became friends) Nelson’s wife was able to pass on to her husband the intensity of Lady Parker’s anxiety for his well-being.

Sir John Jervis, Earl St Vincent, had an aversion to naval officers marrying, especially in time of war. He was of the opinion, as reported, that newly-married officers were ‘the first to run to port, and the last to come out of it.’ That having been said, he was comfortable in the presence of women at sea, and treated women with kindness and civility. As eighteen-year old Betsey Wynne observed, ‘he desired we should pay tribute that was due to him at our entering his Cabin, this was to kiss him which the ladies did very willingly.’ Betsey was well heeled, and a political refugee: she lived in British warships for fifteen months, eventually marrying Captain Thomas Francis Fremantle of the Inconstant, at a ceremony in Naples in 1797. Jervis advised, or warned, Nelson that the English women of Leghorn – ‘the factory’ he called the English enclave – ‘will find themselves very happy under your protection, and all our fair countrywomen pent up in Italy will fly to your embraces.’ That was a fair assessment, and on a later occasion Nelson told Emma that he would not ‘touch the pudding’, loyal as he was to her.

Betsey Wynne nursed her husband and Nelson after they had been wounded at Tenerife. Both Fremantle and Nelson had been shot through the arm, and it was on this occasion that Nelson’s arm was amputated. Emma and Fanny were to nurse Nelson of this wound, but it was Betsey who was there at the time doing heroic work. Wynne is important to our theme of women behind the fleet because circumstance had brought her on board a British man-of-war, the Inconstant, and it was on account of this that she became a naval wife. Happenstance played a big role in the forging of naval marriages. Fremantle described his bride as ‘short, speaks German, Italian, French and English, plays incomparably well on the harpsichord, draws well, sings a little, and is otherwise a very good humored, sensible dolly.’ Her diary of him reveals her opinions that he was ‘not handsome but with fiery black eyes that are quite captivating, he is also good natured, kind, amiable, and lively, qualities that win everybody’s heart.’ Betsey bore him nine children – five sons, three of whom joined the Navy, and four daughters. This was the beginning of one of the remarkable naval dynasties of the nineteenth century Royal Navy. Betsey, we might note, considered Emma to be beautiful and amiable.

It is true that Nelson was easy going when it came to having women on board ships in his squadron. There were many women who lived before the mast in the Captain, for instance, and Nelson was indulgent when it came to requests from marine or fellow officers to accept the fact that women brought aboard, notably wives or those closely connected, should not be objected to. Having women aboard was contrary to regulations, but it was passively countenanced nonetheless and seems to have been at the discretion of the ship’s captain. General de Burgh made light of it to Nelson, in teasing tone: ‘Your merits are pretty generally known, your deficiencies are I believe much less so; amongst the few that have ever come to my knowledge, halfheartedness towards the fairer sex is not included.’ Nelson’s biographer Roger Knight, who uncovered this, makes the point that Nelson relished his independence from Fanny, by which we may infer that distance from home was beneficial in a number of ways. It was widely said at the time that a naval officer left his morals behind when he entered the Mediterranean at Gibraltar.

It was different when a ship in port was making preparations to sail. The Vanguard, in March 1798, had nearly three hundred women on board. Nelson determined that all were to be sent ashore, assuming the crews were paid, and the reason for this was so they could cover their debts to the females: he had resolved that not one woman would be taken to sea. All went according to plan: the crew was paid, the women disembarked, the anchor was raised, sail was made, and the ship proceeded to sea.

Women possessed an enormous benefit to the fleet, for they were great conveyors of information, and they had their own intelligence networks – letters, codes and personal gossip. Among the nobility and gentry, sharing news was a day-to-day occurrence, and often the means of social advancement. Frances Caffarena, an English woman of the merchant community of Genoa, suppliers of live cattle and lemons to British men-of-war, wrote many letters to Nelson in 1796, sometimes including translations of useful Italian documents. When Leghorn fell to the French in June 1796 the lady in question was almost the sole source of critical information as to local affairs. She told Nelson about Spanish preparations by land and sea plus other vital information. Nelson passed on such intelligence to Gilbert Elliot and Jervis. Nelson could do little to correct the hard times that Caffarena faced but he valued all the information she could send. She was a patriot and the news was of immense importance. Having secret agents and informants ashore benefited the service, and gave further credence to Francis Bacon’s epithet ‘knowledge is power’.

Women, too, were avenues to political connection in high places. Nelson wanted Frances to accompany him to dinner with the Earl and Countess of Spencer, and the latter was always reluctant to bend to such importunities. She, as one of the great hostesses of the age, would invite captains to dinner but not their wives. But Nelson was convincing. Years later she wrote that Nelson had made an appeal on the grounds that it would make him the happiest man alive. He told Lavinia Spencer that she must like Fanny. ‘That she was beautiful, accomplished, but, above all, that her angelic tenderness to him was beyond all imagination. He told me that his wife had dressed his wounds and that her care alone had saved his life. In short, he pressed me to see her, with an earnestness of which Nelson alone was capable. In these circumstances, I begged that he would bring her with him that day to dinner.’ Lady Spencer held Nelson in high regard, and she was glad to have made his acquaintance: ‘He is a very delightful creature & I hope I shall see him once more – tho’ when I consider how little there is of him, I cannot be sanguine in such expectations.’ It is clear that she did not think Nelson had long to live. She had not thought much of Nelson on first meeting some time before, regarding him as ill-mannered and a sickly creature looking much like an idiot – but ever so attractive when his marvellous mind had an opportunity to express itself, to her captivation. When Lord Spencer became First Lord of the Admiralty Nelson had a special friend at hand in Lavinia, and in the august manner that this lordship demonstrated he treated Nelson with the greatest respect and even avuncular consideration. Nelson’s reputation as a great fighter had preceded him, but Lavinia’s friendship engendered support in high places. On one occasion she invited Nelson to dinner because her husband wished to speak to Nelson about his new command, the Foudroyant.

Patronage, or interest, was essential in the advancement of naval officers. Women played an essential role as lobbyists for brothers, nephews, children and grandchildren, and for friends desiring the same for other candidates. Social standing was the top consideration. Emma, on account of her position as Nelson’s mistress, lost influence at his death. She no longer had Nelson to protect her and to provide for her, and her lack of discipline was ruinous. In her new and limited state, as Margarette Lincoln explains, she could now only appeal to sentiment when seeking the advancement of a Lieutenant Jackson on board Rear-Admiral Charles Tyler’s ship. ‘Nelson,’ she said, the ‘dear Lamented Nelson’, had always promised her promotion for young Jackson, and now should the Admiral be passing near Richmond she suggested that he should call on her and reminisce of times past. In Emma, Britannia’s glory began to fade quickly, and she was cast on stormy seas and shores, humiliated and ridiculed. Long gone were the days and even the memories of having sailed with Nelson in the Mediterranean, under his complete protection and that of his fleet.

Some examples of women in British naval annals in more modern times show the continuing power of the distaff side in the exercise of sea power. Rear-Admiral the Hon Joseph Denman, who acquired fame from his close-in actions against the slave pens of the West African coast, where the slaves were kept before being sent out in the surf boats to the waiting slave ships, took his wife out to the distant Pacific Station in the 1860s when he was Commander-in-Chief. Another, Captain (later Admiral) George Henry Richards, the famous surveyor, had his wife with him on the same station, and their children who were born during his tour of duty were given local names. Many naval officers ‘on station’ married colonial women. Such particulars as these suggest the importance of women afloat in the nineteenth-century navy and the permissiveness of the Admiralty allowing such arrangements afloat.

In the early twentieth century females took on powerful positions when their husbands were at, or near, top levels of command. For instance, Lady Jellicoe, wife of Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Commander of the Grand Fleet at Jutland, 31 May–1 June 1916) and later First Sea Lord, carefully guarded his reputation, as the following recounts. Admiral Sir David Beatty, who commanded the Battle Cruiser force in the same battle, was married to the divorcee Edith (nee Field) Tree (Beatty fixed this arrangement), daughter of the Chicago millionaire store magnate, Marshall Fields. She brought a fortune into an otherwise impoverished noble family, sufficient to have her own yacht Sheelah at anchor not far from where her husband’s ship, the battle cruiser Lion, lay in the Firth of Forth. Beatty became a critic of Jellicoe’s leadership and actions at Jutland. A great controversy ensued in what is known as ‘the Jutland scandal’, with Beatty, then First Sea Lord, fudging the official record about what transpired at Jutland. Montagues and Capulets abounded. Jutland was a battle without end. The controversy even continued after death, as this anecdote tells. Jellicoe died in 1935 and was buried near Nelson in the crypt at St Paul’s. Lady Jellicoe was furious when she learned that Beatty was to be buried beside her husband. She made a passionate appeal to the Dean and Chapter and then the Admiralty that this must not happen. She received the disheartening reply that the decision was one of state, the crypt being a national shrine. She replied in brusque fashion to Lord Chatfield, then First Sea Lord: ‘I do appreciate the fact you and the Admiralty are not to blame about St Paul’s. Strange that the Church instead of giving you Peace of Mind should destroy it.’ Chatfield’s son Ernle, the 2nd Baron, told historian Arthur Marder that his father always thought it was the wives who had exacerbated the Jellicoe-Beatty dispute over Jutland.

Declining mental health under the stress of war and wartime led the women behind the fleet into all sorts of difficulties and took their men into different channels rather than bringing their ships and fleets safely into harbour. The wandering Lady Beatty was a neurotically sick wife, and the Earl was endlessly solicitous in trying to end her worry and her misery. For consolation and friendship he took up with the wife of a fellow naval officer, the adorable and adoring Eugenie Godfrey-Fausset. This was perhaps the naval romance of the twentieth century, and similarly tortuous to that of Emma and Nelson, but passed without much gossip or social spiking. Some day more will be known about Edith and Eugenie – and from Beatty’s perspective the former provided agony and the latter ecstasy. Some marriages provide neither. He was patiently devoted to his wife, wrote Geoffrey Bennett, a retired naval officer, in his Battle of Jutland, and bore this all without complaint. ‘There are aspects of Nelson’s life which are open to sharper criticism, but no one questions his right to look down on the heart of London from the summit of a column in Trafalgar Square.’

In many cases navy wives wore more gold braid than their husbands. They glorified the history of the Navy, and they gloried in its greatness. After all, they played their share in its success – as wives, mothers and keepers of the flame. One of them, Lady Marjorie Duff, widow of Admiral Sir Alexander Duff (who had instituted convoys in April 1917 on a trial basis), insisted that the historian Arthur Marder meet all sorts of other naval widows and thereby have the chance to consult the golden treasures to be found in the naval papers kept in their private hands. She made the introductions; Marder did the rest. Widows wanted their husbands included in the historical record. They also wanted the full story of Britain’s sea battles to be known, especially in an age when other services were receiving ever more (and, some thought, unwarranted) attention. And let us not leave out mothers. David Beatty’s mother had a full size portrait of Nelson painted for her son, and he kept it on exhibit in the captain’s room of the battlecruiser Lion.

The diplomatic influence of women ‘on station’ was out of all proportion to their few numbers. Admiral Sir Frederick Dreyer, C-in-C Far East, had his wife Una, Lady Dreyer with him on various visits to Japan. Although we do not know the impact this made on the Japanese we do know that the social relations with the United States Ambassador to Japan and his wife were important in helping the Dreyers gain a better understanding of the Japanese and their political system. Even to the days of the last First Sea Lord the power of women remained influential. Earl Mountbatten of Burma’s wife, Edwina, bought money and social influence to the marriage. She was closely connected to Nehru when her husband was Viceroy of India and may have influenced the course of Indian independence or later politics. As for the Earl, he later confessed that for most of his life and that of his wife they had spent much time in and out of the beds of other people.

Finally, there is the sad business of Lord Prince Louis Mountbatten, the German born Admiral of the Fleet who was one of the Navy’s greatest sailors and administrators. A campaign of persecution began with Lord Charles Beresford from the time he obtained senior responsibility, about 1907, and aided by journalists and cruel and bigoted naval officers and their wives the Prince was driven from his post as First Sea Lord in November 1914, to be replaced by Sir John Fisher. Fisher, we might note in passing and conclusion, lived his later life far from his loving wife. Instead, he took up a close sexual liaison with an American, the Duchess of Hamilton, wife of a naval officer. The husband was an invalid and a friend of Jacky’s (Fisher). In later years, Admiral Lord Fisher was fond of the thought that he, too, like Nelson, had his own adoring Lady Hamilton. We leave this theme now, a little sadly, for there is much more to be written about ‘the women behind th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction
• Preface & Acknowledgements
• Prologue: Arthur Marder’s ‘That Hamilton Woman: Emma and Clio Reconciled’
• Chapter 1: Patroness of the Navy: The Women Behind the Fleet
• Chapter 2: Emma Meets Hamilton
• Chapter 3: Emma Meets Nelson
• Chapter 4: Emma Meets Fanny
• Chapter 5: Nelson and Emma Meet Immortality
• Sources Writing Emma and Nelson