Emma: the war hero's wannabe

29 September 2006, The Northern Echo
By Sarah Foster, Women’s Editor

In the 18th century, Emma Hamilton rose from the humblest of backgrounds to become England's biggest star. Now a new biography reveals the woman behind the myths. Women's Editor Sarah Foster speaks to its author and finds out how |Emma's love for Nelson proved her undoing.

'I LOVE him, I adore him, my mind and soul is now transported with the thought of that blessed ecstatic moment when I shall see him, embrace him... I must sin on and love him more than ever. It is a crime worth going to hell for."

Reading these words for the first time, in the dusty setting of the British Library, Kate Williams was overwhelmed. As part of her PhD on 18th century seduction, she had already trawled through endless letters, yet none had moved her quite like this. "It was just amazing," recalls the 31-year-old. "It was just her whole heart poured out onto the page. I'd never read anything like it."

The letter's author was Emma Hamilton, the infamous star who went from poverty to acclaim; its longed-for subject: none other than Emma's lover and England's greatest military hero, Horatio Nelson. How she came to take her place at the very top of British society is one of history's greatest tales - and one that having caught a glimpse of Emma's world, Kate felt compelled to tell.

" I was just so excited by her and I began to look into the letters a bit more," she says. "I began to realise that there were lots of new ones that hadn't been worked on. A lot of the work that had been done on her was based on a 19th century edition of her letters but because it was catering for the Victorian market, it cut out a lot of the racy stuff and a lot of the female ambition. What came across to me was her desperate ambition to become a star."

Born Amy Lyon into grinding poverty in a village outside Chester, the infant Emma had no real chance of a happy life. Becoming a servant at an early age, she spent her days employed in dirty, back-breaking work, from which it seemed there was no escape. Yet Emma was not like other girls who merely bore this as their lot. When she was barely in her teens, she moved to London to chase her dreams.

" I think they were very vague at the start," says Kate. "She had a vision of glitter, riches, fame and passion and that's what she was driven to get. Initially, she wanted to become an actress but she didn't get very far. She became an actress's maid and when she was fired she had no choice but to go on the streets. She was a street walker in Covent Garden. She was really the lowest of the low."

But Emma had one thing in her favour: her stunning good looks made her desirable to men. It wasn't long before she found a better job. "She was snapped up by this guy called Dr James Graham, who ran a sex show called the Temple of Health," says Kate, who lives in London. "It was hilarious. He put on these shows every night where glamour girls in flimsy dresses pretended to be goddesses. From there, Emma got a job as a dancer in one of London's most exotic brothels and one of her clients took her on for long-term hire in his house in Suffolk."

The man in question, a wealthy playboy called Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, treated Emma as a toy. When she fell pregnant, at just 16, he felt the need to cast her off. "She was desperate and all her dreams suddenly came to an end," says Kate. "One of Sir Harry's friends, Charles Greville, agreed to take her on but with lots of conditions. She had to change her name to Miss Emma Hart and she had to be very quiet, very retiring, not see any of her friends and hide in his house in the country, which she did because she was desperate. She had her baby and he sent it away to live with her family in Cheshire. For the next couple of years he set about turning her into a modest young lady."

The cruel irony was that just as Charles began to see success, his interest in Emma began to wane. Her rising celebrity didn't help. "She modelled for (the renowned portrait painter) George Romney and he fell in love with her and painted her obsessively," says Kate. "She was a hugely popular muse and people copied her fashions and men adored her. Charles couldn't really cope with her fame so he went to his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, and said 'give me some money to get married and I'll send you Emma in exchange'. William Hamilton said 'I don't want your cast off mistress'."

Yet Sir William, then the equivalent of England's ambassador to Naples, was soon won round to Charles's plan. Emma understandably felt betrayed but made the best of her predicament, and her blend of spirit, looks and charm made him glad he had been. In 1791, in what was seen as a shocking move, he told his friends he planned to marry her. It seemed that Emma was on her way. "She became the most popular ambassadress in Naples," says Kate. "She did these dances called Attitudes based on classical stories and she became friends with the Queen of Naples and the Neapolitan court. She also met Marie Antoinette. Then when she was 33, Napoleon was coming to invade so she wrote to Nelson saying 'please come and save us, we're desperate'. He went straight from the Battle of the Nile to Naples to see her."

For all that Nelson was rather short with ginger hair and a Norfolk drawl, his great success in beating Napoleon had made him England's foremost catch. To Emma's mind, the matter was simple: although she was married, she had to have him. Apparently Nelson felt the same. "What's so interesting is that she and Nelson were attracted to each other for such superficial reasons," says Kate. "Initially, she just thought 'I'll get some extra celebrity' but she couldn't help but fall passionately in love with him. On one hand she was ambitious but on the other she was led by her heart."

When Emma returned to England hugely pregnant with Nelson's child, the scandal stuck to her like mud. Yet, unabashed, the golden couple set up home and for five charmed years, led a hedonistic life. "It was like Beckingham Palace," says Kate. "It was this big tasteless shrine to Emma and Nelson and it became the social mecca of the time."

But Emma's luck was running out. With Nelson's death in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, her privileged world came crashing down. Without the means to pay her debts she fled to France, where just before her 50th birthday, she died a pauper.

In Kate's assessment, while truly sad, Emma's demise reflected how she lived her life. "It was quite fitting because she was so much about living fast and dying young," she says. "She went completely full circle - from rags to riches and then back to rags again."

Her fascination is just how radical she was; how when her fate was to be low, sheer ambition helped her reach the highest station. "Something in her was convinced that she could make her way up society," says Kate. "She had the most amazing life - full of so much energy and colour. She was almost like a time traveller in that she moved through different worlds."

* England's Mistress, The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton by Kate Williams (Hutchinson, £20).