Kate Williams Read online

  Under the twinkling lights in the courtyard, Nelson and Emma were obviously absorbed in each other. Josiah began to suspect that Lady Hamilton had been kind to him only in order to win his stepfather. He was equally horrified that nobody seemed to object to his stepfather’s obvious infatuation. Used to the culture of the cicisbeo, in which young married women had platonic male friends to squire them around, the Neapolitans thought Nelson just another of Emma’s cicisbeo and quite naturally so, since he was a British naval captain and she was the wife of the British envoy. Sir William was equally sanguine, believing it was yet another of his wife’s passing flirtations with a powerful man. He trusted Emma, for she had always been faithful to him. If she had resisted some of England’s wealthiest aristocrats, why would she want a grubby, half-blind, one-armed little sailor? Eighteen months short of his eightieth birthday and doggedly hanging on to influence, he knew that if he was seen as manipulating the great naval hero, his own position at the Neapolitan court would be unassailable. He showered his new friend with compliments, hailing him as the kingdom’s “Guardian Angel from the Ruin with which it has been long menaced.“3 Nelson, Emma, and Sir William described themselves as the tria luneta in uno (shortened from tria coniuncta in uno, or three joined together as one). Sir William plotted for Naples, while Emma and Nelson wallowed in flirtation—and stardom. Every time Nelson went outside, he attracted a mob of tearful, grateful Neapolitans, wearing their Nelson shawls and crying, “Viva Nelson!“4 Nelson was soon intoxicated by Naples and completely obsessed with Emma.

  After the party, Emma became Nelson’s secretary and political facilitator. She translated from French and Italian for him, guided him around the court, and escorted him to the queen. “Lady Hamilton is an angel,” he wrote to St. Vincent, describing her as “my Ambassadress to the Queen.” She had been his nurse, companion, and social hostess, and now she was his assistant. When they were not working, they were confessing all to each other. Emma confided her fears about invasion and her sadness at not having children with her husband. She and Nelson had shared aims, they were no longer deeply in love with their partners, and they were both susceptible to romantic attachment. They were soon hopelessly in love with each other.

  Hints about the relationship between the glamorous celebrity mistress-ambassadress and the hero of the Nile began to appear in the English newspapers. By November 1798, less than two months after his arrival in Naples, everybody was gossiping that the two biggest sex symbols of their day were having an affair. Female figures who closely resembled Emma soon began to feature on the commemorative Nelsonia—boxes, pendants, pictures, and ribbons. The phrase tria iuncta in uno began to appear in caricatures and pictures, with sly puns turning “joined” into a sexual innuendo. In lonely Roundwood, Lady Nelson stared at the gossip in the newspapers and read her husband’s letters overflowing with extravagant praise for the Hamiltons and reports of glamorous balls and the adulation he had received. “Lord Hood always expressed his fear that Sir W and Lady Hamilton would use their influence to keep Lord Nelson with them: they have succeeded,” she lamented.5 She laid much of the blame on Josiah, believing his truculence had finally infuriated his stepfather enough to push him into the arms of Emma and Sir William.

  Fanny decided to act. First she instructed Josiah to remember he was lucky to have “such a father to bring you forward.“6 Then she went to Alexander Davison. As Nelson’s prize agent, financial wheeler-dealer Davison administered the money his client was awarded when he captured ships as well as attending to his wider financial and administrative affairs, and he wrote frequently to the palazzo. Fanny begged him to communicate her threat to her husband that if he did not return, she would come out to Naples.7 Davison did not offer, as she had expected, to accompany her. Europe was dangerous, and it might take her four months to reach Naples. Nelson’s Admiralty superiors also refused to assist. Fanny gave in and consoled herself that going out would confirm all the rumors and only annoy her husband. She hoped that if she stayed put and kept sending regular, chatty letters, Lady Hamilton would turn out to be just another irrelevant dolly.

  Nelson had little experience of royalty, so he was excited by his intimacy with Maria Carolina and his privileged entry into the gilded heart of the Neapolitan court. Here he felt appreciated, whereas the Admiralty had sidelined him for years and the government had made him only a baron after his victory at the Battle of the Nile. Emma wrote to Fanny that Sir William “was in a rage with the Ministry for not having made Lord Nelson a viscount,” and she added, “Hang them I say!” To Nelson, she rhapsodized, “If I was King of England, I would make you the most noble puissant Duke Nelson, Marquis Nile, Earl Alexandria, Viscount Pyramid, Baron Crocodile, and Prince Victory.“8

  “Baron Crocodile” was yearning for another fix of glory. He could see a chance to lead the war against Napoleon by taking a key role in an offensive against the French planned by John Acton and the Neapolitan court and endorsed by Sir William, with Emma as a passionate devotee. It was necessary: Nelson’s arrival in Naples trailing the battered French ships captured at Aboukir contravened Ferdinand’s treaty with France and made a French invasion almost inevitable. Ferdinand would send thirty thousand Neapolitan soldiers to capture Rome, and Nelson was to support them by delivering four thousand soldiers (the Neapolitan navy carried another six thousand) to take Leghorn back from France. Emma, convinced that Nelson was invincible, enthused about the plan. Nelson’s commander did not intervene, even though his mission in Naples should have been purely defensive. Almost as infatuated with the queen as he was with Emma, Nelson went to rouse the land troops before they set off, with Emma as his interpreter and Maria Carolina at his side.

  On November 29, Ferdinand entered Rome, accompanied by his soldiers. Within a week, the French had beaten him and taken ten thousand prisoners. The king’s failure forced Nelson to abandon the attack on Leghorn. “Viscount Pyramid” was furious, declaring that the Neapolitan officers ran the first thirty miles out of Rome. The king fled back to his palace, and by December 15, the French troops were closing in on Naples from the north. Emboldened by the approach of the French, pro-republican Jacobins began to demonstrate more virulently against the king. The royalist mob was equally violent, incensed by rumors that the king and queen intended to flee. When a royal messenger was murdered right under Ferdinand’s windows, the queen began telling anybody who would listen that the Neapolitan Jacobins would soon storm the palace.9 Emma declared she would go to the block with the queen, but Maria Carolina was not planning to be seized from her home like her sister. She and the king decided to flee to their palace in Sicily, although the stormy December weather made it the worst time to travel. Many of the courtiers were elderly, and the hereditary princess had recently given birth, but the departure of the entire court with their belongings and retinues had to be organized in under a week. Emma took charge. It was her most daunting challenge to date.

  Royalist mobs roamed the streets in search of Jacobins to attack, and there were pitched battles between the two sides. Passions were running so high that no one, not even a stranger, was safe in the streets. Afraid of capture, Sir William and Nelson refused to visit the king and queen. They sent Emma in their place, consoling themselves that the mob was used to seeing her go to the palace every day and would think that, as a woman, she was irrelevant to politics. Emma prided herself on never being afraid, especially now she was trying to impress Nelson, and she was eager to take on the role of messenger.

  Sir William’s task was to evacuate the British citizens in Naples, and he arranged three transports from Nelson for those who wished to leave. He was even more preoccupied in ensuring that his pictures and vases were packed and sent to England. Nelson was concerned with military matters and readying the ships to take their royal cargo. With the male duo of the tria iuncta in uno preoccupied, Emma had to take care of the logistical nightmare of preparing the royal family to leave. Maria Carolina dwelt obsessively on her sister’s botched flight f
rom Paris, and Emma tried to allay her fears. The entire royal family and court had never moved en masse, and there was brutal competition over who was allowed on the same boat as the king, how much luggage they would take, and even the order in which they would embark.

  Ferdinand and Maria Carolina declared that they needed all their treasure, china and glass, pictures, clothes, jewels, and hunting paraphernalia, and much of their furniture. When they declared they did not trust their own navy to take them, they offended their remaining loyalists and upset the British, who had expected to travel on Nelson’s ship. Terrified of a last-minute crush, Maria Carolina made an invitation card for those she wished to accompany her, which she designated a ticket of admission to Nelson’s boat.10 She wrote to Emma on the seventeenth that she was sending her “all our Spanish money, both the King’s and my own.” Sixty thousand gold ducats and the diamonds were to follow. Emma inscribed on the back “My adorable unfortunate Queen!” Maria Carolina declared she was drowning in tears, and worried whether it was all right to send so much. Emma spent six nights waiting for contraband deliveries of the “Jewells, money & effects of the Royall familly” and giving them to British sailors to transport to the ships. Carriages bumped up into her courtyard, packed with jumbles of clothes, jewels, linen, sculpture, and toys. Emma packed them up in boxes, disguising most of them as “Stores for Nelson.” She told Greville of her “many such strategems” for hiding her work from foreign spies and the angry mob, hoping he would mention her to those influential in government. She explained how “I got those treasures em-bark’d and this point gain’d, the king’s resolution of coming off was strengthened; the queen I was sure of.” Sir William judged their stash worth the incredible sum of £2.5 million. Emma had helped to smuggle out the contemporary equivalent of nearly $240 million in gold, plus millions of dollars’ worth of jewels.

  The Neapolitans spotted the ships waiting in the bay and convoys of goods heading to the Palazzo Sessa. Many cheered, while others became riotous, crowding around the palace and begging the king not to leave. “I am overwhelmed with misery and confusion,” the queen wrote desperately to Emma. “I’ve lost my head tonight, I’m sending some more trunks… believe me the saddest of mothers and queens but your sincere friend, Charlotte.” Emma scrawled on the back of the letter, “God protect us this night.“11 The queen sent her a final passenger list, adamant that Emma keep a hawk’s eye out for anyone of a lower station trying to sneak on.

  Emma and Sir William, Mrs. Cadogan, and their servants slipped away from the Palazzo Sessa on December 21 and walked to the shore, where they boarded a boat to travel to the Vanguard. The ship was anchored safely out of range of the forts, and, thanks to the rough weather, the journey there took more than two hours. Meanwhile, the king and queen, convulsed by panic about leaving, threatened to stay put. Nelson took matters into his own hands and, as Emma described to Greville, traveled to the palace by armed boat, “got up the dark staircase that goes in to the Queen’s room & with a dark lantern, cutlasses, pistol, etc, etc, brought off every soul, ten in number to the Vanguard.” The lesser servants, including priests and the king’s surgeon, arrived a few hours later, and the minor courtiers were taken to a ship captained by the Neapolitan admiral Francesco Caracciolo. Everybody else bundled onto twenty transport ships. It was a ridiculously cumbersome operation: hundreds of travelers from England and elsewhere, perhaps a thousand aristocrats, the extensive entourages of two French princesses, and the massive Neapolitan royal family plus all their loot and servants were piled onto warships. All Naples knew they were leaving, but the loyalists who wished them to stay were far outnumbered by those who welcomed their flight.

  At the moment of embarkation, Ferdinand demanded that his servants bring over yet more gold and treasures from the palace. The boat was groaning with the court treasures, and there was no room for the belongings of his humble ambassador. Emma and Sir William left behind three elegantly furnished houses and all their many carriages and horses.

  Nelson had prepared the wardroom for the king, the crown prince, John Acton, a few key male courtiers, and Sir William, and the admiral’s quarters for the women, girls, and younger boys, but there were few home comforts and not enough linen to go around. Emma had presciently brought practical items, and she had sheets, blankets, pillows, crockery, and food to spare. She did her best to make the royal family comfortable.

  Rain fell hard, the sea churned, and the captains battled to keep their vessels upright. The passengers became hysterical with seasickness not long after they embarked. Terrified that the mob might come out in boats and attack and rob them, everybody was desperate to leave Naples, but the weather was too stormy to sail. After being buffeted about for a day and a night, they eventually set out in tossing seas that ripped at the masts. Sailors were expected to work—and fight—under worse conditions, but the Vanguard carried plumped-up royals unused to discomfort. Convinced they were about to capsize, Maria Carolina cried, Ferdinand raged, and the courtiers spent the journey “frightened & on their knees praying.” Sir William huddled alone with a loaded pistol in each hand, declaring that he would not “die with the guggle guggle guggle of salt water” in his throat. The king’s confessor fell out of his bunk and broke his arm, and the Duchess of Castelcicala cut her head on Nelson’s sideboard. As Emma despaired to Greville, the “few women Her Majesty brought on board were incapable of helping her,” and there was only “poor I to attend & keep up the spirits of the Queen, the princess Royall, 3 young princesses, a baby six weeks old & 2 young princes Leopold & Albert, the last 6 years old, my favourite.” Emma gave them beds, helped to arrange for food, and became their full-time servant, tending to the useless courtiers and soothing the fractious Maria Carolina. Nelson claimed later that she did not enter a bed the whole time she was aboard and “became their slave.” Mrs. Cadogan assisted her with the nursing and was so gentle and efficient that, according to Emma, the king hailed her as an angel.

  Emma only slept for a couple of hours at a time, after nights of waiting up to receive the treasures at the palazzo. Refusing to let the experience of being sick defeat them or to droop under the atmosphere of panic, mother and daughter tried to comfort peevish courtiers who had never known hardship, and struggled to keep some kind of order in the rolling ship. Emma tried to snatch every moment she could for her “favourite,” little Prince Albert. Maria Carolina had been eight months pregnant with him when Marie-Antoinette had been executed. When he was born, she had been lost in a cloud of grief and despair and so Emma, newly the queen’s confidante, spent hours petting him, playing with him, and trying to make up for his mother’s inability to pay him much attention. Her heart was deeply touched by his weak health. As a young child, he had been frequently confined to bed. Emma had visited him regularly, and the two became firm friends. She had high hopes that the move to Sicily might improve his health, but almost as soon as he boarded ship, he fell sick. As they set sail, he retreated into sickness and misery, vomiting hopelessly even though he could hardly eat. Soon unable to drink, he was so dehydrated that he fell into convulsions. All she and the queen could do was hope that they would reach land soon. Amongst all the grown men and women claiming that they were terribly ill and could not go on, Prince Albert was actually in danger of death.

  When Christmas Day dawned, Sicily was nearly in sight. Perhaps affected by the new spirit of optimism in the boat, the little prince managed to eat some breakfast. But he quickly fell ill again as the boat smashed over the waves. Emma nursed him all day, but in the evening he fell into hopeless convulsions and died in her arms. Maria Carolina had lost another child less than a year before, and she was shattered. Emma and Mrs. Cadogan had to take the little body away so that it could be cleaned and prepared for burial. Emma tried to comfort the queen, but she was struggling with grief, guilt, and an acute sense of failure that she had not managed to keep Albert alive.

  Emma had spent five days exhausted and covered in dirt. She had hardly had a moment to
think about Nelson. He, however, had been watching her and was deeply impressed by her efficiency and fortitude. When the Vanguard anchored at Palermo, on Sicily’s northern coast, at 2 a.m. on Boxing Day, Nelson was in love with her and anxious to turn their heady flirtation into a full romance.

  CHAPTER 33

  Passions in Palermo

  God onely knows what yet is to become of us, we are worn out,” lamented Emma to Greville after two days in damp and freezing Palermo. Overwhelmed by “anxiety & fatigue,” she was worried about Sir William, who “had 3 days a bilious attack,” and moreover, “my dear adorable Queen whom I love better than any person in the world, is allso unwell.” When the ship arrived, Maria Carolina could not bear to stay on the ship one moment longer, and she, Emma, the other women, and the sad bundle of Prince Albert’s corpse were rowed ashore in secret before dawn. At nine that morning, the king ceremonially disembarked to a warm welcome from the Sicilian people, who had long resented his reluctance to visit the island. They expected him to live in the royal apartments in the city, but they were disappointed. Ferdinand was not about to sit about in dreary Palermo when there were crowds of wild boar to be killed. The royal carriage sped to his hunting grounds just outside the city, now in the Parco della Favorita, less than two miles north of the city center. His family and their entourage, the Hamiltons, and Nelson huddled together in the dilapidated buildings of his hunting lodge, battling to keep warm in a house without fireplaces.