The directory «Plots»

Hamilton Emma
(1763—1815)

Emma Hamilton (Lady Hamilton) is best remembered as the mistress of Horatio Nelson.

Born Emily Lyon in 1765 at Swan Cottage, Ness, she was the daughter of a Wirral blacksmith who died soon after her birth. By all accounts she was an exceptionally beautiful woman. In her teens she was sent to London to work as a nursery-maid but her looks quickly won her fame and she became a celebrated model for fashionable painters most notably, George Romney who painted numerous portraits of her. Emily "Hart" became mistress to Sir Harry Featherstonhough and later, Charles Greville, and was seduced by a naval officer whose child she bore. She also found employment as an Attendant at the "Temple of Health", a suspect medical establishment.

As far as she could, Emily entered into stable relationships and remained faithful to her lovers although she accepted that she could not expect them to marry her. Charles Greville was a nephew of Sir William Hamilton, British Ambassador to Naples, a wealthy widower, scholar and antiquarist. Greville asked his uncle to take Emma because Greville needed to find a suitable wife. Already aged sixty Sir William did not really want to take on a mistress or a wife in her twenties but after much correspondence and eventual acquiescence he agreed that "Emma", as she now was, should join him in Naples where she arrived early in 1786.

Emma did not know of the agreement between Greville and Sir William believing that she was there "on holiday" and she was devastated when the reality of the situation slowly dawned upon her. But, Sir William seems to have acted with great kindness and patience and eventually he and Emma formed a genuinely loving relationship which resulted in their marriage in London in the autumn of 1791.

Sir William was a realist. Emma was a beautiful, vivacious and intelligent woman (she spoke fluent French and Italian) and became a close friend and confidante of Queen Maria Carolina of Naples the sister of Marie Antoinette. He knew very well that his tenure on her affections would, sooner or later, be terminated either by his death or by a younger and more suitable partner..

Nelson was accepted tactfully by the ageing ambassador and he did nothing to interfere in what was obviously becoming a very intense love affair. Nelson was vain and Emma played up to it. They were lovers from 1799 until Nelson's death by which time they were virtually living as husband and wife and making only token efforts to conceal it. His marriage to Frances had been a failure, it was over by 1801, and his letters reveal increasing frustration and exasperation with her. He finally "dismissed" her (her own word) in 1801 in a very explicit and bluntly worded letter. Horatia had been born to Emma a few weeks earlier.

Lady Emma Hamilton died in 1815 in Calais, aged fifty, penniless ten years after her beloved Nelson. Had it not been for the generosity of some of Nelson's friends she would have died in a debtor's prison. What would the great admiral have thought? It was entirely her own fault. Sir William had provided for her and so had Nelson and she could have lived comfortably though modestly if she had moderated her extravagant life . Nelson's own letters however reveal the truth - even if they are cryptic.

Ghana, 2004, Cupid Undoing Venus's Belt

Great Britain, 1995, «That Hamilton Woman»

USSR, 1984, Cupid Undoing Venus's Belt

Vietnam, 1990, Cupid Undoing Venus's Belt