England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton (34 page)

Emma had her hands full. The queen needed her more than ever, and Sir William's attacks of gout and stomach upsets were becoming very frequent. He was often too ill to attend court, let alone gain privileged access to Ferdinand by hunting and partying with him. He needed his wife to care for him, act as his secretary (he was often too ill to write), and attend court with redoubled vigor to make up for his absence. If all this were not enough, more English visitors arrived than ever before. Since Paris was in bloody chaos, there was nowhere else for the tourist bent on self-indulgence. Emma sighed that her "breakfast, dinner & supper is like a fair."

She was becoming weary of performing her Attitudes for clamoring guests. Although they wanted to see her famous poses of Niobe and Cleopatra, they were rather discomfited by her performances now that she
was married. When she was a mistress, they had praised her unreservedly (they were used to enjoying performances by actresses with dubious pasts). But once she was their equal (often superior) as Lady Hamilton, women, particularly of the minor aristocracy, became uneasy about expressing approbation. Just so no one might think them taken in, they now made a point of declaring that she betrayed her humble past, wrecking the wonderful feelings she had inspired in her audience by exclaiming in a thick Northern accent, "Ah, Sir Willum, I've dropped me Joug."
⁶
Men tended to be more forgiving, one young squire proclaiming that her performance "joins every grace that ever was united to the greatest beauty of face and person."
⁷

The palazzo hit a new level of social glitter when Mrs. Elizabeth Billing-ton arrived, trailing glamour and luscious blond hair. The highest-paid opera singer in England, she was famous for her extraordinary three-octave range and expressive acting, and she aimed to take advantage of the city's new status as Europe's favorite aristocratic playground. The Hamil-tons eagerly introduced her at court. She was soon appointed prima donna at the city's San Carlo Opera, and the Neapolitans fell in love with her— so much so that when their priests later declared that Vesuvius erupted to express God's displeasure at seeing a Protestant on the stage of a Catholic city, they ignored them. She and Emma had much in common, for both knew the power of an image (indeed, she had copied her hostess's St. Cecilia pose when she had sat for Romney). After performances, Mrs. Billington always directed her carriage to whisk her to Emma's home. In Sir William's handsome rooms, she struck up an intimacy with the plump, asthmatic young Prince Augustus, George Ill's sixth son, who was in disgrace after recently marrying Lady Augusta Murray without his father's permission. When the sumptuous carriages of Mrs. Billington and the prince were outside the palazzo, Emma's salon was more of a fair than ever. An invitation to hear the opera singer and the runaway royal singing duets was the hottest ticket in town.

As in England, Emma's most frequent visitors and closest friends were Whig supporters: Sir Charles Blagden, Lord Cholmondeley, Lord Palmer-ston, Lord and Lady Plymouth, the Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Foster, Lady Webster, and Lord Bristol, Emma's particular friend. After King George had refused to receive Emma at court, Sir William had become somewhat less staunchly loyal to the Tory party, and he raised no protest as his wife turned his home into a salon for Whigs abroad, all of them intent on their principle that wealth and property, not simply aristocratic title,
should confer power. Any gathering attended by the Whigs soon became a gambling party, and thousands were squandered at faro, quinze, and hazard, games of pure chance played in groups. The frisson of play lay in trying to second-guess one's neighbor's hand, and in acting, pretense, and double bluff—all skills at which Emma excelled. In 1793, Sir William gave her a birthday present of a necklace of fabulous diamonds as a bribe to stop her from throwing down so many notes onto the gambling table.

There were other matters to worry about. In France, a diminutive Cor-sican, Napoleon Bonaparte, had risen to be commander in chief of the army. His troops were rampaging through Europe, and they were heading for Naples.

CHAPTER 30
In Fear of Napoleon

M
aria Carolina was frantic. She vacillated between fear of being overthrown by a Jacobin mob and terror of a French invasion. The king retreated to the hunting field and, as Sir William wrote in exasperation, "accustomed to a life of continued dissipation, gives but little attention to the Affairs of State, which are transacted chiefly by the Queen of Naples and General Acton."
¹
Casting about for a way to save herself, the queen turned to Emma.

Most English notables who visited Naples were related to members of Parliament, and the queen wanted Emma to introduce them to her and help persuade them that Britain should assist in the defense of Naples. Emma dropped heavy hints to Greville, hoping her ex-lover might pass the information to his friends in government. The queen, she wrote, "loves england and is attached to our ministry and wishes the continuation of the war as the onely means to ruin that abominable french council." Maria Carolina ran a clever publicity campaign, presenting herself to smitten English visitors as a vulnerable queen and a great admirer of Britain.
²
In England, Whig leader Charles Fox, convinced that the French wished for peace, was the voice of the anti-war movement. Tories and supporters of the war-mongering Prime Minister Pitt did not generally need to be persuaded that the French desired to subjugate all Europe. By introducing the Duchess of Devonshire, the Hollands, Blagden, and the rest to Maria Carolina, Emma hoped to inspire Fox's friends to support the cause of war.

In 1794, the queen wrote to Emma asking her to tell the company at their commemoration of King George's birthday that she would sing their
national anthem to them and "I wish and desire all happiness to the King, to whom I have vowed a friendship without limits." She was delighted that the Neapolitan alliance between Naples and Britain "permits me to express the sentiments which I have always cherished in my heart towards England." She requested to see English visitors, such as Mrs. North, presumably a relation to Lord North, former prime minister. Sir William sent a copy of the letter to England, as Maria Carolina had hoped he would. The queen also deputized Emma to find out more from her visitors about the plans of the English government.

Many of Emma's new friends became her admirers. She escorted the Earl of Bristol, who was "very fond of me," to Maria Carolina, with whom "we spent four hours in an enchantment." Lady Holland observed that Bristol was "a great admirer of Lady Hamilton, and conjured Sir William to allow him to call her Emma." She was surprised by Bristol's interest in such a commoner, although she thought that his attraction to her "beauty and her wonderful attitudes is not singular." Bristol sneered at Sir William as a shriveled "piece of walking
verd-antique,
" a cruel joke that he could not keep up with his handsome wife, but Sir William trusted Emma and encouraged her close friendships with powerful men.
³
For him, they were perfectly innocent, a natural extension of her warm, outgoing personality.

Emma always set out to make people fall in love with her. She was tactile and loved to flatter. In private, she could not stop gushing about Maria Carolina as "the Queen whom I adore" and claimed "nor can I live without her," and to the queen's face she was even more excitably emotional. She declared her a "mother, friend & everything," her "talents are superior to every woman in the world," "she is the first woman in the world." The queen addressed her intimately. As she wrote to her when Sir William fell ill, "I would fain keep you company, my friendship might comfort you."

The Hamiltons spent their third wedding anniversary with Maria Carolina in Quisiana, a smaller seaside palace that Ferdinand used as a base for fishing trips, and Sir William told her, as she wrote to Greville, he "loved me better than ever & had never for one moment repented." She continued with her music and rode out regularly with the queen, who supplied her with horses, an equerry, and her own servant. If not entertaining at home, her evenings were occupied by crowded balls and concerts at court. Although she was busy, she was also trying to fill her time, trying to stave off unhappiness. After four years of marriage, Emma was realizing that the palazzo would never be full of children. "He is the best husband and
friend," she later wrote. "I wish I could say father also; but I should have been too happy if I had the blessing of having children, so must be content." As Emma could persuade Sir William to nearly anything, we have to presume that the hints in the English gossip columns were correct: he was sterile (male infertility was discussed as impotence) and could not impregnate even a healthy young partner.

Her childlessness was doubly painful for Emma because she had a better chance of bringing her daughter to Naples if she could have babies with her husband. She turned to Greville for help, begging him, "Do send me a plan how I could situate little Emma, poor thing." Little Emma knew that her stepfather was a great aristocrat and ambassador, and she was desperate to live with her mother. Although Greville had instructed her guardians to tell her that she should expect nothing "beyond the quiet & retired life," he was hopeful that his uncle might change his mind. He told Sir William that since her health was too delicate to put her into service, he should bring her to live in the Palazzo Sessa, as Mrs. Cadogan's niece, or give her a dowry and marry her to a "good sort of man," like a clergyman. Sir William refused to bring her to the palazzo and was adamant he would not expose himself by making inquiries in England about suitors. Little Emma had no choice but to accept that her future would entail what she most dreaded: work as a governess.

Emma's daughter had to find out about her mother through the fashion magazines. The dresses at the English royal birthday galas throughout 1794 and 1795 were "á la Emma": white satin crepe and petticoats, simple drapery, and gold headbands, while the fashionable hairstyle was a simple arrangement of curls around the head. Rehberg's book of Emma's Attitudes had become a fashion magazine. As one journalist reported in 1796, by "following the style of dress, and the arrangement of drapery, in the fine remains of antiquity, the present taste has happily emancipated the ladies from the ridiculous lumber of the late fashions, from powder, whalebone and cork, flounces and furbelows."
⁴
Even actual items were named after Emma's favorite poses: a special "Iphigenia Veil" was very popular, as were "Minerva Lapels."
⁵
In 1795, the
Lady's Magazine
fashion reporter described how Emma's outfit, as in the Romney portrait
Emma Hart in Morning Dress,
had become the latest look: a bonnet of black velvet over hair combed into light curls, a full cravat around the neck, and a black satin cloak.
⁶
The
Bacchante
of Emma running with a dog, infamous because everybody knew Greville commissioned it in an attempt to foist Emma onto Sir William, was finally engraved from Romney's private
copy, in which Emma's left breast was almost entirely exposed. Prints were soon selling wildly.

Hackwriters and popular novelists continued to work Emma into their fanciful narratives. A magazine serial "The Adventures of Emma," published in 1796, tells the story of a wholesome country girl who "blended the artless simplicity of rural life with the more refined sentiments of cultivated education" and succeeds in marrying her much more aristocratic lover after she proves herself by escaping seduction.
⁷
The real Emma, however, had come a long way from such a sentimental representation. She was an active participant in the turbulent politics of the Neapolitan court. As she boasted to Greville, her situation there was "very extraordinary & what no person as yet arrived at."

In 1795 Emma turned thirty and the Palazzo Sessa became a hothouse for spies. Charles of Spain, King Ferdinand's brother, was considering an alliance with France, and he was secretly trying to encourage Ferdinand to join him. But the queen had not softened toward the French as the "murderers of my sister and the royal family" who have "put poniard and poison into the hands of all classes and peoples against legitimate authority." The British navy, however, was overstretched and the government was increasingly preoccupied with defending its own territories in the Mediterranean. They suggested Naples make peace with France.

Emma made almost daily trips to the palace, carrying letters and news or introducing diplomats and dignitaries. Her task was complex: along with John Acton and the small pro-English faction at court, she promised to the apprehensive queen that the British were trustworthy and could protect them. At the same time, she was trying to persuade the British government, by means of letters and strong hints to visiting diplomats, that if they did not make a commitment, then Naples might well unite with Spain. She vouched that if Naples partnered with the English, Ferdinand and Maria Carolina would fulfill the terms of the treaty.
⁸
She was also gathering information for her home government. Maria Carolina gave Emma information about King Charles's plans from her spies in Spain, and Emma was able to send to England copies of signed letters from the King of Spain to Ferdinand in which he confirmed he would ally with the French.
⁹
She wrote to Greville, "We have been 3 days 7 nights writing to send by this courier letters of
consequence
for our government. They ought to be gratefull to Sir William & myself
in particular.
"