Nelson's Lady Hamilton (35 page)

England conferred honours upon Nelson's brother ; but the woman whom he had loved, and left expressly to the care and the generosity of his country, was ignored. There is little need to go into all the familiar details. Pitt might have done something, but then Pitt died within a week or two of the day on which Nelson was laid to his last glorious rest under the dome of St. Paul's. Before the great State funeral Nelson's chaplain, Dr. Scott, kept devoted watch over the dead hero at Greenwich. From there he wrote to Lady Hamilton, speaking from the depth of his own grief to hers, " Every thought and word I have is about your dear Nelson. Here lies Bayard, but Bayard victorious. ... So help me God, I think he was a true knight and worthy the age of chivalry."

When Nelson was buried, and Pitt, "the Nelson of Ministers," was dead, Emma Hamilton

350 NELSON'S LADY HAMILTON

was left to fight her case against the apathy and self-righteousness of officialdom as best she might. The case did not rest on her merits, but on Nelson's dying wish and pathetic confidence that his country would grant his last request. But that was something which the powers of the day entirely failed to realize. It is true that efforts were made on her behalf, particularly by the Honourable George Rose, who, as his biographer says, " considered that every one belonging to Lord Nelson was a legacy to himself;" though it is plain from the tone of his letters to her that Lady Hamilton did not please him personally. But he drew up petitions for her to present to successive Ministers, and took considerable trouble, all without avail. Her claims to a pension because of her services in the Mediterranean were not sufficiently authentic in the eyes of the Government, and, moreover, as Rose said to her in the midsummer of 1806, "the difficulty in affording you relief is increased to a great extent by the length of time that has elapsed since your claim arose, in which period there have been three administrations." He based some hope, however, on the codicil to Nelson's Will. But a year later he was writing to her—

"The reward recommended by Lord Nelson for yourself, on the score of public services, seems to be now quite desperate. The only hope I can venture to hold out the remotest prospect

}f to you is, that Mr. Canning may possibly :>n some favourable opportunity propose to the Duke of Portland to recommend to the King i small pension to the child."

Thus Emma Hamilton's hopes dwindled, as Ministers grew more cautious and more cold, and :he " favourable opportunity" receded yet further nto the grey distance of things undone. But if :here was caution in official quarters, there was ilso some justification for it. Lady Hamilton's :ase was undoubtedly a difficult one to deal with ; ler connection with Nelson was not one that :ould be publicly and officially acknowledged; ler services to the country rested more on her )wn and the dead hero's assurances than on any Dapers which could be tabulated and pigeon-loled in a satisfactory official manner: altogether, i thorny and awkward matter.

But if the behaviour of British Ministers was ndifferent, that of Earl Nelson was cruel and :ontemptible. When his great brother was iving, when Emma was the dispenser of patron-ige and the fount of power, he fawned upon her. Though a clergyman, he chose to shut his eyes :o the manner of her life ; he let her bring up his laughter Charlotte, and be the intimate friend of lis wife; he accepted everything she had to offer, 'ind was not above asking for more. He flattered ler fulsomely, and when he wished to get any-;hing from his generous and unsuspicious sailor

brother, would choose Lady Hamilton as his envoy. " I leave it to your Ladyship (my best and truest friend)," he wrote to her in 1801, " to say everything to him, for and from me: it will come best from your lips, and adorned with your eloquence."

Yet when Nelson was dead, and the title and the power and the money—far more than had* ever belonged to his heroic brother—had fallens to his share, Emma Hamilton received nothing; save fair words and promises from him, and later not even those. He kept the codicil to Nelson's Will out of her possession till his own prospects were fully assured, and then, Emma says, he tossed it back to her " with a very coarse expression/' telling her to do what she liked with it

Many years later, when poor and exiled at Calais, she wrote bitterly of the conduct ol Nelson's brother: " Earl and Countess Nelson lived with me seven years. I educated Lad) Charlotte and paid at Eton for Trafalgar. . . , They have never given the dear Horatia a frock or a sixpence."

On the other hand, Nelson's sisters, Mrs Bolton and Mrs. Matcham, were faithful in thei: attachment to Lady Hamilton, though owing t( her pecuniary embarrassments and the variouj shifts to which she was driven, they necessaril) saw less of her in later years. At first, however after Nelson's death, things went on very mucl

the same as before at Merton and in London. Before Trafalgar debt had already begun to cast its dark shadow over Emma's horizon of ample worldly prosperity. Nelson had left Merton to her and an annuity of ^500 from his Bronte estates, as well as the interest from the ^4000 settled upon Horatia, and a gift of ^2000 to Herself. Besides this she had ^700 or ^800 a ;j/ear left her by Sir William Hamilton, and his •legacy of ^800. But Emma, who used to keep liccounts so carefully, even down to the halfpenny given to a " poor man/' had long lost the habit of Economy. She was involved in a large way of

iving, and the restraint and effort needed in brder to pull up had become not only most distasteful to her, but almost impossible. Her

noral fibre was permanently slackened, her in-jjpiration and her youth were alike gone, she

:ould never again be strung up to the old brave

Ditch. She still remained excitable and emotional ever ; the grief for Nelson, which she described " sacred," must, nevertheless, be indulged full

n the public eye. Professor Knox Laughton Lays that night after night she attended the

heatre to hear Braham sing the "Death of

kelson;" weeping at the recitative—

" O'er Nelson's tomb, with silent grief opprest, Britannia mourns her hero now at rest; But those bright laurels will not fade with years, Whose leaves are watered by a nation's tears,"

2 A

354 NELSON'S LADY HAMILTON

and fainting at the concluding verse. It cannot be denied that Lady Hamilton was capable of doing such a thing, though it shocks every idea of dignity and reticence, and savours of the tricks of the stage; but it must also be remembered that such actions on her part were not necessarily insincere, though they are obviously shallow.

To the end of her life Emma went under the delusion that her fate and her fortunes were a national affair. Perhaps the most amazing of all her many claims was her expressed wish to be buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. " If I can be buried in St. Paul's, I should be very happy to be near the glorious Nelson, whom I loved and admired," she said, with a paralyzing unconsciousness as to the outrageous nature of her request.

The whole history of her last years is a series of petitions and memorials, none of which were ever heeded, though they were less wild than her request for burial in St. Paul's. The parts of her Prince Regent Memorial referring to her actions before the Battle of the Nile have been quotec in an earlier chapter. But in 1809, under the guidance of Mr. Rose, she stated her claim* in a reasonable and unexaggerated manner " My case is plain and simple," she said; ". rendered a service of the utmost importance t< my country, attested in the clearest and mos undeniable manner possible; and I have receive<

10 reward, although justice was claimed for me

:>y the hero who lost his life in the performance

)f his duty to that country, in one of the most

Brilliant victories that was ever accomplished,

lifter a series of former services unexampled

ilmost in the history of the world. If I had

>argained for a reward beforehand, there can be

10 doubt but that it would have been given to

ne, and liberally; I hoped then not to want it.

do now stand in the utmost need of it, and surely

t will not now be refused to me. I accompany

his paper with a copy of what Lord Nelson

frote in the solemn moments which preceded

le action in which he fell; and I am still not

without a hope that the dying, earnest, entreaty

f such a man, in favour of a child he had adopted

nd was devotedly fond of, will be complied with,

s well as my own application." She concluded

lis memorial by expressing her faith in " the

istness and perfect fairness " of any Government

epartment to which her claims might be referred,

iut added, " If to the Naval one, where they in be well judged of, I should hope for due :tention."

Emma Hamilton always believed in the avy, and always liked seamen. To Earl St. ! incent she wrote—

" MY DEAR LORD, —A strong sense of the deep gard which you have ever shewn, for all that ;lates to the welfare of our country in general,

and consequently to its naval glory in particular; with the tender recollection, how dear you thus rendered yourself to the heart of our immortal and incomparable hero, whose ardent wish it was to see your Lordship always at the head of the Admiralty, a sentiment that still pervades the: bravest bosoms in the navy; have awakened in my heart a hope after so many years of anxiety and cruel disappointment, that the public services of importance, which it was my pride as well as duty to perform, while the wife of his Majesty*s Minister at the Court of Naples, may, possibly, through your Lordship's friendly and generous advice, and most able and active assistance, whicl" I now most earnestly solicit, but a short time longer remains either unacknowledged, or un rewarded, by my King and country. ... I wil not arouse the just indignation of your Lordship'.' great and honourable mind, by reciting the mani petty artifices, mean machinations, and baseb deceptive tenders of friendship, which hitherto have prevented Lord Nelson's dying request fron being duly heard, by those to whom it is s< peculiarly and pathetically addressed."

Poor Emma might well feel herself alone i the world so far as real friends went—hangers-o she always had about her so long as she possesse a penny. But of her real friends and the ol circle that had so pleased her, some were dea< some had gone away, and some were disguste

by her incurable extravagance and foolish passion for exaggeration. By this very Memorial to which she refers in her letter, she lost the support —rather a chilly support, but still influential and valuable to her—of Rose and Canning, owing to some unjustifiable statements she made about their promises to Nelson in regard to her future. Emma never could learn to tell the strict truth—it was almost always too plain and unadorned for her flamboyant taste. And before judging her very obvious failings in this respect and in others too harshly, it is well to remember ihe deep truth and deeper charity of the mad Ophelia's saying, " Lord, we know what we are, Nbut know not what we may be."

Some years before the production of this Prince Regent Memorial of 1813, Lady Hamilton lad come to financial grief. Merton Place, which she loved for its many associations and for all !:he improvements that she and Nelson had jplanned together, and she had carried out with a beckless disregard of cost, had to be sold, and her iffairs were taken in hand by some excellent men ;#ho desired to aid her and disentangle her from i.he wretched state in which she was then living. iFhey formed themselves into a committee, did ihe best they possibly could with her assets, and Cleared her of debt. Emma, of course, was vehemently grateful : " Goldsmid and my city Iriends came forward, and they have rescued me

from Destruction, Destruction brought on by Earl Nelsons having thrown on me the Bills for finishing Merton, by his having secreted the Codicil of Dying Nelson, who attested in his dying moments that I had well served my country. All these things and papers ... I have laid before my Trustees. They are paying my debts. I live in retirement, and the City are going to bring forward my claims."

Thus Emma was pulled out of the Slough of Despond—for a time. But " living in retirement " was against the grain with her ; whatever resolutions she may have taken she certainly managed to see plenty of society at Richmond, where she was residing at this time. The fear of debt could not check her passion for amusement. It may be that she clung so tenaciously to the light and stir of her little world because she felt how blank was the future, how dark the outer circle beyond the rays of the fire and the candlelight. Perhaps she did not dare to sit down and "look before and after and pine for what is not." It is no wonder if there are indications o melancholy in her letters ; the outer props of hei life were crumbling so visibly.

At the beginning of 1810, Fate dealt her ; shrewd blow—her mother died. Mrs. Cadogai had been the greatest support and comfort t< Emma, and in all the vicissitudes of her caree there is no sign of anything but the most perfec

accord and mutual devotion between them. Emma was completely overcome by her loss, and more than a year afterwards wrote, " I have lost the best of mothers, my wounded heart, my comfort, all buried with Her. I can not now feel any pleasure but that of thinking and speaking of her/ 1

There was now only Horatia left, and with Nelson's daughter Emma Hamilton wandered to different places in London—from Bond Street to Albemarle Street, from thence to Piccadilly once more, and then to Dover Street. She might frequent the old haunts, but the old faces were gone, and she again involved herself in debt, for she still kept open house and presented some appearance of prosperity to the people who hung on to her reckless bounty. Then quite suddenly the crash came : she was arrested for debt, and only saved herself from prison by residing with poor Horatia within the rules of the King's Bench. This disaster did not continue very long ; she still had faithful friends, who came to her aid and stood bail, while the Boltons and the Matchams, instead of turning from her, evidently regarded her as a shamefully ill-treated woman. With that marvellous power of recovery with which she had been endowed by nature, and an 1 equally marvellous power of procuring funds or living on credit, Emma established herself again in Bond Street after this episode. But her