The Divine Lady: A Romance of Nelson and Emma Hamilton

by L. Adams Beck

In those days every interest of Naples centred on the sea and the news it might bring. The French were still occupying the republic they had made of Rome and Roman territory and therefore the menace, broken on the sea, was still very near them by land. But what did that count in the whirlwind of praise and admiration they were preparing for the coming of Nelson? He who had performed miracles could perform yet another.

Emma fanned the flame with all her power, and her power was not small. Sir William was ill and tired with anxiety. He could rise to the occasion on an emergency, but more and more the reins of power dropped from aging hands and as they dropped she gathered them up, silently, skilfully, and Nelson knew—and not Nelson only—that she was virtually the British Ambassador in Naples. An amazing position for a beautiful woman of thirty-three even if her antecedents had been those of one of the English governing families, but almost terrifying when her life and misfortunes are considered. And the more so because the French Jacobins were interested in discovering any blot on the scutcheon of their inveterate enemy. Their agents in London searched out every detail of her life. Nothing was unknown to them, and then they set to work to embellish what needed no embellishment. “The Neapolitan Messalina” they called her and defeated their own object except in France, for even the most censorious knew that she had been a stainless wife to Sir William; never a breath to the contrary had sullied her. Indeed, her faith to him, her deep enthralling gratitude for the great gifts he had given, became her conscience, and not Lucretia herself was more circumspect than Emma.

Perhaps she was not very severely tempted. There is a modern writer who holds that there is no such thing as temptation in the usual sense of the word, that when two alternatives are presented the mental struggle is merely one of discrimination on grounds low or high according to the mental status of the man, and that invariably he succumbs to the delight that draws him most strongly, and can do no otherwise. St. Augustine, skilled in the windings of the human heart, declares that “we needs must follow what most delights us.” It may be a fatal passion wrestling with the longing for the pure heart, the position that cannot be impugned, the answer of what is called a clear conscience, but that the line of least resistance must and will be followed is as certain as that night follows day.

To Emma, besieged by many lovers, vain and light-hearted, in love with success and admiration, there had been many so-called temptations since the happy day which made her Lady Hamilton. She trifled with them, laughed and passed on, for she discriminated. It might be pleasant to have princes sighing at her feet, but she had tasted the insecurities of vice and was far more passionately tempted by her great position and the power, the enlarged stage it gave her. She had but to remember how easily the bonds of mere passion are broken and the woman always the scapegoat, to cling with all the rigidity of virtue to her honours.

And there was gratitude to Sir William, truly and deeply felt, to set side by side with the knowledge that no other man in the world could give her what he gave—the chance to distinguish herself in the theatre of Europe. In other words, she had never as yet been tempted. She had never seen anything she could for one moment weigh against all she held in the hollow of her hand.

As to Nelson, commingled with his burning gratitude for her help, and the strange and shining glamour that surrounded her in his soul, his heart was faithful to his Fanny. He was the child of the parsonage, trained to habits of prayer and reference of his daily concerns to God—except, indeed, when matters went very contrary with him, and a good round oath or two would speed the business; but then God would not be hard upon a sorely tried seaman who admitted with contrition that he was in the wrong, and who did his utmost for a country whose cause was God’s.

Bad men were faithless to their wives. He had kept his eyes open in foreign ports and knew, and he was aware that this was a subtle poison which sapped the character in subtle ways. He was not analytic by any means, and could have given no reason for it, but knew very well he would sooner have his clean-living Troubridge or Collingwood beside him when the French were in the offing than a ladies’ man like X or Y with a wife in every port. The two kinds of stability went together and he could not tell why. He despised the lax livers. And since his country and the service came first with him, he also had had no difficulty in discrimination between idle passion and duty.

So with blare of trumpet and beat of drum and flutter of flags against blue skies, the battered, victorious Fleet came slowly up by Capri on a cloudless September day, and Emma, conscious of personal glories past and to be which fused and melted in the rays of Nelson’s halo, prepared herself for the greatest day of her experience. The Queen was ill, worn out with joy and grief, and the Ambassadress would be the chief lady, even surpassing in interest the Crown Princess Clementine. The long-suffering Teresa was wild with excitement. Excellenza must shine, must eclipse all others on this day when the Great Admiral, the saviour of Italy, was coming to receive her homage. A dress had been specially prepared; white, of course; with the pale blue sash which Emma still preferred to all else, and across the shoulder and breast a broad ribbon like that of the Bath with the words “Nelson of the Nile” embroidered in bullion. Red, white and blue, the onlookers shall observe! About her neck hung his miniature set in small pearls and painted by the artistic Miss Cornelia Knight, acting at this time almost as her informal secretary. She was “alla Nelson” as she phrased it, from head to rosetted shoes.

When she descended to the carriage that was to take them to the Royal yacht, Sir William looked at her with pride and pleasure. His fondness was taking on the tone of a father to a favourite daughter as he aged and she blossomed.

“I never saw you look better, Emma mia. Now spare yourself a little, I entreat you. It will be a day of great emotions, and you know how these excitements try you.”