England's Mistress: The Infamous Life Of Emma Hamilton (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
This is an exceptional biography at so many levels. It recovers not so much a person as a period.Emma, Lady Hamilton, was a clever but perhaps not always intelligent person of great beauty and charm, and acting skills, who rose from extreme poverty to become the wife of an ambassador and the mistress of a national hero, Lord Nelson.Many biographies of such women present romantic fantasies – the sort of rubber-necking at history of those women who wish life was like a Jane Austen novel. This book is a good corrective.What we have instead is a profound insight into a pre-industrial aristocratic culture where sexuality was a tradable community that women could employ at successive levels of skill in order to rise from the gutter to become the confidante of queens.The morality that started to be imposed on society not long after Emma’s heyday (of which Austen’s novels represent an important cultural staging post) may have helped to weaken much overt exploitation but it also closed off avenues of advancement for poor, good-looking women.The early chapters of her life and the book give us a world far more familiar to us than the late-Victorians – a full-blown celebrity culture with people living on credit and manipulating the media with narratives of sexual scandal.Emma and Nelson were the Posh and Becks of their day with an added element of hysteria that was closer to the fascination of moderns with Diana, Princess of Wales - and with the same public fickleness as soon as their heroes and heroines are shown to be men and women of straw.There is the same merchandising industry, public performance, status games, fashion-setting, and damned hard work that would be recognisable to the likes Jordan, Britney and Rihanna today.For Emma, having done time as a high class hooker and in the period’s equivalent of the adult entertainment industry, and been the good little mistress for a while, the path up the ladder came from her celebrity as an artist’s model, equivalent today to a fashion model.She gets passed by her ‘master’ to his older relative and, somehow, manages, as supermodel, to get herself married, to get entitled by that marriage and to become confidante to the Queen of Naples (which is when Nelson turns up).These central sections of the book are perhaps the most interesting. This is not a book that will endear the reader to the human species. You need be no Marxist to see the essential truth that morality arises from economic conditions – ‘First bread, then morals’ as Brecht pithily put it. The early chapters have already painted a picture of extreme poverty and sexual exploitation that is not a simple case of men exploiting women but of them’s ‘as ‘as exploiting them’s as ‘asn’t. The final chapters will provide a picture of greedy cynicism amongst relatives who would be nothing without the two lovers and whose selfish sheltering behind the strange customs of aristocratic society resulted in a kind if rather dim Emma ending up in poverty and dying in a foreign land.But all this soap opera nastiness – easily most nasty when within families ambitious for cash and preferment – is as nothing compared to the brutalities of Neapolitan aristocratic society towards its own subjects.While deploring the rape and murder of Marie Antoinette’s confidante, the blood lust of the guillotine and Napoleon’s murderous march through Europe, the roots of that horror lie in the callous brutality of the ancient regime.Naples in the late eighteenth century was the epitome of aristocratic cruelty. De Sade might be regarded as the moralist that he rightly was in the context of the actual thuggery of the Neapolitan aristocracy.At one festival, these vile specimens would pile up a mountain of excess food and then entertain themselves by watching the poor fight amongst themselves and tear live animals apart to get at the food.Emma, though born in conditions equivalent to those of the Neapolitan Poor in Northern England, is not one for class-consciousness. She becomes the classic lackey of an oppressing class that only takes to her because she is beautiful and patronised by great men.This is when that vain and courageous little man Nelson pops up – Becks to her Posh in terms of achievement. The man who scores for Ingerland now acquires the media icon of the day.A sort of polyamorous arrangement emerges – Hamilton is in debt and needs Royal patronage, the war hero want to join the highest ranks and will get into debt to do so, and Emma’s sees her future secured as escort to the war hero and ‘England’s Mistress’. But Nelson does not come out of this story well. The little patriotic display near HMS Victory in Portsmouth allows that his treatment of his wife Fanny was problematic. She was not right for him at all but his wanton humiliation of her in public and in favour of Emma was celebrity politics at its most vile.But the real story of Nelson – something to be remembered as we drone people to death across the world – is that he was a war criminal, using a form of slave labour (through impressments) to mount his victories.Impressment is not such an issue. The pressed seemed to have lived better lives than in the rookeries and to have loved their commanders in that way the weaker or more economically desperate members of our species will kow-tow before bigger ‘baboons’.However, in one of the few actions he was involved in away from the sea, Nelson’s breach of treaty with the rebels made him directly complicit in the murder of many Neapolitans in the subsequent purges.We get an account of his vicious treatment of the defeated Admiral Carraciolo that is filled with unnecessary cruelty and malice ... Nelson lacked honour in this act of personal barbarism. But let us put the rather unpleasant and emotionally hysterical Nelson to one side. What is equally interesting is the public hysteria around him and his mistress that certainly required eighteenth century celebrity culture to fuel it but which took such matters to another level entirely. What was this all about? The book is less explicit here but the truth of the matter is that the English middle classes were probably genuinely terrified that their throats would be cut and their property taken by blood-crazed Jacobins.The hysteria about Nelson kicks off with the Battle of the Nile by which Napoleon was deprived of the opportunity to threaten the British stranglehold over India – and a great deal of English wealth was based not on manufactures but on trade at this time.The US colonies had also recently been lost so that the loss of the East might have been a serious economic matter, while the war itself was causing a major down turn with some important trading interests already questioning its purpose.Nelson is thus positioned as saviour of the middle classes and as their ‘boy’, a lad made good. Emma cements the vision with super model glamour – sex and violence providing the basis for a massive cathartic outpouring that spreads across anti-Napoleonic middle class Europe.This is the same psychology of interwar fascism – fear resulting in a loss of self into the hero figure. Of course, it goes rather badly wrong for Nelson and Emma. He fails to provide for her in a ruthless age, saddles her with massive debts, get conveniently killed (from the point of view of the Government) and becomes a still more massive but dead icon - Emma is surplus to requirements. The rest is depressing tragedy.This is not a jobbing biography for middle aged female romantics. This is much better than that. It is a rare insight into the heartless centre of English aristocratic society, the lying mystifications of celebrity economics and middle class terrors.As for Emma herself, I suspect that she would have driven me up the wall for all her beauty and charm. But she comes across as kind if not very bright on occasions. Her greatest achievement was not to have been Nelson’s Mistress or even Europe’s leading model but to have produced a stable, level-headed daughter, Horatia, who lived long, prospered and built her own extensive middle class family.From a background of dire poverty and exploitation herself, it would seem that, unable to leave her anything but a moderate education and an example, a loving mother created something more important than her fame. That is a lesson to us all ...
Recipe for a great historical biography: Four years of careful, extensive, expensive research, plus a writing style that reads as easily as a novel. Stir in sympathy for the foibles, failings, and fabulous strengths of characters, but don't fawn over the main focus character. Cook until delicious. Kate Williams seemingly found every primary, secondary, and tertiary source on Emma Hamilton/Amy Lyon. She mixes her storytelling skills with sleuthing skills, especially when talking about Emma's early life. I don't mind that she takes some leaps into speculation and extrapolation during Emma's early life, such as admitting that there is very little evidence for Emma's everyday life as a maid in a particular household. She shores up her speculations about what it was probably like by examining the household records of another house nearby. She dug up tax records, parish records, rare books in libraries from California to Scotland, original, unpublished manuscripts, legal records, diaries, hundreds of previously undiscovered letters, illustrations from obscure periodicals, and memorabilia such as Nelson trinkets and one of Emma's actual dresses from her 6th-generation descendant. Her "select" bibliography takes up nine pages. Kate Williams did her homework and by the time she sat down to write, she had earned an encyclopedic understanding of her subject and the setting. One of the hardest things about knowing so much about a topic is to edit it into a readable account with a lot of detail but also with a clear purpose. For instance, Williams uncovered facts about the changing financial stability of Emma's lover, Horatio Nelson. I mean, really! Not only does she research her focus character, but also her lover's wife's uncle's financial records. That's really committing to the process.Nelson's wife's uncle was a bureaucrat on a forgettable island. She went there, uncovering piles of information, but then she doesn't use it. That's genius, knowing how to focus on a point and not wander. She only uses the facts it takes to support her speculation: the uncle charmed and flattered Nelson into marrying his mousy, widowed, impoverished, anxious, frail, perhaps fertility-impaired niece with whatever vague lies it took to convince Nelson that he would inherit much, much more than what was actually available. My only hesitation about fully praising this meticulous, encyclopedic research is that Williams wears the research rather heavily. Philippa Gregory writes very good historical fiction, for example, but doesn't let the research get in the way of the story. She says, "My job is to write coherent, well‑put-together novels that just happen to be set in the accurately researched past." ( http://www.historyextra.com/feature/t... ). Although 'England's Mistress' is non-fiction, it does tend to wear the research very heavily. My only other hesitation is that Williams extrapolates, often with excellent reason, but perhaps just beyond what the (lack of) facts warrant. She speculates: Was that disappointment the beginning of Nelson's fury and rejection of his unexciting wife? Would Nelson have been drawn so powerfully to Emma's glittering party lifestyle if his wife had been the heiress and hostess he imagined she would be? Williams leads the reader to believe this may be the case, but not before laying a careful pavement of researched fact. This is just one example of Williams' process: she researched everything available, and then rather than presenting a dry, lifeless treatise like many biographies, she brought Emma to brilliant, vibrant life.Impoverished Amy Lyon becomes a working girl, the "it" girl of 18th-century portrait painting, the mistress of increasingly powerful men, and finally the toast of England as Nelson's paramour. She meets and influences the glitterati of the day, entrances audiences with her inventive tableau dances as various mythical and historical characters, and intrigues people centuries later with her ability to bob to the surface again and again.Sorry for rambling, something Kate Williams would never do. I highly recommend this book.
What do You think about England's Mistress: The Infamous Life Of Emma Hamilton (2006)?
This was a wonderful book to read when one is on a bus for eight hours. It's absorbing, interesting, and at least nominally "nonfiction," so you feel like you're maybe learning something. I kept running into references to Emma Hamilton and Horatio Nelson's relationships in fiction and started looking for a good book to read on the subject. This book both was and was not the book I was looking for. On its strong side, it's clear that Williams put a ton of research into this book. She traipsed all across Europe and pursued mountains of primary source material. She is also clearly a very curious, clever woman, with a lot of imagination and the ability to expand upon scant information. This is a valuable asset in a researcher, as long as it is balanced by a healthy respect for the facts, and a consciousness that while we can speculate and extrapolate from facts, we can't know anything that isn't supported by facts. At times in this book, Williams commits the academic sin of letting her imagination run away with her. Depending on what you were looking for in a book, this could be either good or bad. If you were looking for a ripping read, this is wonderful. She comes up with very colorful, exciting hypotheses that at least started based in fact. However, if you are reading this for historical edification, these flights of fancy get in the way. Yes, it's possible that Emma's grandfather died of alcohol overdose or was killed by Emma's grandmother, but it's also just as likely he died in an accident or of an illness that just wasn't documented at the time. Yes, it's possible that Emma protested, fussed, and didn't have a physical relationship with Nelson until her husband subtly gave her the go-ahead, but it seems a tad more likely that (as her husband was getting on in years) she just dove in for the glory of being Admiral Lord Nelson's lover.Williams commits the other sin biographers are prone to, that of falling in love with her subject. Emma Hamilton, who began life as Amy Lyons and hoped to end it as Emma, Lady Nelson, is a very dynamic woman. She was clearly beautiful and charismatic. She stirred pots all over Europe, and interacted with some of the best people. However, Williams glosses over some of the less-savory facts about Emma. She consistently downplays Emma's emotional insecurities and neediness. (From other sources, I know that Emma was rather famous for the kind of cattiness that includes telling your friends a party isn't much to dress for and then showing up yourself in a cloth-of-gold dress with a diamond tiara). Williams also makes much of Emma's love for both William Hamilton and Horatio Nelson. I am sure that Emma loved both of these men. However, Williams skates right over the fact that Emma reinvented herself--her morals, clothes, hobbies, and manner of speech--for each of the men in her life. She went from being a party girl for the first man to take her in, to a reformed woman for Greville, to the perfect ambassador's wife for Hamilton, to the perfect lover and PR manager for Nelson. What is never really clear is what Emma wanted for Emma. The answer may just be that she wanted to be rich, famous, envied, and adored, but it wasn't explored to my satisfaction. This was a very enjoyable book if you take it with a lot of salt, much like a margarita, and don't let some of the more egregious logical leaps offend you. It was the perfect weekend vacation read, and I would recommend it to anyone curious about the period. Not as a resource, but more of an introduction.
—Brittany
A fairly extensive biography of the life of Emma Hamilton nee Amy Lyon. It is fascinating how a young girl of no skill manages to use beauty and sex as a way to gain entry into a level of society she would have otherwise been denied. It is more than amazing that she appeared to have tremendous luck in choosing a husband and a lover that were willing to share her. However, too late, Lady Hamilton discovers that her wiles do not make up for the utter lack of compassion that greets her after her husband, lover and close friends die, leaving her penniless and ruined. Obviously she should have spent more time charging for licensing. The book is fairly balanced and not too adoring of its subject although it does seek to liberate her from her branded profession as a courtesan by showing her tact as a politician and envoy of England.
—Korynn
I never realised what a courtesan Amy Lyon/Emma Hart/Emma Hamilton was, no wonder she changed her name twice before marrying! Kate Williams brings not only Emma to life but also breathes life into 18th and early 19th century England. Emma had a difficult childhood and was quickly put into service, which she decided was not for her. She therefore bettered herself and was quickly a favourite model of George Romney, who painted hundreds of portaits of her. She had a child by Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh before becoming mistress to Charles Greville, who eventually tired of her and passed her on to his uncle Sir William Hamilton in Naples. While in Naples she became friendly with the royal family and remained on such terms with them even after she had rebuffed the advances of King Ferdinand. After being Hamilton's mistress, she eventually married him but later met Nelson and was immediately smitten, even though the latter was married to a reportedly dull lady named Fanny. The affair eventually got the better of both of them and, with the tacit blessing of her husband who wanted to remain friendly with Nelson for political reasons, she set up home with the seaman, who renounced his marriage to Fanny. Emma and Nelson had a child, Horatia, lost one, and Nelson, after a brief retirement returned to sea where, as everyone knows, he was eventually killed at Trafalgar, much to the sadness of Emma who was obliged to sell the family home at Merton and fled to France, almost penniless as Nelson's relations would not fulfil his lordship's wishes by bestowing money on her. Nelson's letters to Emma were published, an act which exposed the relationship to all and sundry and Emma died in poverty before she was 50 and she was buried outside Calais (there was no money to transport her body back to England) with her funeral costing £28 compared to the £14,000 lavished on her lover. A rags to riches to rags tale that is a superb portrait of an age long gone.
—Gerry
