|
Inside, his wife Fanny waited anxiously to greet the husband
she had not seen for two-and-a-half years. She had reason to be on edge, for
entering the hotel behind him were Sir William Hamilton, the elderly British
ambassador to Naples, and his ravishing wife Emma. Since Nelson had routed
Napoleon's fleet in Egypt two years earlier, his dalliance with Lady
Hamilton had been the talk of London society. At one point Fanny had even
resolved to go to Naples to put a stop to it.
She had allowed herself to be talked out of that but her
husband's blatant behaviour in arriving home accompanied by a woman so
obviously his mistress and, equally obviously pregnant, was a cruel blow.
Throughout his stay, Nelson tried to avoid being alone with
his wife. Most nights Fanny had to endure Emma's presence in the naval
hero's programme of supper parties and theatre trips. Lady Nelson had no
choice but to maintain the appearance of a dutiful and affectionate wife.
Only later did she pour out her heart to Nelson's closest civilian friend,
banker Alexander Davison, who had also become her confidant. "I love him. I
would do anything in the world to convince him of my affection," she wrote.
"I was truly sensible of my good fortune in having such a husband. Surely I
have angered him. It was done unconsciously and without the least
intention. I can truly say my wish, my desire, was to please him, and if he
will have the goodness to send for me I will make it my study to obey him in
every wish or desire of his... I hope I have not deserved so severe a
punishment from him."
Fanny has been harshly judged by history. After Nelson's death at the Battle
of Trafalgar in 1805, Emma Hamilton set out to spin her story at the expense
of Fanny. Nelson's early biographers seemed happy to oblige. "Brave Emma!
Good Emma! If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons," wrote
poet Robert Southey. They excused their hero's betrayal of his wife by
portraying her as a cold, shrewish woman and got away with it because of the
lack of surviving letters between them. Both had burned the correspondence -
Fanny out of loyalty and Nelson to protect his reputation.
At last, however, Fanny has been given back her voice through
the discovery of an extraordinary cache of 72 of her letters to Davison.
They were found by Martyn Downer, an antiques expert at Sotheby's. He was
approached by descendants of Davison's granddaughter - wife of a wealthy
European aristocrat - asking him to value a diamond brooch.
"Years of experience told me it was Georgian, made about 1800, yet something
else about it made my heart stand still," he recalls. "It was designed as an
anchor with the initials H and N on either side. Then the couple told me
their ancestor ha been Horatio Nelson's best friend and said something about
a trunk full of old papers in the attic at home."
He visited their home - "a castle somewhere on the Continent" is all he will
say, to protect confidentiality - and found a battered red leather trunk. In
it were Nelson's sword, a bloodstained purse the admiral was carrying when
he was killed on HMS Victory and hundreds of letters. "The old-fashioned
writing was difficult to read at first but soon I could make out scattered
words and phrases, says Downer, who has since left Sotheby's and written an
account of Davison's friendship with Nelson.
One letter was from Emma to Davison after hearing Nelson had been killed. "I
am gone, nor do I wish to live," she wrote. More striking were the letters
from the abandoned Fanny. Downer says: "They chart the collapse of her
marriage in agonising detail and reveal a woman every bi as impassioned as
her rival. Opening the trunk had given Fanny her voice back after 200
years."
Captain Horatio Nelson met and married Frances Nisbet while serving in the
West Indies
in 1787. The daughter of a judge, she was widowed and had a young son.
Nelson brought her back to his native
Norfolk,
where he remained until 1793. On the eve of war with the French, he was sent
on diplomatic missions to
Naples
and
Tunis.
He lost an eye in the assault on
Corsica
in 1794, and his right arm in
Tenerife
in 1797. But he became a national hero - and rear admiral - after victory
over the Spanish fleet at
Cape St Vincent
in
Portugal
in the same year, and his status rose further when he destroyed Napoleon's
fleet at the
Battle
of the
Nile
in 1798.
He was not liked, however, by his own rank “Most of London knew he was
having an affair with Emma and, while it was not unknown for officers to
have affairs, he didn't keep it quiet Polite society turned its back on him
and set out to support Fanny in quite a showy way.” In the Navy, Emma was
deeply disliked. Captain Hardy – who has wrongly gone down in legend as
Nelson’s best friend – detested her and, in a revealing letter to Davison,
another colleague referred to her as a “bitch”.
In Nelson's absence, Fanny turned to his closest friend for advice. It is
clear from their correspondence that Davison frequently reassured her the
marriage would survive. “Perhaps he thought the affair would collapse under
the weight of criticism in Nelson’s social circle and in the Navy,” says
Downer.
If so, he was wrong. Nelson and Emma continued to consort together in
Naples
with tacit encouragement from Lady Hamilton's art-collector husband. "She
would give semi-naked dances after dinner and strike erotic poses," says
Downer. "I think Sir William enjoyed the attraction other men felt for her.
I suspect that Nelson enjoying his wife was no different to other men
admiring his paintings."
It would have rubbed Fanny's nose in it even further if she'd known that her
son Josiah had been flirted with by Emma to get Horatio's attention.
Nelson returned to sea in 1801 refusing to answer his wife's letters He had
begun legal steps to sepa rate, which he asked Davison to organise. Downer
says: "He was unflinching in the face of the enemy but when it came to
leaving his wife he made his best friend do it. It is rather like dumping
someone by fax nowadays."
Fanny seemed unaware that Nelson wanted to break from her. An armistice with
the French released him on leave, and he immediately set about looking for a
country house where he proposed to set up a menage a trois with Emma and Sir
William (who was to die in 1803).
On the morning of 19 December he was at Davison's mansion in S1 James's
Square when a letter arrived from Fanny. She wrote: "It is some time since I
have written to you. The silence you have imposed is more than my affections
will allow me and in this instance I hope you will forgive me in not obeying
you... Do, my dear husband, let us live together. I can never be happy till
such an event takes place. I assure you again I have but one wish in the
world, to please you. Let everything be buried in oblivion, it will pass
away like a dream. I can now only entreat you to believe I am most sincerely
and affectionately your wife, Frances H Nelson."
That evening, Fanny's letter was returned, resealed with Davison's
distinctive crest. Below the seal was a note: "Opened by mistake by Lord
Nelson but not read. A Davison."
After Nelson's death, Fanny settled in Devon, living
comfortably on the pension he had provided. She died in 1831, never having
said a word against him. Emma's future was less rosy. She was left Nelson's
house and a good allowance but she was extravagant and fatally addicted to
alcohol. By 1814 she was in prison for debt. She fled to Calais a year
later, where she died in a lonely garret with her daughter Horatia -
Nelson's only child - by her side.
Before she died, she returned or sold many of Nelson's
treasures to Davison - including the brooch which first caught the eye of
Downer.
The auction made £2.l million in 2002, and Fanny's letters
were bought by the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. "In the past poor
Fanny has been maligned, and withered beneath the glamour of Emma," says
Downer. "These letters redress the balance. As we prepare for next year's
bicentary celebrations of Trafalgar, it's a great shame that the rest of
the treasures are scattered around the world But I'm pleased that Fanny
Nelson's letters have been secured for the nation."
Top of page |
