The Scandalous Affair of Lord Nelson & Emma Hamilton

Lord Nelson is remembered as one of history's greatest military commanders. His victories at the Battle of the Nile, the Battle of Copenhagen and the Battle of Trafalgar cemented his legendary status, as did his dramatic death mid-battle. But there's another side to Nelson's story: his extraordinary love affair with Emma Hamilton. Today, Kate explores the scandalous relationship between Britain's greatest naval hero and his famous mistress, and asks how their spouses reacted to their very open relationship. Kate is joined by History Hit's very own Dan Snow! This episode was edited by Natasha Hughes. The producer was Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX74ZgzrlyH29 Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener surveyhere https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards! UK & Ireland listeners please place your vote on the Spotify mobile app here: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kate Lister?

  Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

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• 2:10Kate Lister?

  Hello, my lovely Betwixters, it's me, Kate Lister. Welcome back to Betwix the Sheets. Hello, how fabulous it is to see you once again, you little historical pervert. Yeah, I know, I know what you really are, I know why you're here, that's why I'm here as well. But before we can go any further together, I do have to tell you, this is an adult podcast book about adults, other adults, bad adults, things in a dirty way, covering adult, some things you should be an adult too. Do you feel safer? I certainly feel safer. Right, let's crack on.

• 2:38Kate Lister?

  Welcome to Couples Counselling. I am Dr. Lister, here to be your counselor. I'm not trained in any way for this whatsoever, but I'm gonna have a go at it. And I have somebody on the line. Why don't you tell me what has been going on? Hmm, hmm, I see, your wife has a new boyfriend, well, that is a bit difficult. Oh, he's a national hero, okay, that complicates things. And he has a wife too. Okay, is everybody happy with this? Oh, his wife isn't happy. His wife is very upset. And your wife is having her boyfriend's baby. Oh, no. But you're all gonna live together, and everybody's gonna be okay with this, and the press are gonna know about it as well? Well, this all sounds very, I don't know, modern.

• 3:23Kate Lister?

  Sorry, what century is it? It's the 19th century, early 19th century. And her boyfriend is who? Oh.

• 3:51Kate Lister?

  Hello and welcome back to Betwix the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. What I have for you today is a love story. Two people who met and for the rest of their lives were true-ish to one another. The problem is that they were both married to other people, and this kind of thing was just very frowned upon in the early 1800s, even if you are a military hero. Today, I'm joined by the one and only Dan Snow, a big naval history fanatic, to chat about the hero that is Lord Nelson, the one who got the big pillar in London's Trafalgar Square, and his lover, Lady Emma Hamilton. Well, I've got my bonnet on, have you? Let's do this.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Kate Lister, we're talking about one of, well, we're fascinated, the most, one of the most talked about and fascinating Georgian women.

• 4:47Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  It's a, but this is, I don't wanna sound like woke dad, but it's deeply problematic. Like, it's a difficult thing to talk about here.

• 4:54Kate Lister?

  It has a lot of problematic elements to it, this story, absolutely.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  She is a child sex worker who is regularly trafficked.

• 5:01Kate Lister?

  That's the big one, yeah. There's, you can't, there's no redeeming that at all. Emma Hamilton, as she became known, was, she was very young when she became a professional mistress, which is a nice way of saying, but she was, yeah, she was sex trafficked. It's a really, really ugly story.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  She had no choice. I mean, she was sent to kind of country houses.

• 5:18Kate Lister?

  Yep.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  And then was a sex worker in those places.

• 5:23Kate Lister?

  That period of her life is kind of murky, because she didn't write like a memoir saying this is exactly what happened, but we've got like whispers and rumours. So she was born in a little village called Ness, which is in Chester, which is actually in the Wirral. So if you can imagine that she's got like a Scouse accent, I think that's quite helpful. She was born to, let me get this right, her dad was a blacksmith, but he died when she was four, in slightly dubious circumstances. Our friend Kate Williams wrote a book about this and sort of suggests that maybe the dad was murdered by the mum.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  Holy Moses.

• 5:57Kate Lister?

  Maybe.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 5:58Kate Lister?

  It's a weird thing that happens, and then the mum's gotta get out of town real, real quick. So Emma kind of grows up in this matriarchy, the mum figures throughout her life, there's a grandmother as well, but also, they're really poor. Her mum's job is, she's down as like basically a removals person, but that means she has a horse and cart and just like moves things around. By the time Emma is 12, she's been sent out to work. She's not being sent out to, to sell sex, she's being sent out as a servant.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  But the suggestion as well, that the, that the, within that came the mother, the extent of, selling sex was something that was reasonably common at the time, you know, to survive, to get food, whatever, that's the culture.

• 6:35Kate Lister?

  It was certainly very common, it always has been, is that, that selling sex is there as an option when you're, when you don't have anything else to do. Yeah.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  So then she, and then we all, it's like, wow, that we celebrate this extraordinary social climb that she performed.

• 6:52Kate Lister?

  And she really did.

• 6:53Speaker 03

  She did. But it is, and it is, I was about to say, it's entirely dependent on her extraordinary good looks and charisma, but that's not fair, because she's also super smart.

• 7:02Kate Lister?

  She is, you know, I mean, she's a hottie.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  So then how do we think that that's, because that's a strange sort of thing, like on the one, I guess, look, it's the whole, that's, that's what it is. And she is incredibly engaging and impressive, but also smoking hot.

• 7:14Kate Lister?

  She is, and as Joan Rivers once said, no man's ever put his hand up a woman's blouse looking for a library card. So yeah, she's smart, but that's not what actually gets her, her foot along the way. It kept her there. So she is, she's extraordinarily beautiful, she's one of the most painted women, I think the most painted women of the, of the Regency period. And it's hard.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  Romney falls, well, Romney, the artist, falls in love with her, I think, literally, and also professionally.

• 7:40Kate Lister?

  Yeah, like, he's obsessive.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  And paints her as a Greek goddess.

• 7:43Kate Lister?

  Yeah, like various goddesses, and sort of classical poses, I think he does over 60 portraits of her, so we have a very good idea of what she looked like. And I think, and I've heard her describe this before, and I've got to agree with it, I think she looks like a young Brooke Shields. She's got that like heavy eyebrow and that like thick hair and that kind of like soft, pouty face.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  And no, no smallpox scars, apparently, which was, which was a thing.

• 8:06Kate Lister?

  Yep, all her own teeth.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  All her own teeth. So she's, has the most astonishing teenage years, because the podcast isn't actually about her, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about specifically the relationship for which she becomes famous, infamous. But just to quickly finish off her, her backstory, which is deserving of a separate podcast. An extraordinary, from the streets of London to great country houses, hobnobbing and having sex with aristocrats, and she's still in her teens.

• 8:31Kate Lister?

  Yeah, she's 15 when she becomes a professional mistress.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  And, and is thrown, and then is thrown away from that life because she's had, she gets pregnant, of course, like, and therefore is sent back to where she's come from.

• 8:42Kate Lister?

  She, well, let me get this right, so she's about 15, it looks like at some point she might have been selling sex in a brothel, possibly. The only allusion that we get to that is later on, when she's writing letters to someone, she says that, that although she lost her virtue in body, she never lost it in spirit, which is like a kind of, yeah, you can sort of see what she's hinting at. And she's definitely working for this quack doctor at one point called Dr. Graham, who's got this, this clinic, it's called, of Health and Hyman, and that's, and it's.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  But it's full Instagram, isn't it?

• 9:13Kate Lister?

  Yeah, basically.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  It's find an unbelievably beautiful person.

• 9:16Kate Lister?

  Yep.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Stick them all over your socials, and then extract money from other people in the desperate hope they might one day look like that.

• 9:23Kate Lister?

  Well, it is, but he, what he's running is basically a fertility clinic, and he's promising people that he can cure impotence, and that he can get everybody pregnant, it'd be great. And he does that by basically hiring a load of very young, beautiful women, Emma Hamilton is one of them. To, to, well, to dance around, and to like serve drinks and things like that as couples, you know, getting treatment.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  Okay, all right, okay, if that's good, I missed something there. You know, I went, I was once talking to a bull insemination.

• 9:51Kate Lister?

  Of course, yes.

• 9:52Speaker 03

  And the bulls, you have to collect sperm from these bulls. And the bulls, you know what, the bulls, they've tried every, the bulls sleep on waterbeds and they get played classical music. And do you know what gets the bulls going? They tried young female cows. It's the young male cows that gets the bulls. They go insane.

• 10:10Kate Lister?

  No, I didn't know that. How is that linked to this story?

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Because, I think it is linked, because, yes, that's why. Because there's all these guys who are struggling to, you know, get it up and produce the goods. So rather than parading young women around, maybe they should have.

• 10:25Kate Lister?

  They should have paraded bulls.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  No, no, young boys.

• 10:28Kate Lister?

  Oh, sorry. Right. Yeah. Young boys. Okay. Yes. Well, they didn't think of that. They paraded teenage girls.

• 10:33Speaker 03

  Moving on.

• 10:34Kate Lister?

  Around.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  She, but she makes these connections and because she's super smart, as well as being so beautiful, she's writing to people and, and sort of claws her way, having been sent home to have this baby, she claws her way back into this.

• 10:47Kate Lister?

  Well, she becomes the professional mistress of a guy who has the most British sounding name ever. It's Sir Harry. And it looks like the last name is Featherington Hall, but I think it's actually pronounced like Fender or it's like contracted, it's like 16 letters contracted to two, to two syllables, right? And so she goes and she works at his house, like it's prolonged stag do, and she's his mistress and she gets pregnant by him. And then it would seem that he basically is going to turn her out, where she catches the attention of a guy she's met a couple of times at his parties. A guy called Gravel, right? Sir Lord, hardy, da, da, da, Gravel. And he says, you can be my mistress, but we have to send the child out to be fostered.

• 11:25Speaker 03

  So he installs her in a house in London.

• 11:27Kate Lister?

  Yeah. She's about 16 at this point.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  And there's some education going on. Super controlling, very weird.

• 11:31Kate Lister?

  Well, he does. There's a bit of like a my fair lady situation starts to develop here. He's like dressing her up and he's taking, it's like, this is just a blacksmith's daughter from the Wirral so far. So he's trying to give her a sense of refinement and some education. And this is where, as you were saying, she is really, really smart. And she starts to learn really, really quick. And she learns social etiquette and she learns how to use her good looks. And of course she's being painted all the time. And actually her portraits become quite a lucrative revenue stream for her and this guy Gravel, because they're selling for loads of money.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  He is jealous because she becomes so famous.

• 12:04Kate Lister?

  Well, she becomes very famous at this point, just through the portraits alone. Everybody is like losing their shit for this. And we should say, actually, we forgot to even tell you what her real name was. So she's down and goes down in history as Emma Hamilton, but her real name is Amy Lyon. That's what she was born as. And by this point, she's going by, it's either Emily Hart or Emma Hart. She's not Hamilton yet, so she changes her names quite a lot. And she is, she's the mistress of Gravel. He's doing his my fair lady shtick, but then eventually he starts to get cold feet and worried about this because he starts to think, well, I need a wife and I need a rich wife. Because he's terrible with money and he's not going to marry her because she doesn't have any money. So he comes up with this scheme,

• 12:47Kate Lister?

  this shitty scheme to Palmer her off onto his uncle, who is Lord Hamilton, who is one of the ambassadors, the British ambassadors over in Naples.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  He's a sir, isn't he? Sir.

• 12:57Kate Lister?

  Is he Sir, Sir Highfalutin? Right. Yeah. One of them. A big wig, basically.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  And he's 60.

• 13:03Kate Lister?

  And well, he's not 60 when they meet, but he's not far off.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  Okay. And he's, so he's decades old on that.

• 13:09Kate Lister?

  Yeah, he is. Yeah. I think she's about like 21 when they do marry.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  He's a widower.

• 13:14Kate Lister?

  He's a widower. He's 60 when they marry and she's 26. So that should give you an idea of the, of the age range, but.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  And he's thrilled. He can't believe he's alive.

• 13:21Kate Lister?

  Oh, he does. But like, you know, the really shitty thing is, is Emma didn't know this was the plan when she was sent over to Naples. Like, he goes, Gravel sends her over and goes, look, I'm just gonna, I've got some stuff that I need to do. So like you and your mum go over to Naples and you can, you can just have a lovely time. Meanwhile, he's written to Hamilton going, do you want a mistress? Do you want a mistress? She's quite a famous one. He's dead excited. Emma turns up and has no idea that this has actually been planned.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Unbelievable. And yet that is the, that's the remarkable thing about her is she keeps sort of responding to these.

• 13:52Kate Lister?

  Adapt and overcome.

• 13:53Speaker 03

  She adapts and overcomes.

• 13:54Kate Lister?

  She does.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  We should talk about Nelson.

• 13:57Kate Lister?

  Yeah, we should, because he is about to enter the picture.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  About to enter the picture. He is Britain's most famous admiral.

• 14:03Kate Lister?

  What's his background story, by the way?

• 14:04Speaker 03

  So he was not from a particularly wealthy family. So in the, in the navy, as I've said a thousand times in this podcast, so I apologize to anyone listening. It was, it's one thing in the army to be, you, you give all the, lot, lot of, you can, you can let the king's son command an army. You can let, uh, scions of various aristocratic families command an army. You don't need much training because all you've got to do when you're in charge of a group of men with muskets is stand ramrod straight when bullets are whipping around your ear. And, and it's an old expression, officers show men how to die, sergeants show men how to fight.

• 14:36Kate Lister?

  Oh, right. Okay.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  Only requirement. So you can be a, an absolute muppet.

• 14:40Kate Lister?

  And many of them were.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  And many of them were. So, and many of them weren't as well, but many of them weren't. So you can be the second son of the Earl of so and so. And you just get told, mate, you're, you're going to join the army and you can sort of do that. And it's not, it's not super technical.

• 14:52Kate Lister?

  It's just stand still.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  It's sort of, it's just, it's just do as, you know, give a good impression of yourself.

• 14:57Kate Lister?

  Yeah, okay.

• 14:58Speaker 03

  Don't, don't the side down.

• 14:59Kate Lister?

  Keep your shoe shiny.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  Keep your shoe shiny. The navy, you're giving these people the most sophisticated and expensive objects ever created at that point in human history. Like, think about Machman's victory in Portsmouth, think about these kind of ships. This is, this is vast amounts of capital expenditure by the state. You cannot let one of those ships fall into the hands of someone who's incompetent. So the navy, it's not perfect. There's still a lot of, you know, patronage and there's, there's nepotism. But the navy on the whole, they, they find people join. You often join family and friends of existing officers join, but they join as kids and they are

• 15:31Kate Lister?

  Trained.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Trained and they're examined. They're emeritocratic. You have got to pass your lieutenant exam or you don't get it.

• 15:36Kate Lister?

  Wow.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  So Nelson goes to sea with a relative, but he's from a kind of reasonably normal, sort of like you might call lower middle classes, you know, clergy. Sort of moth, moth, like moth eaten sort of country clergy.

• 15:48Kate Lister?

  But not like Lord Admiral High to Do Sir, Sirness. No.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  And, and, and for many admirals, uh, there are several who I will not bore you with, but they, that, the, the navy becomes a massive,

• 16:01Speaker 03

  sort of a pathway into the elite because in that period, there are lots of wars. Britain is usually at war in this period, talking the 1750s, 60s. So Britain's at war in the 1750s, early 60s. It's at war in the 1770s and early 80s. It's.

• 16:15Kate Lister?

  Oh, we're doing a lot of war.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  Lot of war, 1790s. People call it the second Hundred Years' War. We're fighting France.

• 16:19Kate Lister?

  Always with the French?

• 16:20Speaker 03

  The French and Spanish large, these huge, big wars in Europe, but also in North America, India. So these, really they're global wars. Winston Churchill calls one of them the first world war. Because it's, you're fighting in Asia, you're fighting in Africa, Caribbean, North America, Europe.

• 16:33Kate Lister?

  Fair enough. Okay.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  He's in the right place at the right time. And, and so in these great big wars, by the way, also it's useful because by capturing, capturing enemy ships and you, and as a, as a person who captures ships, you get a percentage of the value of those ships.

• 16:45Kate Lister?

  Oh, do you? Oh, that's quite clever.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  And you can win hearts and minds and become knights and, and barons and even earls and whatever else. So there are lots and lots of reasonably normal people who join the navy and become national heroes. The most famous people in the kingdom and, and are then accelerate, enjoy high status, entry into the elites and can marry into aristocracy and stuff. So Nelson is on that journey and he's an astonishingly effective sailor.

• 17:14Kate Lister?

  Is he really good? Like that's.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  He is. So he's a, he's a good example of a guy. It's not like Genghis Khan who comes out of nowhere and like forges a military instrument and takes over the world. He, he enters the best, he enters the best navy the world's ever seen.

• 17:28Kate Lister?

  Yep.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  And just does really well at it. And, and just, so it's like a virtuous circle. He's.

• 17:34Kate Lister?

  What is it that he's good at?

• 17:35Speaker 03

  He's got charisma.

• 17:36Kate Lister?

  Right. But charisma doesn't steer a ship.

• 17:39Speaker 03

  No, but it keeps you on a cold night when you're beating, you're beating in the teeth of a gale off Sheb, or not Sheb.

• 17:45Kate Lister?

  It does. Like the sailors, they're going, look, oh God, it's absolute crap tonight, but at least the captain's got riz.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Look at that lieutenant.

• 17:51Kate Lister?

  I'm so glad.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Lieutenant, he doesn't, Lieutenant Nelson does, he gives his overcoat to someone else. He's had the love of his country.

• 17:57Kate Lister?

  He must have been better at, like, was he good at steering ships?

• 18:00Speaker 03

  No, he's good at navigating. You have to be good at navigating. You have to be incredibly brave. You have to be tireless. You have to be healthy. Like I.

• 18:05Kate Lister?

  A good leader.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  You think that, I just look at history and I think, actually, a lot of these people just had to, they just have to be fit and healthy and energetic, you know, like so many people are carrying, you know, debilitating injuries or wounds or, or, you know, whatever naturally occurring problem with their body. And, and actually he's just sort of lively and engaged and energetic and brave and sort of awake and switched on.

• 18:32Kate Lister?

  I think so. So, and, and does his exams. He's really good, really good student, does all the stuff.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  And he's lucky, like everyone, you know, he gets in the right place at the right time. So he's attacked by a polar bear in the Arctic and he bites it with a musket with a bullet.

• 18:43Kate Lister?

  Is that a true story?

• 18:44Speaker 03

  It's true. And then he survives. Again, luck apart, like you're going to be incredibly lucky in just not to die. I'd be dead, appendicitis, I'd be dead. And one of the great, one of the great men of his generation stuffed out like that. Imagine that, Kate. What a loss to history that would be. So anyway, so he is, he goes on the bloodiest expedition in British history, invades during the American War of Independence. He invades Central America and of course they march up a river into what is now Nicaragua. And everybody dies apart from him. It's insane. I mean, not everyone, but it's like.

• 19:12Kate Lister?

  Did everyone, did anyone ask what he was doing there? Because everybody's died.

• 19:15Speaker 03

  From memory, I've forgotten. I think he gets ill quite early on and gets invalided back. So you survive because you only get, yeah, you only get like a minor dose of the tropical disease. So then, then on Valentine's Day, he captures two enemy ships in the Battle of Capes of Minson, which has never been done before. So you cap, he disobeys orders.

• 19:34Kate Lister?

  Skills.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. By this stage, he's, yeah, he's, he's, he's got, he's got, he's amazing. He's, he's an amazing tactician. But he's also driving around the best ships and crews in the history of the world. Like, so he's, it's, it's skill and charisma on top of an amazing. He's, he's been given this beautifully forged weapon and he's really good at using it. That's all, that's all I'm saying.

• 19:52Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  So he, he disobeys orders, takes his ship alongside, yeah, takes his ship alongside that of an enemy, shouts,

• 20:02Speaker 03

  you know, glory or Westminster Abbey, i.e. you'll, you'll end up glorious and famous. You'll end up a celebrity or dead in Westminster Abbey, right?

• 20:09Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  Charges on one ship, that ship then crashed into another Spanish ship. So he uses that as a bridge to get to the other Spanish ship. And that's on Valentine's Day. So I always say it's nice to see everyone out celebrating Nelson's big victory.

• 20:20Kate Lister?

  That, all right, that is quite impressive.

• 20:21Speaker 03

  And he takes the enemy. So then from that moment on, he's big celebrity. Then he goes and he does absolutely annihilate. He's lost an arm.

• 20:30Kate Lister?

  I was about to say, like, you said that you have to be healthy and upright, but he is in bits.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  Yes, he's in bits by the 1790s.

• 20:36Kate Lister?

  Yeah. What are we, what are we talking?

• 20:38Speaker 03

  He loses an arm in the Canary Islands, like 1797.

• 20:42Kate Lister?

  One arm off.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  One arm off. And when they're sawing his arm off, he says, without an aesthetic, they say, is this all right? He goes, the blade's a little cold. Oh, that's badass.

• 20:54Kate Lister?

  That's badass.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  And then they saw his arm off and he says, just chuck it away. I don't want it. Get it. Get it. It's useless to me now. Get rid of it. So he loses his right arm.

• 21:00Kate Lister?

  What else?

• 21:01Speaker 03

  Well, he's about to, he goes to Egypt. So Napoleon hatched this absolutely bonkers scheme to sail to Egypt because Napoleon wants to come Alexander the Great. So go to Egypt, conquer Egypt, conquer the Middle East, conquer all the way to India. I mean, really crazy stuff. And he doesn't get very far because in Egypt, as he goes ashore and Napoleon goes ashore in Egypt and Nelson just sails in and leaving his fleet behind, you know, full of supplies. And that's his way of connecting with France. Nelson just sails into the harbour and doesn't even take two looks at the place, just, just goes in and annihilates this fleet, just destroys it to bits. And a superbly daring operation, like amazing leadership, uh, working with the so-called Bandar

• 21:42Speaker 03

  Brothers, his captains under his command. And so he, and then, but he loses, he gets a splinter to the eye, above the eye, I think it was.

• 21:49Kate Lister?

  Which eye did he lose?

• 21:50Speaker 03

  I think it's the right eye. So so far the right side of his body is suffering.

• 21:53Kate Lister?

  Oh, right. So the, the arm's off, the eye's off. And am I right in thinking he's lost some teeth?

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Catastrophic. Oh God, yeah. He's lost teeth.

• 21:59Kate Lister?

  Lost teeth.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, teeth, table stakes.

• 22:02Kate Lister?

  Okay. And, and there was a serious head injury as well?

• 22:05Speaker 03

  The right eye injury was probably gets a traumatic brain injury as well.

• 22:08Kate Lister?

  Right. Okay.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  It's a bit dangerous business.

• 22:10Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Very dangerous, by the way, being a captain or an admiral, they're all navy.

• 22:13Kate Lister?

  Bloody yes.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  Again, your job is just to stand on the court deck, very, very visible to the enemy and just provide.

• 22:18Kate Lister?

  Is it true? I'm skipping way ahead here, but is it true that he got shot in the end? Spoiler alert, he did get shot, I'm afraid. Uh, but he got shot because he wouldn't take his shiny medals off.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  It is in part true.

• 22:28Kate Lister?

  Right.

• 22:29Speaker 03

  So he wanted, he had a coat, which you can still go and see in the Maritime Museum in Greenwich. It was an amazing thing, the greatest object in any British museum. And yeah, there's a sort of version of, he, he's not like actually with the gold and silver, but there's the sort of shiny embroidering and it shows all his medals. He's very proud.

• 22:44Kate Lister?

  That, I mean, that, that was, that was a mistake. Not that I want to question the wisdom of this great man, but that was, standing on the bow of a ship with basically a sign.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  It's part of his vibe. It's I'm gonna just, everyone's gonna know who I am. And he pays for it. But, you know, we, we, yeah, he pays for it with his life.

• 23:01Kate Lister?

  Well, I've skipped way ahead there. So my favourite thing at the moment is looking up how tall or short historical figures were because, well, some of them really surprise you. Like, how tall do you?

• 23:13Speaker 03

  Napoleon, Napoleon wasn't short.

• 23:15Kate Lister?

  He wasn't short. How tall do you think Michelangelo was? Tall or short?

• 23:18Speaker 03

  Oh, Michelangelo.

• 23:19Kate Lister?

  Tall or short?

• 23:19Speaker 03

  Super small.

• 23:20Kate Lister?

  Five foot, uh, three.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  Five foot three?

• 23:22Kate Lister?

  Five foot three. What about John Keats, the poet?

• 23:25Speaker 03

  Uh, tall?

• 23:26Kate Lister?

  Five foot one.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  Whoa, nice.

• 23:28Kate Lister?

  Mary Queen of Scotland, five foot 11.

• 23:31Speaker 03

  Really?

• 23:31Kate Lister?

  Really tall. Yeah.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  But that's the thing. Cause I think you, you, when we talk about giants were real in the olden times.

• 23:37Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  Because if you were my height, six foot five, 199 centimetres, sadly.

• 23:43Kate Lister?

  Okay.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  That's a cross I bear. Uh, if, but you'd have been like really, really, really tall compared to everyone else.

• 23:49Kate Lister?

  Crazy tall. George Washington was six three.

• 23:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was tall.

• 23:52Kate Lister?

  Yeah, he was tall. Nelson is quite petite.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  Nice, very petite. That little jacket I was telling you about in Greenwich, very, very petite. Yeah.

• 23:59Kate Lister?

  Yeah. Do you know who wasn't petite? Emma Hamilton. She's described as being quite tall.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  Oh, was she?

• 24:04Kate Lister?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  Tall and, well, this healthy, it kind of comes through, the glowing healthiness of her, the kind of robustness of her comes through, doesn't it?

• 24:12Kate Lister?

  She's got like ruddy good looks.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:18Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Dan after this short break.

• 24:26Kate Lister?

  In case you weren't aware, World Mental Health Day takes place in October. And I don't know about you, but I'm taking this as a reminder to practise some proper self-care. Saying no to plans I don't want to go to, guilt-free snacking and Halloween movie marathons. It's also the perfect time to check in with yourself and your mental health. For many, it can mean taking that step and speaking to a professional who can help and guide you through any difficulties you're having. But often when you try to do that, it's still way harder than it should be. A lot of online therapy platforms don't accept insurance at all, which means even during a month focused on mental health, you're stuck paying out of pocket or signing up for an expensive monthly subscription. This is where Rula comes in.

• 25:12Kate Lister?

  They partner with over 120 insurance plans, making the average copay just $15 per session. That's real therapy from licensed professionals at a price that actually makes sense. Because the whole point of World Mental Health Day is making sure people actually get help, not just think about it. And Rula sticks with you throughout your journey, checking in to make sure your care is actually helping you move forward. With World Mental Health Day this October, it's a good reminder that taking care of your mental health can start with one step. Visit rula.com/shets to get started. That's R U L A dot com slash S H E E T S. You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  mod.com is changing the way people battle excessive fatigue. Ever hit a wall in the middle of the day and a third coffee just doesn't do it anymore? Here's what's actually happening. Coffee only briefly blocks adenosine, the chemical that tires you out. When it stops working, your system is flooded and you crash. Medafinil is a prescription treatment that works in a completely different way. Medafinil works by stimulating multiple receptors in the brain associated with wakefulness, including dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, histamine, glutamate and orexin. It's a more complete solution that gives you 10 to 12 hours of steady focus and energy.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  To learn more, go to mod.com, fill out your intake form, meet with a licensed provider, and if approved, Modaler ships straight to your door. Go to mod.com to get started. That's M O D dot com.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  Hi there. I'm Dan, host of Dan Snow's History Podcast. And I can imagine on these dark winter nights, all you're gonna do is curl up with a cup of tea and get lost in an amazing story. Well, I can help you with that. Twice a week, I tell you the most dramatic and extraordinary stories from history with details I can guarantee you've never heard before. Feel the frostbite of that grisly failed American invasion of Canada in the dead of winter. Imagine every clash and blow at the Battle of Bosworth. Follow Eleanor of Accretaine, one of the most powerful women in the medieval world, as she goes on crusade to the Holy Land with 300 handmaidens in tow.

• 27:37Speaker 04

  She leads her own army. Everyone goes gaga for Eleanor.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  And trace the voyage of the first Vikings as they arrive on Iceland's lonely shores. For the best historical stories to get lost in, check out Dan Snow's History.

• 28:08Kate Lister?

  How did they meet?

• 28:10Speaker 03

  So they meet, and so, so that's, that's all a long way of the backstory is that they really meet when she's in Naples, which we should also say, sounds like an random Italian city. It's the heart of this really.

• 28:22Kate Lister?

  It's the court.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  The forgotten kingdom of, is it called the Two Cisnes? Anyway, it's the kingdom of southern Italy and Sicily and Naples. It's an important European player at the time.

• 28:30Kate Lister?

  Yeah. And she's not only there like hobnobbing with the hobnobs, but she's actually becoming besties with Queen Carolina.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  Because as we've said, she turns a really terrible situation round.

• 28:40Kate Lister?

  Yep.

• 28:40Speaker 03

  He, her husband, her new husband is the British ambassador to this court.

• 28:44Kate Lister?

  He is.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  So she's, she goes, well, I might as well make the best of it.

• 28:47Kate Lister?

  And she really does. Like she, um, Queen Carolina is Marie Antoinette's sister. And the, so the French Revolution is kind of in the background swirling around through all of this. And Emma is actually instrumental in doing a lot of things, which actually does meet Nelson, in sort of helping various revolutions that kick off in Naples. And she's, she helps the Queen and the royal family out. She helps look after children. All of this is forgotten, like completely later on, when she falls on hard times.

• 29:14Speaker 03

  Proper, she's a very, like the closest advisor to the Queen, right? And, and sort of pulling the strings at the court. I mean, it's incredible.

• 29:21Kate Lister?

  Yeah. A girl from the Wirral with like no formal education, but she learns Italian and French fluently at this point. So she's really smart.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 29:29Kate Lister?

  Like, and in not very much time as well, but it's not all smooth sailing because there is quite a lot of stigma and snobbery because people know about her background. So she's constantly fighting that. But that's, so she's out in Naples hobnobbing when, and that's how she meets Nelson.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  And it is really difficult to overstate. So she's one of the most famous women in Europe.

• 29:50Kate Lister?

  She is by this point. Yeah.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  And in to port sails, the bandaged hero who has just obliterated the French fleet.

• 29:58Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  Stopping this great big mad invasion of, effectively stopped bringing into this kind of crazy chat about conquering the whole Middle East and India. And he's, he's already got a string of victories, but now the battle, with the battle now of that is just.

• 30:10Kate Lister?

  Oh, it's cemented it, right?

• 30:11Speaker 03

  It's cemented it.

• 30:11Kate Lister?

  He's like knickerwettingly heroic at this point.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  He is knickerwettingly heroic.

• 30:16Kate Lister?

  Yeah. Bloomers drop into the floor.

• 30:19Speaker 03

  Wow. And so imagine, I always think that must've been a cool meeting when the two of them meet.

• 30:24Kate Lister?

  I've read, and I don't know how true this is, we'd need Kate Williams to tell us because she did the biography, but I read that when Nelson turns up, it's, it's not long after a battle and he's got that head wound and he's kind of a bit knackered and she nurses him back to health.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Yes, apparently so.

• 30:37Kate Lister?

  Apparently so. Do you know what we haven't actually said here? We haven't, this is rather a crucial point in the story. He is buried. He is buried.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Well.

• 30:46Kate Lister?

  Do you remember her? Do you remember Fanny?

• 30:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, Fanny, his wife.

• 30:48Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  The long suffering.

• 30:50Kate Lister?

  The long suffering Fanny.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  Who had nursed him back to health on previous occasions of various ailments. She is from, she was from the planter family in the Caribbean.

• 30:58Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  I studied, so they, they were slave owners and grew sugar and things in the Caribbean. And they'd met while he was out there, I think.

• 31:06Kate Lister?

  Yeah. And he kind of did that thing that a lot of people do in, well, not just at this point, all throughout history, go, I guess I better get married then.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:13Kate Lister?

  It's just the expected thing is that's what you do, especially if you're on the make. And it would seem that he, that she was kind of sold to him, not like sold literally, but the, that he thought that she had a lot of money and that she was going to come into a lot of money. And sort of that wasn't as true as it had been set up. But she really loved him.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  She loved him. They couldn't have kids.

• 31:33Kate Lister?

  No, I don't think.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  I always think they, part of the reason, a lot of these naval guys couldn't have kids because they're not from the same place.

• 31:39Kate Lister?

  No, right.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Well, they're also, even more basic, they're not in the same place very much.

• 31:45Kate Lister?

  No, he's travelling a lot, isn't he? He's away from home a lot.

• 31:48Speaker 03

  He's on the king's business.

• 31:49Kate Lister?

  He is. And then he meets Emma.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  Well, and as he said, I think he says, I quote this all the time, not in a bad way. He has every man is a bachelor beyond Gibraltar.

• 32:00Kate Lister?

  Oh, right, okay. Okay, Horatio.

• 32:02Speaker 03

  That was his point of view.

• 32:04Kate Lister?

  Well, he-

• 32:05Speaker 03

  Not condoned by this podcast.

• 32:06Kate Lister?

  When he falls for Emma, he falls like hard. He seems-

• 32:10Speaker 03

  It's crazy. It's fizzy.

• 32:12Kate Lister?

  It really is. Yeah, fizzy. That's a good, this isn't just, wow, she's a real hottie. Like, he is, he's so obsessed with her. That actually says quite a lot about his character. There were letters that survived that he wrote back to his wife saying how brilliant Lady Hamilton is, like really outline. Imagine being Fanny back home and reading that and just like, okay, okay.

• 32:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:34Kate Lister?

  That he's actually right, but oh my gosh, she's so amazing. She's so fabulous. People are thinking, a fucking bitch. But anyway, they fall in love and they fall in love hard. And of course, Emma Hamilton is also married to a 60-year-old vulcanologist who-

• 32:49Speaker 03

  Who we came across in Pompeii, actually, didn't we?

• 32:51Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  He's also a keen collector and supporter of-

• 32:53Kate Lister?

  He did, he did a lot of that. He did. And he's still doing his ambassadoring. But yeah, he's, he's not in great health and he's sort of 60-ish. But the weirdest thing happens in this, it can only be described as a menage a trois, because pretty soon they're lovers. Pretty soon. And they don't seem like they are hiding this at all. In fact, it all seems to be happening with Hamilton's complete understanding, knowledge. I don't know what conversations were had, but he seems fine with this. He has, he has Nelson in his house. There's no problem at all. Just, that's my wife.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:29Kate Lister?

  Help yourself.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  And here's us thinking we're, you know, pioneering polyamorous society now, but this is, this is going on.

• 33:35Kate Lister?

  Maybe he was just a massive Nelson fan.

• 33:38Speaker 03

  I think possibly.

• 33:39Kate Lister?

  Do you think? And that he's just such a great man that he was like, yeah, you can have, have an affair with my wife.

• 33:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, for him, it's probably easy come, easy go. I mean, given that he's, given that she was sent in by his nephew. Just randomly turned up.

• 33:50Kate Lister?

  But they're married now.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  Well, no, sure. But I mean-

• 33:52Kate Lister?

  But anyway, so that just-

• 33:54Speaker 03

  Well, so we should see before, and just in this period of Naples, and we mentioned Lady Emma Hamilton is a super important political player. I mean, actually Nelson makes big interventions in the kind of internal politics of this kingdom, which we won't go, but it gets in as much trouble as he'll ever get in politically. And it's thought that because Lady Emma Hamilton and the Queen are sort of manipulating Nelson, he's using-

• 34:15Kate Lister?

  Entirely possible.

• 34:15Speaker 03

  Kind of British naval might in ways that to suit not Britain, but the, the royal family of Naples. I mean, it's, it is, it's bonkers stuff, but it shows Emma's-

• 34:23Kate Lister?

  At one point, there was a revolution.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  There's a revolution.

• 34:26Kate Lister?

  Wasn't there?

• 34:27Speaker 03

  And Nelson, on Emma Hamilton's urging, seems to sort of override the sort of peace settlement, the political settlement that's sort of hashed out. So it's, it's sketchy as hell.

• 34:37Kate Lister?

  But one thing I will say, and this, a lot of people don't know this, is that during this revolution, Malta, which I believe that you have just been to, was blockaded. The people were starving and Emma Hamilton managed to use her influence to get food to those people. And she was actually given the Iron Cross of Malta.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  Are you serious?

• 34:53Kate Lister?

  Yeah, I'm serious. And she wore it for the rest of her life. And she became such a fashion icon that other people actually started wearing pretend crosses of Malta. She wore it for her entire life. She was so proud of that.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  It's amazing that you can have European celebrity. You know, we, we think today with our globalised media and it's like, but like, actually you could have kind of Europe-wide celebrity at this point.

• 35:08Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  And that's so fascinating.

• 35:09Kate Lister?

  And she was. And the people wanted to know everything about her and what she was wearing and how she was doing her hair. There's one story about Nelson's wife, Fanny. Her brother actually sent her a copy of a Malta cross because they were so popular at the time, not realising that they were, they were popular because the woman that was banging her husband was wearing one.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  God.

• 35:31Kate Lister?

  It's an awkward Christmas, that one. But yeah, she did. She got the, the, the Iron Cross all by herself.

• 35:42Kate Lister?

  I'll be back with Dan after this short break.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  mod.com is changing the way people battle excessive fatigue. Ever hit a wall in the middle of the day and a third coffee just doesn't do it anymore? Here's what's actually happening. Coffee only briefly blocks adenosine, the chemical that tires you out. When it stops working, your system is flooded and you crash. Medafinil is a prescription treatment that works in a completely different way. Medafinil works by stimulating multiple receptors in the brain associated with wakefulness, including dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, histamine, glutamate, and orexin. It's a more complete solution that gives you 10 to 12 hours of steady focus and energy.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  To learn more, go to mod.com. Fill out your intake form, meet with a licensed provider, and if approved, Modeller ships straight to your door. Go to mod.com to get started. That's M-O-D dot com.

• 36:51Speaker 03

  Hi there. I'm Dan, host of Dan Snow's History Podcast. And I can imagine on these dark winter nights, all you're going to do is curl up with a cup of tea and get lost in an amazing story. Well, I can help you with that. Twice a week, I tell you the most dramatic and extraordinary stories from history with details I can guarantee you've never heard before. Feel the frostbite of that grisly failed American invasion of Canada in the dead of winter. Imagine every clash and blow at the Battle of Bosworth. Follow Eleanor of Accretaine, one of the most powerful women in the medieval world, as she goes on crusade to the Holy Land with 300 handmaidens in tow.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  She leads her own army. Everyone goes gaga for Eleanor.

• 37:33Speaker 03

  And trace the voyage of the first Vikings as they arrive on Iceland's lonely shores. For the best historical stories to get lost in, check out Dan Snow's History.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  They are lovers by 1800.

• 38:11Kate Lister?

  Hopelessly in love.

• 38:12Speaker 03

  She has fallen pregnant.

• 38:13Kate Lister?

  Yes, yes. She's, she has had another child, by the way. We didn't actually say that one when she was, oh yeah, we mentioned to it, the little girl that she, she had and was fostered out.

• 38:23Speaker 03

  Way back.

• 38:23Kate Lister?

  That's, the baby's still around, but she kept that from Nelson for a very, very, very long time. So this is actually her second baby.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  Called Horatio.

• 38:31Kate Lister?

  Called, so not subtle about who the father is there.

• 38:33Speaker 03

  But they do pretend that she's an orphan and they adopt her or something.

• 38:36Kate Lister?

  So weird this time. There's like, all of this, like, everybody knows what's happening. Everybody knows what's happening, but they still have this pretence of, oh yeah, it's just an orphan. It's just a random orphan that, that we found that we've called Horatio for some reason. And people knew that she was pregnant. And one of the reasons they knew she was pregnant is because when she's back in London, maternity wear starts to become really fashionable because that's what she's wearing. So everybody knows she's pregnant, but that we're going to pretend that, that this is just an orphan.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  So then he goes off and wins the second of his three great battles in which he commands, this time fighting the Danes.

• 39:11Kate Lister?

  Okay, okay.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  Copenhagen.

• 39:13Kate Lister?

  Right, they got involved, did they?

• 39:14Speaker 03

  They got involved. Well, they, poor things. They, they didn't really know they're getting involved, but they, then their fleet was too valuable to fall into French hands. And so the Brits just went and absolutely smashed up their fleet.

• 39:23Kate Lister?

  That sounds like us, yeah.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  Which is when Nelson, there's this, he didn't say, I see no ships, but he, he-

• 39:29Kate Lister?

  Did he ever say that?

• 39:30Speaker 03

  His senior commander, he said, I have a right to be blind sometime, because he joked about his eye. And he said, his senior commander was saying, do not go into Copenhagen and, and risk, risk our fleet. And Nelson just sailed straight in and blasted the Danish ships.

• 39:42Kate Lister?

  Always audacious, isn't he?

• 39:44Speaker 03

  He's very audacious.

• 39:45Kate Lister?

  He is.

• 39:46Speaker 03

  And he's bold, he's bold. So, and he ignores this, the, the, his senior commander was putting all these little flags up, going, return immediately. And he's like, I, I can't see the signals. I can't see the signals. I have a right to be-

• 39:55Kate Lister?

  He's like Sean Bean in Sharp, a rebel ra- raised to the ranks, a working class, no, I'm going, I'm getting distracted now.

• 40:02Speaker 03

  Yes, you are. Let's calm down a bit here, folks.

• 40:04Kate Lister?

  I did have quite, that's one of my key moments growing up is watching Sean Bean in Sharp.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Well, of course.

• 40:08Kate Lister?

  Yeah, obviously. Yeah, for everyone, I think.

• 40:11Speaker 03

  For everyone.

• 40:12Kate Lister?

  For everybody.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  Particularly when Liz Hurley went on.

• 40:14Kate Lister?

  I remember that episode.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 40:16Kate Lister?

  Right, moving on.

• 40:17Speaker 03

  So then he comes back. So he's even more famous now, even more celebrated. And he, and he moves in to a polyamorous household.

• 40:24Kate Lister?

  Basically, yeah.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Where it's him and Emma, Emma's husband and their child.

• 40:29Kate Lister?

  And Emma's mum, except I think at one point is they were living in separate houses down the road from one another. But then they decided it would all just be easier if they, if they moved in-

• 40:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:37Kate Lister?

  Together. And that's exactly what happened. And there's no way that Sir Hamilton, the husband, can't have known what was happening. It's impossible. He clearly knew, he was clearly okay with this.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  He, he, he, yeah, I mean, he was treated as, Nelson was like a house guest or something.

• 40:53Kate Lister?

  Yeah, everyone seems to have been getting on very well.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  But then the old fellow dies.

• 40:58Kate Lister?

  Yes, he does. He seems to have picked up some kind of illness when he was away. Yeah. I mean, it could have been anything.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  Could have been anything.

• 41:04Kate Lister?

  Could have been anything, but yeah.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  Could have been a bit hemlock in his Ribena in the morning.

• 41:08Kate Lister?

  They didn't need to do that.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  No, no, exactly. They were happy.

• 41:11Kate Lister?

  He was no obstacle at all. In fact, at one point, Emma's getting a lot of attention from the Prince of Wales, who was a philandering sex pest. Right? Nelson is crazy jealous about this and he's writing letters to Emma, to Emma going, don't have mo to the house. Don't, don't, it's terrible. And Hamilton is so concerned about this, he writes to Nelson to tell her that Emma is being faithful to him.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Oh yes, that's extraordinary, isn't it?

• 41:34Kate Lister?

  Yeah, isn't it? Yeah.

• 41:35Speaker 03

  Don't worry.

• 41:36Kate Lister?

  Don't worry, she's been, so he absolutely knew, was completely on board with everything. So he didn't need to be got rid of. And apparently Emma was reasonably upset when he died.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  Well, he sounds like he's, you know, quite a nice guy. But you know, the thing about him, maybe he's, he's on the right side of history because we're still talking about him now. Otherwise he'd be a forgotten footnote.

• 41:51Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  So he goes, well, this is my shot.

• 41:54Kate Lister?

  So he dies.

• 41:55Speaker 03

  To be remembered. 1803, dies in his early seventies. So he's, yeah, he's-

• 41:58Kate Lister?

  He's done all right. He's done all right. Emma gets loads of marriage offers at this point because she's super famous.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  And Nelson is still married. He cannot get divorced and marry her.

• 42:08Kate Lister?

  He wants to though. He tries to, but she's not playing ball.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:12Kate Lister?

  And this, this doesn't go in Emma's favour, but she is vicious about Fanny Nelson. She says some awful things about her. In fact, in one of the letters she writes to a friend, she, she, I'm paraphrasing, but she basically writes, I'd love to say I'm signing off Mrs Nelson, but I just don't think that's going to happen because she just won't die.

• 42:29Kate Lister?

  Emma.

• 42:30Speaker 03

  So the great tragedy at this moment is that Emma probably should have married one of these rich suitors.

• 42:35Kate Lister?

  There's lots of should have moments here for Emma. There's loads and loads of shoulders. She should have married, but she's holding out, thinking she's going to get to be Mrs. Nelson.

• 42:44Speaker 03

  Well, yeah.

• 42:45Kate Lister?

  And, and because when he dies, the husband dies, she doesn't get all the money. He's horrendously in debt because he's been spending loads as an ambassador, thinking that he's basically got an expense account and the British government will pay it all back. And that's not how that works at all. So he's living on credit. And then all of the estate passes to his nephew, Gravel, who we remembered.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  Not that guy.

• 43:07Kate Lister?

  That guy, that guy. And he gives, Emma's basically got a pension that kind of amount, like not pension, an annuity that amounts to about a hundred thousand pounds a year in today's money. That's what she gets, but she's utterly dependent on Gravel paying it to her. So she's not in a great position here at all. I know. It's really crap, isn't it? That all the money just, just went to him. She's now very vulnerable, but convinced that she's going to end up as Mrs. Nelson. This is all going to have a happy ending.

• 43:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. And we should say Nelson has been elevated to the period. So she should be Viscountess Nelson.

• 43:36Kate Lister?

  She would.

• 43:37Speaker 03

  This is a weird thing. Nelson always signed his name. It's really annoying when you're really looking at a Nelson letter. And he often writes Bronte. And you're like, what are you talking about? And the, because he got an Italian dukedom and the dukedom's higher than being a Viscount. And he was like, the, the Brits were always like, you know, we're not going to meet a duke, mate. And so, and so he would go, I am actually the Duke of Bronte. And everyone's like, that's an Italian, that's so stupid. So it's, and he signs himself sometimes Nelson and Bronte, which is why the Brontes changed their name from Bronte to Bronte.

• 44:07Kate Lister?

  I did not know that.

• 44:09Speaker 03

  But it was, but it was a silly thing. He was very vain. And so she would have been the Duchess of Bronte. Right. And then, so 1803, they, they, they exchange rings. He tells her that she's his wife.

• 44:22Kate Lister?

  She's not though.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  But that's right. It's legal. Remember that, kids.

• 44:25Kate Lister?

  This is a very important lesson.

• 44:27Speaker 03

  Get the ink on a bit of paper. Because in my eyes, in the eyes of God, you're my wife. Yeah.

• 44:31Kate Lister?

  Yeah. But that's, as a wise woman once said, put a ring on it.

• 44:34Speaker 03

  Put a ring on it, mate. And we'll see why in a second.

• 44:37Kate Lister?

  Yes.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  So there's this extraordinary few months really between 1803 and 1805. They are the most famous people in the country.

• 44:45Kate Lister?

  Yep. People losing their crap trying to get to see them.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  Successful Admiral, war hero. But darkest hours for Britain, very, very dangerous time Britain. And he just keeps winning these astonishing victories. They, they, their house is like a sort of open house, but the celebrities come royalty. It's sort of, it's amazing.

• 45:03Kate Lister?

  Well, he buys this house, I think it's called like Merton or something like that. And he leaves Emma to basically do it. And she tries to turn it into, it's like Nelsonland, basically.

• 45:11Speaker 03

  Nelsonland.

• 45:11Kate Lister?

  She's, it's like, it's like Graceland, but for Nelson. She's like got pictures of him everywhere. Like people come in and see it.

• 45:17Speaker 03

  They're happy. Yeah. People are happy to do that.

• 45:18Kate Lister?

  It's like, and she re, she goes all in for this guy.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:21Kate Lister?

  All in. That's a mistake.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  That's a mistake. Never go all in.

• 45:25Kate Lister?

  Diversify your income.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  And then he, this is not to do with A M, but I love this moment. This, I love this moment. He goes to, in 1805, he goes to London to meet with the, sort of effectively the person who's Foreign Secretary. And he sits in his anteroom and he meets a young general just back from India called Sir Arthur Wellesley.

• 45:44Kate Lister?

  Oh, I've heard of him.

• 45:46Speaker 03

  Wellington, the man who becomes Wellington, the only time Wellington and Nelson meet, two, Britain's two greatest military commanders, one of the land, one of the sea.

• 45:54Kate Lister?

  I thought they were besties.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  No, they meet, they have about, about half an hour conversation. Initially Nelson, he's like an idiot. And Wellesley, who hated everyone, basically, he's very snobbish and dismissive of everyone. He thought, who is this man? He was sort of pontificating about, Nelson leaves the room, find out who Wellesley, finds out who Wellesley is, comes back in, is like, okay, this guy's good value. He's done these amazing things. India, he's built a name for himself. And Nelson's like, and then they have a conversation. And later Wellington says, it was the most interesting conversation I ever had. And no one knows what was said in that room.

• 46:23Kate Lister?

  Wow. That is very cool, actually.

• 46:26Speaker 03

  And then Nelson gets, goes down to Portsmouth, says goodbye to A M. Yeah. Doesn't, doesn't, I suppose he has a tearful farewell, goes to Portsmouth. The last bit of land that he sets foot on in Britain is a shingle beach in Portsmouth, where I've been. And I've taken my kids there. And he leaves, goes out through the gate and the wall, in the harbour wall in Portsmouth. HMS Victory is anchored off and he gets on board HMS Victory and he goes down to join the fleet off Cadiz, where a massive French and Spanish fleet are stuck in port and they're, the Brits are blockading them.

• 46:58Kate Lister?

  And he says, bring me my extra shiny jacket.

• 47:00Speaker 03

  Bring, bring my big jacket. Yeah. And then he, the Brits, stupidly, the Spanish and French sail out of said harbour for reasons that are rather confusing and strange, and they should not have done that. And present themselves for the complete demolition. And Nelson just sails straight at them and annihilates them. And he's shot really quite early on in the battle. So for most of the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson is mortally wounded, coughing up his own blood.

• 47:24Kate Lister?

  Does it take a while for him to?

• 47:25Speaker 03

  Takes a while. He finds out he's won. He's shot really quite early on. His secretary, they, they're sailing towards the French and Spanish fleet and his secretary is killed. His brains and blood spattered all over Nelson. His captain standing next to him gets the buckle of his shoe shot off. So Nelson's like, this is, this is hot work, lads. And then they, HMS Victory insists on it going first. A ship was overtaking HMS Victory and he says, back your sails and fall back. I will break the line. So he insists that he's going to be the first guy to break the French and Spanish line. He does so, but, and he obliterates one French ship and then he take, grapples another one. And someone in the rigging shoots him through the shoulder, in that shoulder, and it goes through his spine and lungs.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  And he collapses and then he collapses on the deck. And he says, they've done for me. I'm done. I know I'm done. My spine shot through. I'm done. He goes, they carry him downstairs. The surgeon goes, someone says, the admiral's here. The surgeon goes, oh, look after you. And the surgeon, and Nelson said, look after everyone else. No point in looking after me. It's too late for me. And he goes, and he lies in a corner on the bottom deck of this ship in the darkness. And the people bring in reports as he's dying, he slungs his stow your finger up with blood. But as he's dying, people are saying, oh, this, this ship has surrendered, that ship surrendered. And it's clear that at the end of the day that he's won. And he, but he's last, he says, please, please tell my country to look after Emma.

• 48:43Kate Lister?

  Doesn't it? Not kiss me Hardy.

• 48:46Speaker 03

  No, it's not. Kiss him.

• 48:48Kate Lister?

  What is that, by the way?

• 48:49Speaker 03

  He may have asked Hardy to kiss him. I think that they, I think, you know, masculinity was different back then. Hugging, kissing was all part of the fun.

• 48:56Kate Lister?

  Yeah, possibly.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  But also he, so he just, he was feeling cold and lonely and he was see, he was seeing the darkness coming for him.

• 49:04Kate Lister?

  He might have been delirious.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  Well, he also might have wanted his great mate to give him a little kiss and say, you know, I'm here with you.

• 49:10Kate Lister?

  Fair. But more reliably, he seems to have said, please look after Emma.

• 49:14Speaker 03

  But he's definitely said, he said, thank God I've done my duty. And he said, please look after her. He may have also said kismet, which is Arabic for like fate.

• 49:21Kate Lister?

  Oh, that's very poetic.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  But anyway, so yes, he does say, please love Emma. And, and Captain Hardy, his friend and the British state fundamentally fail to, you know, to do discharge, um, Horatio's last request.

• 49:37Kate Lister?

  Not that I want to speak ill of the dead, but he also kind of fucked that up because he didn't put it in his will.

• 49:42Speaker 03

  No.

• 49:43Kate Lister?

  In his will, he basically said of the British state, please look after Emma. Which means that like, he put something in there about like, oh, please look after, but didn't actually put, please give her this money.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know. And it's a lesson for all of us, particularly now that we live in lots of unmarried households. You've got to be very careful about it.

• 49:59Kate Lister?

  You've got to be very careful.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  Big problems.

• 50:02Kate Lister?

  Yep.

• 50:02Speaker 03

  See those, see those brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law that you think will get on really well?

• 50:06Kate Lister?

  No, no. You've got to put a ring on it if you're being serious.

• 50:10Speaker 03

  The actual Viscountess Nelson, Fanny.

• 50:13Kate Lister?

  Oh, yeah. What, what do you think that she was going to do? Because like as soon as the legal mechanism kicks in, she's the wife. She's the one that we're going to go to. She's the one organising the funeral. Do you think she's going to say, yeah, we should get that Emma Hamilton over?

• 50:26Speaker 03

  He, she is speaking of funeral. She, they, they had the most astonishing funeral, boat trip up the Thames, St Paul's Cathedral, buried in the heart of this cathedral, still in the crypt today, you can see it. She's not allowed to go.

• 50:36Kate Lister?

  She's not allowed to go. She's not allowed to go. In fact, she is pretty much out on her ear at this point. She doesn't get any money from Nelson's will. She gets nothing. Nobody actually looks after her. And what we've got, she, she outlives him by 10 years. And those 10 years are basically a slow descent into, into more and more debt. Because the other thing, this is the, now this is where this is on her. She never stops spending. Like she's trying to keep up this appearance of being, you know, the lady.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  For example, and then that becomes too much for her.

• 51:06Kate Lister?

  And so she's living on credit. She's getting more and more and more money. She's like playing the name that she's got and the reputation, but it's not enough. And eventually she ends up in a debtors' prison. I know, right? I mean, it wasn't like, you know, the worst debt prison, but it's a debtors' prison.

• 51:18Speaker 03

  But it's all a bit Little Dorrit, isn't it?

• 51:19Kate Lister?

  Yeah. She's drinking very heavily.

• 51:22Speaker 03

  And she's got Horatio at her side. So she's a young girl.

• 51:24Kate Lister?

  She does. She's, gets addicted to Lordnam as well.

• 51:28Speaker 03

  Which is sort of opium.

• 51:29Kate Lister?

  Yeah, which is opium in alcohol. It's not something that you want to be messing about with. And she, she's burning through what little money she has. She tries borrowing money. She tries getting credit. It doesn't work. And her reputation is really done for. Now, she didn't do this, from what I understand, but her letters to Nelson or his letters to her were published because she lost track of them and somebody basically sold them to a publisher. So she didn't even make money out of that. And that was when the public really saw like the nasty side of this.

• 51:58Speaker 03

  During her lifetime.

• 52:00Kate Lister?

  That's during her lifetime. But that, but that, like, this was her letters going, why won't she just die? Like, oh God. So now the public have turned on them because that is a really, that's not very nice. Their reputation is in absolute tatters. And she eventually flees the debtors' prison.

• 52:15Speaker 03

  She escapes.

• 52:16Kate Lister?

  She goes to France where she's living in, pretty much in poverty, dies at 49.

• 52:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:22Kate Lister?

  Boom. And that was a very, very sad end of Emma Hamilton.

• 52:27Speaker 03

  I, I do like the final thing, which is every English and British ship captain in Calais at the time did turn up to her funeral. In fact, he followed her coffin. I mean, it's a small thing, but they, you know, they just, that was their last. Frankly, tardy.

• 52:43Kate Lister?

  Yeah, quite frankly, and I think that it was unfair because she was the mistress, you know, and that's not, it's not great, blah, blah, blah, but they obviously really, really loved one another. Nelson was very clear, please look after her, people didn't do that. And she did have, like, people were indebted to her, and when the time came for it.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, all their friends abandoned.

• 53:04Kate Lister?

  They all went, I mean.

• 53:05Speaker 03

  All these grand friends.

• 53:06Kate Lister?

  She'd played a really strong part in this revolution in Naples, trying to support the monarchy, they didn't give a stuff, she was beloved by the Prince of Wales, he couldn't give a stuff either, and they all turned their back on her, all of them.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  It's just, what's so fascinating about, and you see this in Jane Austen, this absolute, there's a visceral terror, and frankly, I'm sure many, any in all periods, but particularly in Georgian England, that the idea of cascading out of a sort of gentility, because there is no safety net.

• 53:34Kate Lister?

  No.

• 53:35Speaker 03

  If you haven't got siblings, and you haven't got a wider family, a cousin that can take you in, and you haven't got diamonds.

• 53:41Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 53:41Speaker 03

  You haven't got, then, then there's, there's no, there's no parachute.

• 53:44Kate Lister?

  No.

• 53:44Speaker 03

  You could hit, you can hit, you can go down, down, down, down.

• 53:48Kate Lister?

  They did.

• 53:49Speaker 03

  And there's, you know, whether it be vagrancy, whatever it might be, and it's just, it's terrifying, isn't it? And that's, that chasm is kind of yawning.

• 53:57Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 53:58Speaker 03

  Even when you're at the heights, you know, that unless you've got.

• 54:00Kate Lister?

  She really fell, and she was at the heights as well. The daughter.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  Hobnobbing with the Prince of Wales.

• 54:04Kate Lister?

  I know, right? Like, and he really fancied her as well. The daughter, she takes Nelson's surname, but she never acknowledges Emma Hamilton as her mother during her lifetime. So, yeah.

• 54:14Speaker 03

  Yes, because she gets taken in by one of his family members, doesn't she? She goes back to England, and a sister of Nelson, I think, takes her in.

• 54:20Kate Lister?

  So she's forever the Scarlet Woman to be blamed for this. But I've got a great deal of sympathy for Emma Hamilton.

• 54:26Speaker 03

  An unspeakably traumatic and brutal life that she's, and, and time and again, she's kind of about just trying to make the best of it, and using her wit and everything, everything she had. It's extraordinary.

• 54:39Kate Lister?

  She is, and I do think, I do think that it was a real love story as well.

• 54:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:43Kate Lister?

  A messy one, but a love story.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  And, yeah, and we don't ever talk about that, is that she not only faces social and economic oblivion when Nelson dies, she has lost the love of her life.

• 54:53Kate Lister?

  She has.

• 54:53Speaker 03

  With whom she finally, finally, after being trafficked and abused, has met someone that she is consensually in love with. I mean, that must, that's, that's a terrible thing to happen.

• 55:05Kate Lister?

  That is, isn't it? And I think the moral of the story, if we can take one from her point of view, is get a ring on it, don't be doing that, and save your money.

• 55:13Speaker 03

  I know, it's very depressing, isn't it? You need, you need that security, you need money.

• 55:18Kate Lister?

  That's it.

• 55:18Speaker 03

  Do you know, I want to talk to someone who is of Russian origin, few generations back, and to this day, into the 2020s, she advises family members to buy jewellery, and I was like, don't, jewellery's a bit weird, it's so stupid. She goes, no, it's because you might have to leave in a hurry.

• 55:33Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 55:34Speaker 03

  And I thought, you know, isn't that amazing?

• 55:35Kate Lister?

  Yeah.

• 55:35Speaker 03

  That, that, that sort of ancestral memory is like, you might have to leave in a hurry, and you can stick in a pocket and go.

• 55:41Kate Lister?

  Exactly. If only Emma Hamilton had grabbed more jewellery, quite frankly.

• 55:46Speaker 03

  Kate Lister, as always, love that.

• 55:48Kate Lister?

  That was so much fun. Thank you.

• 55:50Speaker 03

  I learned a lot about Lady Emma Hamilton.

• 55:52Kate Lister?

  And I learned loads about Nelson.

• 55:54Speaker 03

  I was hoping you'd say that. See, see you next time, girl.

• 55:58Kate Lister?

  Thank you. Thank you for listening, and thank you so much to Dan for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along, whatever it is you get your podcasts. And if you'd like to explore a subject, or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at [email protected]. This podcast was edited by Natasha Hughes, it was produced by Sophie G, and the senior producer was Freddy Chick. Join me again, Betwixt Sheets, The History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.