Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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When Nelson's carriage drew up outside Nerritt's hotel in one of central London's most elegant streets, the pavement was packed with well-wishers. He was dressed in full uniform with three stars on his breast and two gold medals, reported the Naval Chronicle, and was welcomed by repeated huzzahs from the crowd, which he returned with a low bow. He looked extremely well, but in person very thin.
In the hotel lobby, Fanny and Edmund were waiting, nervously wringing their hands. When they saw him, relief and joy flashed across their faces. Then, two more figures came in behind him. An older man, long-faced and beaky-nosed. And a younger woman, with an enormous mass of chestnut hair. and almost bursting out of her dress.
And although Fanny tried to smile, it was as if somebody had snuffed out all the lights. So that, of course, is from Adventures in Time, Nelson, Hero of the Seas by our very own Dominic Sandbrook out in paperback today. And it gives you a sense of the incredible stylistic range of this book. In the previous one, we had some vivid and highly original travel writing. Naples is a city of contrasts.
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Chapter 2: How was Horatio Nelson received upon returning to Britain?
And yet there are complaints from very early on from people who have gone to visit him, people who might be expected to be sympathetic to him. who feel that something has gone wrong. I'll just give you a couple of examples. So one of them is Lord and Lady Elgin. Lord and Lady Elgin are going through Palermo on their way to Constantinople.
Lady Elgin writes of Nelson and the Hamiltons and their relationship with the royal family. I never saw three people made such thorough dupes of as Lady Hamilton, Sir William and Lord Nelson. Now, that's not an uncommon thing to say. So the other example I was going to give you was Nelson's old friend, Thomas Trubridge, with whom he later falls out.
Trubitsch wrote to him and said, Please, I'm hearing really disturbing reports about you. If you knew what your friends feel for you, I'm sure you would cut out all the nocturnal parties. The gambling of the people in Palermo is public. It's talked about everywhere. I beseech your lordship, leave off. Lady Hamilton's character will suffer. Nothing can prevent people from talking.
A gambling woman in the eye of an Englishman is lost. Now putting that last bit on one side,
This sort of sense that is clearly current, not just among later sort of Victorian biographies or whatever, but among some of Nelson's friends, that his focus isn't quite what it was, that he's keeping late hours, that maybe you can say some of this is projection and some of this is Anthony and Cleopatra, but surely not all of it, Tom.
No, I mean, clearly it causes gossip. It causes scandal. The two most, you know, the most famous man, the most famous woman in Britain having an affair. I mean, of course, I mean, it's absolute catnip for anyone who loves a scandal. And bear in mind that that thing you read about, you know, it's shameful what's going on here. This is about Nelson's relationship to the Queen of Naples.
And I think that the feeling is that a British admiral should not be behaving like a flunky to rulers of some kind of tin pot Italian kingdom. I mean, I think that's the vibe, basically. And you could argue that perhaps Nelson is clinging to them too closely. But bear in mind, those are the orders he's been given. He has been told, you know, look after them carefully.
And I think you can absolutely make the case in terms of military strategy that that maintaining the integrity of Britain's only real ally of significance in the Mediterranean, at a time when Nelson is responsible for establishing the supremacy of the Royal Navy in the face of French threats, I think that is a reasonable strategic position to take.
Now, when Keith arrives, he's very disapproving of Nelson's relationship with Emma Hamilton. Of course, that's his kind of moral position. But I think the much more deep-seated reason for the disagreements between the two men is that Keith isn't as convinced as Nelson is that the Italian theatre is important.
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Chapter 3: What role did Emma Hamilton play in Nelson's life?
They don't get on at all well. There's constant arguments. A lot of officers say Nelson's dallying with Lady Hamilton, doesn't care. Other people say, no, that's fine. He's great. It's all going well. But Nelson, by about the middle of the year, is constantly saying, I've had enough. I want to go home. Please let me go home. And eventually Keith says, yeah, fine. Yeah, I'm sick of you.
Good riddance to you. And actually, even how the question of getting home, there's sort of an argument about that. So Keith says to Nelson, I'll give you a frigate. You can go home in a frigate. Now, Nelson says, oh, what, a frigate? You know, I is a great star. The Hamiltons, these tremendous people, should be going home in splendor.
And actually, as it turns out, Emma doesn't want to go by sea at all, does she? Partly because she knows that Maria Carolina, her great friend, is planning a trip to Vienna, great Habsburg capital. And she would really like to go on land with Maria Carolina. Now, as we will discover, Emma is also pregnant. So that is another issue. Anyway, Nelson says, fine, you know, we'll go over land.
We'll go via Austria. We'll go via Germany and then, you know, cross the North Sea to England. And I think there's a, do you not agree that this is seen as generally undignified? Undignified. Yes, I do. It's not fitting for the naval, the guy who won the Battle of the Nile should come home, you know, land at Portsmouth, all of that stuff.
But actually, you know, there is a sense, I think, what Emma and Maria Carolina want, Emma and Maria Carolina get with this.
And I think also there's a sense that he's been led into bad habits by foreigners bedecking him with baubles and comical medals and things. He looks like carrots from Gilbert and Sullivan, I think, at this point. Yeah. And this is felt to be kind of undignified. And I think this undoubtedly poisons the otherwise kind of complete mood of approbation that would be greeting him.
I think there is a kind of undertow of anxiety that he is making himself look ridiculous, that he's letting himself down. And it obscures the fact that actually his term as Commander-in-Chief has not remotely been a disaster.
He has kept Sicily in the fight, he's got Naples back, and he's prosecuted the blockade of Malta with extreme efficiency and with such effectiveness that shortly after he's departed, on the 5th of September 1800, Malta will surrender.
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Chapter 4: What controversies surrounded Nelson's actions in Naples?
Rather than hand it over to King Ferdinand, the British keep it, much to everyone's surprise. And basically, they will keep it for a century and more. It will play its part in the Second World War.
But actually, the even bigger thing, surely, is that Nelson is returning to England as the victor of the Nile. The winner of the greatest naval victory in Britain's history. The victory that effectively punctured Napoleon's dreams of empire in Egypt. And the tragedy, I think, and this is even for his...
critics within the Navy, for Lord Keith and all these other people, that as they see it, the tragedy is that the victor of the Nile has tarnished his own record and is going back. Whether he really has tarnished it, I'm sure we can debate. But the sadness is that he's not going back as the victor of the Nile. He's going back as a scandal-plagued, controversy-haunted figure.
From Nelson's point of view, there is a positive to traveling over land, which is that obviously he will have to go via Austria and other parts of Germany that are allied to Britain, all of whom are very excited by his achievement in defeating the French at the Battle of the Nile.
And so yet again, it promises opportunities for being praised by foreigners, which I think by this point, Nelson's very keen on.
By the time they get to, well, you know, we don't need to go through every single place they stopped at, but they go through Italy, Tuscany. They end up in Austria and Vienna. He goes to the theater. He has his portrait painted. He meets Joseph Haydn, who names a mass after him. He's a big celebrity.
And everyone's very excited and they're wearing kind of Nelson fashions and stuff like that, aren't they?
And Emma Hamilton fashions as well. So she too is a big star. Women in Vienna are copying her look as well. They are being treated as stars and I think both of them absolutely adore it.
I mean, I worked out how much this trip costs them. This trip costs them £3,000. And if you compare that in income terms, that's about £5 million today. That's a very expensive trip. And that's money that they don't really have. So there's that issue. Second issue, Emma heavily pregnant, as you mentioned. And people are already gossiping that Nelson may be the father. He is the father.
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Chapter 5: How did Nelson's relationships affect his military career?
She's become a second daughter to his father. And Fanny has become increasingly anxious in recent months. Nelson's letters have, A, started to dry up. But B, when they do come, they are very short and they are very cold. And she says to her friends, I'm actually quite worried about these Hamiltons.
There's a clear sense of kind of growing dread in Fanny's mind about the influence of the Hamiltons. Now, We're not going to degenerate into Team Emma and Team Fanny, are we, Tom?
I hope. I've always mentioned Mansfield Park at the start of this episode, Jane Austen's novel. Jane Austen, of course, had a brother who served in the Royal Navy, kept very abreast of Nelsoniana
I've always wondered whether Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, who is the slightly mousy, the poor relation, not showy at all, and she's counterpointed to a much more glamorous woman in the form of Mary Crawford. I've always wondered if there's a little hint there, perhaps, of the dynamic between Fanny, Nelson's wife, and Emma, Nelson's mistress.
Well, it feels like a very Jane Austen dynamic Germany, doesn't it? The two women, the one who is kind of quieter and more retiring, the one who is louder and is a little bit more Emma Woodville or whatever. Yeah, Emma again. Yeah. Anyway, finally they all meet up, the scene you described at the beginning.
So little of this is private, because even at that first meeting, there are loads of well-wishers there. There are great crowds outside. It's actually almost impossible for Fanny and Horatio to find a moment to talk together, just the two of them, because he's got his father there, because the Hamiltons are there. Nelson, when he arrives in London... He's so famous at this point.
There's Nelson crockery. There are Nelson hats. There's Nelson earrings. There's Nelson prints. He can't walk down the street without people mobbing him. And of course, he doesn't want to because he's wearing his full dress uniform. He's courting- Oh, I hate the way I keep being noticed. Exactly. Because he's a big star and because he's Britain's great military asset-
He's politically important now in a way that he wasn't before. So he gets to meet the Prime Minister, William Pitt, and the guy who's going to become Prime Minister, Henry Addington.
My sense of it at this point is Nelson's greeting the crowds and he's greeting politicians, but hanging over him the whole time is this hideous dilemma, this issue of the mistress and the wife, and the fact that they're all together.
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Chapter 6: What were the implications of the gathering storm clouds of war?
So he goes off to Salisbury with the Hamiltons and he gets given the freedom of the city of Salisbury. So that reflects very well on Salisbury. And then he goes off to a place where I once took five wickets, Fonthill, where William Beckford, who is going to be exposed as the Jeffrey Epstein of the Regency period, this very, very sinister figure who will end up going into exile in Portugal.
But at this point, he's used all the money he's made from sugar, so exploiting slaves in the Caribbean, to build this enormous folly, Fonthill Abbey. And he lays on an absolute extravaganza for Nelson and the Hamiltons. And it's a very, very spectacular Christmas. And it's very, very not fanny.
It's very Peter the Great, isn't it? There's a lot of dwarves. There's people with torches. There's sort of strange scenes and sort of Emma does her attitudes.
She is eight months pregnant. She does Agrippina bringing the ashes of Germanicus. So tremendous scenes.
Now you can imagine Fanny's, where's Fanny? I mean, she's sort of hanging around with Edmund at age 78 at Christmas, really miserable Christmas, knowing that Nelson is away sort of with the Hamilsons at this party. And I think there's this sort of sense that the end is coming. And then the denouement comes on the 9th of January.
Fanny and Nelson agreed to sell this house called Roundwood that they'd never actually lived in. And a few days later, they're having breakfast with their lawyer. Nelson mentions at breakfast something about dear Lady Hamilton. And it's clear that basically for the only time in her life, something snapped in Fanny. And she said, you know, it's like the sort of the mouse that roared.
She said, I'm sick of hearing of dear Lady Hamilton, and I'm resolved you shall give up either her or me. This is the lawyer reporting this. And Nelson stared at her very coldly and he said, take care, Fanny, what you say. I love you sincerely, but I cannot forget my obligations to Lady Hamilton or speak of her otherwise than with affection or admiration. And Fanny at that just gets up.
and walks out of the room. At that point, they'd been married for 15 years, and probably neither of them really knew it, but that was the end of their life together.
So incredible kind of emotional storms raging there. But Dominic, out across the continent of Europe, storm clouds are gathering, and these are, of course, the storm clouds of war. And they are gathering in particular over the freezing waters of the Baltic.
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Chapter 7: What challenges did Nelson face with Admiral Lord Keith?
so you talked about nelson being cruel um emma also by this point is behaving abominably to fanny kind of um turning nelson's family against her calling her names kind of gossiping about her behind her back and and i think both of them have kind of been driven mad by their mutual passion but also by the social pressure that it has put both of them under
And I think this is kind of the lowest point in their mutual story. They behave so badly to her.
I completely agree with you, Tom. Up to this point, Emma Hamilton, deep down, I am going to confess, and I hope the listeners will not judge me for this, I find her quite annoying. But this is the one point where I think she's genuinely vicious.
Fanny is a beaten woman. Well, so Nelson has this awful phrase, it is very easy to find a stick if you are inclined to beat your dog. Yeah, I mean, that's hard to defend.
That's very hard to defend, I think. Now, I think in Nelson's case, I'm not saying this makes him better than Emma, by the way. But I think in Nelson's case, this is clearly driven, do you not think, by guilt? He hates feeling bad about himself. He's been brought up by a vicar in a vicarage. He's been told how to behave. And he knows he's letting his father and his moral code down.
There's a slight sense of viciousness and anger to the way he treats Fanny because he feels that she has driven him to behave badly and he doesn't like it.
But what's interesting is he doesn't blame Emma for this. I mean, he could easily have done that, but actually it seems to have forced them into an even greater kind of codependency, although it does not in any way inhibit his capacity to feel jealous, as we all see. Yeah, exactly.
And now I think one other aspect, actually, I mean, we could get bogged down in this. So one thing that is worth people remembering is Emma and Nelson can move on from this. They can still have the relationship. And the sad thing for Fanny is she can't ever move on and she never, ever does because an abandoned wife can't take on a new partner.
So she's effectively condemned to live as a kind of widow, as I think John Sugden says, an object of pity and innuendo for the remainder of her days. And that is a really sad story.
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Chapter 8: How did personal dilemmas influence Nelson's leadership?
Parker thinks, no, we'll just stop. And Nelson can't believe it. And for two days, he smoulders in his cabin aboard the St. George, his ship.
And he's still writing letters to Emma?
Yeah, exactly. He's thinking about the Prince of Wales and thinking about throwing boiling water over people's heads and stuff. And then he writes Parker this extraordinary letter. He says, don't worry about the defences. Time is of the essence. It's now or never. We have to strike at the Danes. Not a moment should be lost. This is a quote in Attacking the Enemy.
They will every day and every hour be stronger. And then he says to Parker, the honour of England is in your hands. On your decision depends whether our country shall be degraded in the eyes of Europe or whether she shall rear her head higher than ever. Never did our country depend so much on the success of any fleet as on this. And he sends the letter across to Parker's flagship.
And he waits and waits for the reply. And finally, it comes. And Parker says, very well, we will attack. But you, Horatio Nelson, will lead that assault personally. We're not going to stop now, are we? We are, Tom. That's the nature of podcasting.
Unbelievable. Britain's survival is at stake. The Danish guns are bristling. Nelson's preparing to go into the straight. Oh, such excitement. And if you are a clubber member of The Rest Is History, then of course you can hear that episode right now, as well as the next four episodes in this series.
And if you are not a club member, but you would like to become one, then you can go to therestishistory.com and sign up there. Unbelievable excitement. The Battle of Copenhagen is ready to begin. We will see you next time. Goodbye.
Bye-bye.
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