Trafalgar

by Nicholas Best

  CHAPTER 45

  NELSON’S FUNERAL

  The original plan had been for the coffin to lie open in the Painted Hall, so that people could see Nelson’s face as they filed past. But Beatty’s attempts to restore his features had not been successful enough for that, so the coffin remained closed for the viewing. It was encased in a magnificent casket, custom built for the occasion, adorned with seahorses, Nile crocodiles and gilded heraldic devices. In keeping with ancient tradition, a helmet, surcoat, shield and gauntlets were also on display. The catafalque was surrounded by flags and the walls of the Hall were hung with black cloth, all lit by hundreds of candles in sconces.

  The first mourner was the Princess of Wales, who made a private visit on the afternoon of 4 January 1806. Next morning, the doors were opened to the public and ordinary people were admitted as well.

  A written notice was posted up, that the public would be admitted at 11 a.m. by which time many thousands were assembled. Punctually at that hour, the doors were thrown open, and though express orders had been given that only a limited number should be admitted at once, yet the mob was so great as to bear down everything in its way. Nothing could be heard but shrieks and groans, as several persons were trodden under foot and greatly hurt. Vast numbers of ladies and gentlemen lost their shoes, hats, shawls etc, and the ladies fainted in every direction. One man had his eye literally torn out, coming into contact with one of the gate-posts.

  Things were no better next day. The Royal Naval Hospital governor became so alarmed that he wrote to the Home Secretary, warning that the funeral procession might be disrupted if firm action wasn’t taken:

  The Mob assembled here is so very numerous and tumultuous that it is absolutely necessary that your Lordship should apply for a very strong party of Cavalry to line the street on each side from Deptford Bridge to the entrance of the Hospital and to attend the other Gates early on Wednesday morning or it will not be possible for the procession to move from here – the mob consisted yesterday of upwards of 30,000 and equally so today and more outrageous – Townsend and the other peace officers from Bow Street say they never saw anything like it before.

  In the event, the procession passed off without incident. Nelson’s coffin was taken from the Painted Hall on 8 January and transferred to a royal barge, originally built for Charles 11, for the journey to Westminster. Rowed by sixteen men from the Victory, it was escorted by dozens of other barges and innumerable smaller craft as it set off for Whitehall Stairs. Minute-guns boomed from the Tower and thousands watched from the bank as the barge proceeded upriver. At Whitehall, Nelson’s coffin was unloaded and carried to the Admiralty, where it was to remain overnight before the funeral. His body was placed in the small waiting room immediately to the left of the front door – a room well known to him in life. Nelson had waited there often as a young man, impatient to see someone about his next command.

  William Marsden, the Admiralty secretary, watched him arrive:

  I have had a good view of the water procession from the top of the building, and of its entry into the court and house from my own window. The Mackenzies and the Wilkins are to be here at ten o’clock tonight (through the garden door) to be introduced to the tomb of the Capulets.

  Nelson’s chaplain Alexander Scott was there as well, unable to tear himself away from the body. He had been with Nelson when he died and had hardly left his side ever since.

  The weather next morning was unusually fine for January. The funeral cortège formed up on Horse Guards Parade for the procession to St Paul’s. The Royal Scots Greys led the way, heading a column so long that they had reached the cathedral before Nelson’s funeral car had even left the Admiralty. The column consisted mostly of soldiers, carriages and military bands, with relatively few sailors among its ranks. Apart from forty-eight Greenwich Pensioners, the only other naval contingent came from the Victory. One of them had proudly written home:

  There is three hundred of us Pickt out to go to Lord Nelson Funral. We are to wear blue Jackets and white Trowsers and a black scarf round our arms and hats besides gold medal for the battle of Trafalgar Valued £7 round our necks.

  In fact, only forty-eight sailors marched in the column, followed by a further seven carrying the three shot-riddled flags that the Victory had flown during the battle. They held the flags up as they marched, so the crowd could see the holes. Amidst all the pomp and ceremony, the sailors were the star attraction, according to Lady Elizabeth Hervey: ‘The show altogether was magnificent, but the common people, when the crew of the Victory passed, said, “We had rather see them than all the show!” ’

  Nelson’s funeral car came towards the end of the procession. It was an elaborate affair, decked out to look like the Victory, with a figurehead in front and cabin windows in the rear. The crowds fell silent as it approached, the only sound a noise like the murmur of waves along the seashore as thousands removed their hats in respect.

  At St Paul’s, the coffin was lifted from the funeral car by twelve of the Victory’s crew. They carried it up the steps and into the cathedral. Six admirals in full dress uniform held a canopy over the coffin as it proceeded to the choir past the enemy flags captured at Trafalgar. A giant wooden amphitheatre seventeen tiers high had been built to provide seating for 7,000 mourners. The Duke of York was among them, and the Prince of Wales – a total of seven royal dukes in all. There were also sixteen earls, thirty-six admirals and 100 Royal Navy captains. No women had been invited, so Lady Nelson had remained at home, as had Emma Hamilton. A few fashionable ladies had found seats in the organ loft, but they were there unofficially, without any tickets.

  Prominent among the mourners was William Nelson, the admiral’s brother. He was now Earl Nelson of Trafalgar, having been raised to the peerage three days after the news of his brother’s great victory. Parliament was also going to give him money, enough to buy a country estate and live according to his new station. His tears at Canterbury had rapidly given way to demands for water paints as he sketched designs for the livery to be worn by his staff after the mourning was over.

  William Nelson had made a dreadful nuisance of himself over the funeral arrangements, fussing about precedence and his own importance in the proceedings. He had demanded six mourning coaches in the procession and insisted that tickets should not be issued to relations until they had shown ‘undoubted evidences of their pedigree’. He was universally considered an ass, quite unworthy of his brother.

  Yet he was not the only one to have made a fuss about the arrangements. The Prince of Wales had announced himself to be the chief mourner, only to be overruled by the government. The Lord Mayor had claimed precedence over everyone, including the Prince of Wales, because St Paul’s lay within the boundaries of the City. The Speaker of the House of Commons had refused to sit with the Privy Councillors, citing a 1689 Act of Parliament that entitled him to sit with peers of the realm. There had been a great deal of jockeying for position before anyone got seated at all.

  Some people boycotted the service. Every admiral in England was invited, but nineteen chose not to attend. Some couldn’t make it, but quite a few stayed away because they hadn’t cared for Nelson, considering him a publicity-seeker and a charlatan with a sordid private life. His old friend Lord St Vincent was one of those who didn’t come. The two had been involved in a lawsuit over prize money, but it was the codicil to Nelson’s will leaving Emma Hamilton to the nation that had upset St Vincent. Emma was a ‘bitch’, in his opinion. The Admiralty asked him twice to attend the funeral, but twice he declined, claiming his eyes were too sore. He stayed at home instead.

  Two men who did attend were Admiral Villeneuve and Captain Magendie. They came up from Hampshire to do honour to their adversary. Nelson’s peers may have been equivocal about him, but the Frenchmen were in no doubt as to his greatness. They came to salute their conqueror, the man who had reduced them to nothing. According to some accounts, Captain Lucas came as well.

  The service was very moving. Fifes a
nd muffled drums had played the ‘Dead March’ from Saul as the cortège wound through the streets. In the cathedral, the choir sang Purcell and Greene during the proceedings. At the committal, they all rose for Handel’s funeral anthem ‘The Ways of Zion Do Mourn’, muting the words ‘His body is buried in peace’, then bursting into full cry for the line ‘But his name liveth evermore’. After the words had died away, Nelson’s coffin slowly disappeared, vanishing dramatically through a trapdoor into the crypt below. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as he went.

  Following ancient tradition, three white staves signifying Nelson’s ranks of knight, baron and viscount were ceremonially broken in two and thrown into the grave as the coffin descended. The flags from the Victory were supposed to be folded up and dropped into the grave as well, but the sailors had other ideas. They began to tear up one of the flags for souvenirs. They were joined by a few members of the congregation, despite the disapproval of the rest. A midshipman named Dent ‘was so moved that he bit off a piece of the flag covering the coffin’. It was an unseemly display, but the sailors were determined to have their way. They held on tight to the tattered bits of flag and kept them as mementoes of an extraordinary day. Many of them still exist.

  Nelson was buried in the crypt of St Paul’s, directly below the cross on the dome. His sarcophagus of Italian marble was designed for Cardinal Wolsey, but had later passed into Henry VIII’s hands. With him were buried any French hopes of invading Great Britain. They never tried again. By tacit agreement, the Royal Navy reigned supreme and remained unchallenged for the next 100 years. Nelson’s death may have been a disaster for the nation, but he and the other British sailors who lost their lives at Trafalgar had certainly not died in vain.

  CHAPTER 46

  THE CAPTAINS AND

  THE KINGS DEPART

  Three months after the funeral, a small boat left the Sussex coast under a flag of truce and crossed the Channel to Brittany. It carried Admiral Villeneuve. He had been exchanged for four British post-captains and was on his way home.

  Villeneuve was glad to be leaving England, yet apprehensive about what lay ahead. He knew his life would not be easy after the disaster at Trafalgar. Napoleon had threatened to have him hanged in the past. Villeneuve must have wondered if that was the fate that awaited him when he returned home.

  At Morlaix, as soon as he was off the boat, he wrote to Admiral Decrès announcing his arrival and asking for instructions. He was hoping to go to Paris for an audience with the Emperor. Meantime, he would await Decrès’ reply at the Hôtel de la Patrie in Rennes.

  During his stay there, he read in the newspaper that Captains Lucas and Infernet had been promoted to rear-admirals. They had been exchanged a few weeks earlier and were to be received by the Emperor at St-Cloud. They were also to receive the Légion d’honneur in recognition of their heroism at Trafalgar. It was important to the French to salvage some pride from the disaster.

  Villeneuve wrote to congratulate Lucas. ‘If all the captains had acted as you did at Trafalgar, victory wouldn’t have been in doubt for a moment. No one understands that better than I do.’ He asked Lucas for help in preparing his report for the court of inquiry. Villeneuve intended to name and shame the officers who had disgraced themselves in the battle. He wanted Lucas as a witness.

  But no orders came from the Minister of Marine. Villeneuve arrived at Rennes on 17 April and waited four days without hearing anything. Apparently, Decrès was deliberately delaying his answer to avoid compromising his own position with the Emperor. Whatever the reason, Villeneuve became increasingly agitated when no reply was forthcoming. His mood changed to deep depression. He saw only too clearly that he was to take all the blame for Trafalgar, even though much of it hadn’t been his fault. He was going to be the scapegoat for everything that had gone wrong.

  He was thoroughly unhappy when he went to bed on the evening of 21 April. Next morning, he could not be roused. His bedroom door was locked and the key was on the inside. When they finally got into the room, it was to find Villeneuve lying dead on the bed with six stab wounds and a table knife buried in his chest. Nearby was a letter to his wife and several small gifts of money. He had left his telescope to Infernet and his speaking trumpet to Lucas. By some accounts, he had also left a rude letter to Napoleon, which promptly disappeared.

  Did Villeneuve really stab himself? Six times in the chest? Or was he quietly murdered before the court of inquiry, when he would have had plenty to say that others didn’t want to hear? The inquest was in no doubt that Villeneuve had died of self-inflicted wounds, but the rest of France was not so sure. Rumours arose at once that Villeneuve had been secretly liquidated, just as General Pichegru had been, and others opposed to Napoleon. The Emperor’s enemies had a habit of suddenly killing themselves when they became a danger to him. Perhaps Villeneuve had been ordered to take his own life, warned that if he didn’t, a prison cell awaited him in Paris and strangulation by Mamelukes. Napoleon was always ruthless in pursuit of his own ends.

  Whatever the truth, it was the last of Villeneuve. He was buried at night, without military honours. His personal effects were forwarded not to his wife but to Fouché, the Minister of Police in Paris. The contrast between Villeneuve’s dismal end and Nelson’s could not have been more marked.

  Gravina was dead too. Badly wounded at Trafalgar, he lingered in hospital for four and a half months while doctors argued over whether to amputate his arm. Gravina declined amputation, only to see mortification set in. ‘I am a dying man,’ he is said to have announced ruefully, ‘but I die happy. I am going, I hope and trust, to join Nelson, perhaps the greatest hero the world has produced.’ He went on 9 March 1806.

  Rear-Admiral Dumanoir remained in England for a while, vigorously defending himself against accusations of cowardice at Trafalgar. A week before Nelson’s funeral, he had had a long letter in The Times, denying that he had been a ‘mere spectator of the combat . . . precipitately taking to flight’. He denied too that his ships had fired on the Santissima Trinidad and other Spanish vessels that had surrendered to the British.

  Dumanoir was court-martialled on his eventual return to France and condemned for his conduct during the battle. But he appealed against the verdict and was ultimately exonerated. Julien Cosmao-Kerjulien, by then an admiral, was so outraged at this that he broke his own sword in disgust when Dumanoir’s was returned to him after the verdict. Dumanoir resumed his career and was created a count in 1814, at the restoration of the monarchy.

  On the British side, Vice-Admiral Collingwood was also raised to the peerage, the same day as Nelson’s brother. He was still at sea when he received the news. He shared it with his dog, Bounce:

  I am out of all patience with Bounce. The consequential airs he gives himself since he became a right honourable dog are insufferable. He considers it beneath his dignity to play with commoners’ dogs, and truly thinks that he does them grace when he condescends to lift up his leg against them.

  In truth, though, a peerage was a mixed blessing for Collingwood. With the Trafalgar prize money gone to the bottom, he could not afford to live like a lord. Even if he had been able to, he was still needed at sea and had no immediate prospect of going home. In the event, Collingwood remained with the fleet for the rest of his life. He died at sea in 1810 without ever seeing England again.

  Sir Robert Calder was preparing for his court martial when he heard the news of Trafalgar. To the disgust of his fellow officers, he immediately claimed a share of the little prize money from the battle. He reckoned he had done his bit in forcing Villeneuve’s fleet to back down and turn away from England.

  The court martial took a different view. It was held aboard the Prince of Wales, in Portsmouth harbour, on 23 December 1805. Calder was acquitted of cowardice, but found guilty of not doing his utmost to renew the action against Villeneuve when he had the chance. Severely reprimanded, he remained in the navy but never had another seagoing command.

  Captain Hardy was made a baronet
in 1806 and later became First Sea Lord. There was speculation that Hardy had misheard Nelson on his death bed, mistaking ‘Kismet’ – fate – for ‘Kiss me’. Hardy remained tight-lipped on the subject, but Surgeon William Beatty and Chaplain Alexander Scott were both adamant that Nelson had asked to be kissed.

  Scott himself was deeply traumatised by the battle and Nelson’s death. He could never bring himself to speak of it, but remained haunted for years afterwards. In modern terms, he was a victim of severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

  John Roome, the press-ganged sailor who had hoisted Nelson’s famous signal, deserted after the battle. In common with many others at Trafalgar, he had never wanted to be in the Royal Navy and escaped at the first opportunity. He was discovered penniless in 1846, selling watercress and red herrings through the streets of London. As a deserter, he was ineligible for a Royal Navy pension, but an exception was made and Roome was admitted to Greenwich Hospital. His arrival caused consternation among the other pensioners, several of whom had been making a good living out of claiming to be the man who had hoisted the signal.

  John Yule was a lieutenant aboard the Victory, but he too received a Greenwich pension from 1835. He died six years later and was buried in the shirt he had worn at Trafalgar.

  Benjamin Clement, the Tonnant lieutenant who had nearly drowned during the battle, never forgot his debt to the black seaman who had saved him. Clement kept in touch with Charles Macnamara all his life and left him money when he died in 1836.

  Midshipman Jack Spratt, the Defiance’s handsome swordsman, fought like a Hollywood star during the battle but never walked properly again. He remained a strong swimmer, though, and at the age of nearly sixty won a fourteen-mile race against a Frenchman for a bet.