Beckford to whom Sir William was always kind
would have revisited his kinsman also. He had not
1 With Lady Augusta Murray, to whom he was a devoted husband in the teeth of his father's and brother's opposition. Lady Hamilton continued to enjoy his friendship long afterwards.
136 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
long- quitted his " dear " and queenly friend " Mary of Portugal," and was now travelling through Savoy
with a retinue worthy of Disraeli's Sidonia and com-
posed of half the emigres, musicians, and cooks chefs
d'orchestre et de cuisine of Versailles; and Emma's
old friend Gavin Hamilton was also among the throng.
A correspondence between husband and wife dur-
ing the January of this year, and his absence with
the King at Persano, is pleasant reading, and pictures
a happy pair. The Ambassador, who up to now had
found his business in sport, cheerfully roughing it on
bread and butter, going to bed at nine and rising at five, reading, too, " to digest his dinner," is affectionate and playful. He was " sorry," he writes on leaving, that his " dear Em " must " harden " herself to such little misfortunes as a temporary parting " ; but he " cannot blame her for having a good and tender heart." " Believe me, you are in thorough possession of all mine,
though I will allow it to be rather tough." His diary of the hour flows from a light heart and pen. He
tells her the gossip : " Yesterday the courier brought the order of S't. Stephano from the Emperor for the
Prince Ausberg, and the King was desired to invest
him with it. As soon as the King received it, he ran
into the Prince's room, whom he found in his shirt,
and without his breeches, and in that condition was he
decorated with the star and ribbon by his majesty, who
has wrote the whole circumstance to the Emperor.
Leopold may, perhaps, not like the joking with his
first order. Such nonsense should certainly be done
with solemnity ; or it becomes, what it really is, a little tinsel and a few yards of broad ribbon." His watchful wife, in her turn, acquaints him with London
cabals to dislodge him from office. " Our conduct." he answers with indignation, " shall be such as to be un-attackable. . . . Twenty-seven years' service, having
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 137
spent all the King's money, and all my own, besides
running in debts, deserves something better than a dis-
mission. ... I would not be married to any woman
but yourself for all the world." And again, " I never doubted your gaining every soul you approach. . . .
Nothing pleases me more than to hear you do not
neglect your singing. It would be a pity, as you are
near the point of perfection." The very etiquette of the Embassy he leaves with confidence in her hands.
" You did admirably, my dear Em., in not inviting
Lady A. H[atton] to dine with the prince, and still
better in telling her honestly the reason. I have al-
ways found that going straight is the best method,
though not the way of the world. You did also very
well in asking Madame Skamouski, and not taking upon
you to present her [to the Queen] without leave. In
short, consult your own good sense, and do not be in a
hurry; and I am sure you will always act right. . . .
As the Prince asked you, you did right to send for a
song of Douglas's, but in general you will do right
to sing only at home." He also politely deprecates his plebeian mother-in-law's attendance at formal receptions. But Emma, throughout her career, disdained
to be parted for a moment. Unlike most parvenues,
she never blushed for the homely creature who had
stood by her in the day of trouble, and her intense love for her mother, even when it stood most in her way,
ennobles her character.
The Neapolitan revelries were sometimes the reverse
of squeamish : " Let them all roll on the carpet," he writes, " provided you are not of the party. My trust is in you alone."
It may be added that from stray allusions in this
series it is evident that even thus early Lady Hamil-
ton could translate letters and transact business. Sir
William was naturally torpid, and his enthusiasm cen-*
138 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
tred on the wife who bestirred him. His efforts to
keep eternally young were already being damped by
the deaths of contemporaries. That of his old in-
timate, Lord Pembroke, in 1794, was to evoke a char-
acteristic comment : " It gave me a little twist ; but I have for some time perceived that my friends, with
whom I spent my younger days, have been dropping
around me."
The close of 1792 saw the first of those serious ill-
nesses through which Emma was so often to nurse him.
For more than a fortnight he lay in danger at Caserta.
Lady Hamilton was " eight days without undressing,
eating, or sleeping." The Queen and King sent con-
stantly to inquire. Although Naples was distant six-
teen miles, Ladies Plymouth, Dunmore, and Webster,
with others of the British contingent, offered even to
stay with her. She tells her dear Mr. Greville (how
changed the appellation!) of her "great obligations,"
and of her grief. " Endead I was almost distracted
from such extreme happiness at once to such misery.
. . . What cou'd console me for the loss of such a
husband, friend, and protector? For surely no hap-
piness is like ours. We live but for one another. But
I was too happy. 1 1 had imagined I was never more to
be unhappy. All is right. I now know myself again,
and shall not easily fall into the same error again.
For every moment I feel what I felt when I thought I
was loseing him for ever." x This is the letter concerning her grandmother to which reference has al-
ready been made. Since I lay stress on the fact that
Emma was a typical daughter of the people both in
scorn and affection, that she was warm-hearted, un-
mercenary, and grateful, and that she never lowered
the natures of those with whom she was brought into
contact, another excerpt may be pardoned : " I will 1 Morrison MS. 215; Caserta, December 4, 1792.
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 139
trouble you with my own affairs as you are so good
as to interest yourself about me. You must know I
send my grandmother every Cristmas twenty pounds,
and so I ought. I have 200 a year for nonsense, and it
wou'd be hard I cou'd not give her twenty pounds
when she has so often given me her last shilling.
As Sir William is ill, I cannot ask him for the order;
but if you will get the twenty pounds and send it to
her, you will do me the greatest favor ; for if the time passes without hearing from me, she may imagine I
have forgot her, and I would not keep her poor old
heart in suspense for the world. . . . Cou'd you not
write to her a line from me and send to her, and tell
her by my order, and she may write to you? Send
me her answer. For I cannot divest myself of my
original feelings. It will contribute to my happiness,
and I am sure you will assist to make me happy. Tell
her every year she shal have twenty pound. The
fourth of November last I had a dress on
that cost
twenty-five pounds, as it was Gala at Court; and be-
lieve me I felt unhappy all the while I had it on. Ex-
cuse the trouble I give you."
The end of 1792 and the whole of 1793 loomed big
with crisis. The new year opened with the judicial
murder of the French King, it closed with that of
Marie Antoinette. Her execution exasperated all Eu-
rope against France. England declared war; Prussia
retired from the first Coalition, and the second was
formed. An Anglo-Sicilian understanding ensued.
Through the arrival of La Touche Treville's squadron
at Naples, the French sansculottes shook hands with
the Italian. Hood's capture of Toulon, Napoleon's
undoing of it, and Nelson's advent in the Agamemnon,
opened out a death-struggle unfinished even when the
hero died.
To the Queen's promptings of temperament and hab-
140 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
its of principle were now to be added the goads of re-
venge. Jacobinism for her and her friends soon came
to mean the devil. And with this year, too, opened also
Lady Hamilton's intimacy with the Queen, her awak-
ening of her listless husband, and her keen endeavours
on behalf of the British navy.
The worst hysteria is that of a woman who is able
to conceal it. Such was now the Queen's. The over-
ture to this drama of 1793 was her formal dismissal of
Citizen Mackau, for a few months past the unwelcome
Jacobin representative of France at the Neapolitan
court ; at the same time, the Queen's influence procured the dismissal of Semouville, another " citizen " ambassador at Constantinople. Treville's fleet promptly
appeared to enforce reparation. His largest vessel
dropped anchor in face of Castel Del Uovo, and the
rest formed in line of battle behind it. A council was
called. The Anglo-Sicilian treaty was yet in abeyance,
and with shame and rage Maria Carolina had to sub-
mit, and receive the minister back again. But this
was not all. No sooner had Treville departed than a
convenient storm shattered his fleet, and he returned to refit. His sailors hobnobbed with the secret societies,
and a definite revolution began. France had hoped
for attack; open war being refused, she renewed her
designs by stealth. The Queen, incensed beyond meas-
ure, redoubled her suspicions and her precautions. To
the secret tribunal she added a closed " Junta," and the grim work of deportation and proscription set in.
All Naples, except the Lazzaroni, rose. Despite the
Neapolitan neutrality, Maria now organised a second
coalition against France, which was at first successful.
The French, too, were beaten off Sardinia. In August
she renewed her desperate attempts to save her sis-
ter; the jailor's wife was interviewed. Archduchess
Christine contrived to send the Marquis Burlot and
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 141
Rosalia D'Albert with carte blanche on a mission of
rescue. It was too late : they were arrested. But
Toulon was betrayed by Trogoff to Hood, who took
possession of it for Louis XVII.
Meanwhile, repression reigned at Naples. Every
French servant was banished; some of the English vis-
itors, among them, as Mackau's friend, Mr. Hodges,
who pestered Emma by his attentions, were implicated.
The Queen, mistrustful of the crew who had played
her false, turned to Emma in her misfortunes, for
Lady Hamilton was now quite as familiar with the
royalties as her husband. One of the Neapolitan
duchesses long afterwards insinuated to the Mar-
chioness of Solari that Emma's paramount in-
fluence was due to spying on them and the libertine
King. 1 This may at first have been so (though envy
supplies a likelier reason), but the real cause lies deeper.
The Queen's correspondence commences in the winter
of 1/93, and it is quite clear that its mainspring was
sympathy.
" Par le sort de la naissance
L'un est roi, 1'autre est berger.
Le hasard fit leur distance ;
L'esprit seul peut tout changer." 2
The constraint of a traitorous and artificial court
left the Queen without a confidante, and she welcomed
a child of nature whom she fancied she could mould
1 Abominable rumours, as to her and the Queen, passed current among the French Jacobins, who fastened the same filth with as little foundation on Marie Antoinette. Emma told Greyille how she despised and ignored the lying scandals of Paris which Napoleon afterwards favoured from policy.
2 It may thus be paraphrased :
" Random lot of birth can start
Peasant one, another Queen.
Chance has placed them far apart;
Mother-wit can change the scene."
142 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
at will. The more her pent-up hatred fastened on her
courtiers, the more she spited them by petting her new
favourite. The friendship of queens with the lowly
appeals to vanity as well as to devotion. It proved so
with both Sarah Jennings and even more with the
humbler Abigail Masham. In still greater degree did
it now so prove with Emma. It was not long before
she rode out regularly on a horse from the royal
stables, attended by a royal equerry, and enjoying
semi-royal privileges. Maria's haughty ladies-in-
waiting, the Marchionesses of San Marco and of San
Clemente, can scarcely have been pleased. Jealousy
must have abounded, but it found no outlet for her
downfall. That the Neapolitan nobility, at any rate,
believed in her real services to England, is shown by
the rumour among them that she was Pitt's informer.
Henceforward dates the growth of an English party
and an Anglo-mania at the Neapolitan court which was
violently opposed alike by the pro-Spanish, the pro-
Jacobin, and the " do wn-with-the- foreigner " parties.
Emma, however, stood as yet only on the threshold of
her political influence.
In the June of that year, " for political reasons,"
Lady Hamilton informs Greville, " we have lived eight months at Caserta," formerly only their winter abode, but now the Queen's regular residence during the hot
months. " Our house has been like an inn this win-
ter." (Sir William naturally sighed over the ex-
pense.) ". . . We had the Duchess of Ancaster sev-
eral days. It is but 3 days since the Devonshire fam-
ily has left; and we had fifty in our family for four
days at Caserta. 'Tis true we dined every day at
court, or at some casino of the King; for you cannot
immagine how good our King and Queen as been to
the principal English who have been here particularly
to Lord and Lady Palmerston, Cholmondely, Devon-
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 143
shire, Lady Spencer, Lady Bessborough, Lady Plym-
outh, Sir George and Lady Webster. And I have
carried the ladies to the Queen very often, as she as
permitted me to go very often in private, which I do.
... In the evenings I go to her, and we are tete-a-tete
2 or
3 hours. Sometimes we sing. Yesterday the
King and me sang duetts 3 hours. It was but bad.
. . . To-day the Princess Royal of Sweden comes to
court to take leave of their Majesties. Sir William
and me are invited to dinner with her. She is an
amiable princess, and as lived very much with us.
The other ministers' wives have not shewed her the
least attention because she did not pay them the first
visit, as she travels under the name of the Countess
of Wasa. . . . Her Majesty told me I had done very
well in waiting on Her Royal Highness the moment
she arrived. However, the ministers' wives are very
fond of me, as the[y] see I have no pretentions; nor
do I abuse of Her Majesty's goodness, and she ob-
served the other night at court at Naples [when] we
had a drawing-room in honner of the Empress having
brought a son. I had been with the Queen the night
before alone en famille laughing and singing, etc. etc., but at the drawing-room I kept my distance, and payd
the Queen as much respect as tho' I had never seen
her before, which pleased her very much. But she
shewed me great distinction that night, and told me
several times how she admired my good conduct. I
onely tell you this to shew and convince you I shall
never change, but allways be simple and natural. You
may immagine how happy my dear, dear Sir William
is. ... We live more like lovers than husband and
wife, as husbands and wives go nowadays. Lord de-
liver me! and the English are as bad as the Italians,
some few excepted.
" I study very hard, . . . and I have had all my
144 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
songs set for the viola, so that Sir William may ac-
company me, which as pleased him very much, so
that we study together. The English garden is going
on very fast. The King and Queen go there every
day. Sir William and me are there every morning at
seven a clock, sometimes dine there and allways drink
tea there. In short it is Sir William's favourite child, and booth him and me are now studying botany, but
not to make ourselves pedantical prigs and shew our
learning like some of our travelling neighbours, but
for our own pleasure. Greffer * is as happy as a
prince. Poor Flint, the messenger, was killed going
from hence. I am very sorry. He was lodged in our
house and I had a great love for him. I sent him to
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