HistoryExtrahttps://www.historyextra.comHome of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast2026-04-05T12:31:06.000Zhourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00Famous last words: what did Winston Churchill, Walt Disney and Marie Antoinette say on their deathbeds?https://www.historyextra.com/membership/famous-last-words-what-did-winston-churchill-walt-disney-and-marie-antoinette-say-on-their-deathbeds/2026-04-05T12:30:45.000Z
1. “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go”
Oscar Wilde
The Irish author and playwright – best known for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) – is an enduring source of witty, pithy adages, such as “I can resist everything except temptation” and “always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much”. Oscar Wilde kept that unique brand of humour until the end: on his deathbed, in a Paris hotel room, he reportedly quipped about the dingy wallpaper. Evidently, the wallpaper won the duel, since 46-year-old Wilde passed away of meningitis shortly afterwards, on 30 November 1900.
2. “I’m bored with it all”
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill suffered his eighth stroke on 15 January 1965, after a decade and a half of failing health. All the cigars, booze and rich meals had caught up with him. He had been the prime minister who led Britain through the Second World War with impassioned oratory and declarations of “We shall never surrender”, but, if his last words are anything to go by, his battle was fought. With his son-in-law Christopher Soames by his side, Churchill muttered, “I’m bored with it all,” before slipping into a coma. Nine days later, on 24 January, he died at the age of 90.
3. “What the devil do you mean to sing to me, priest? You are out of tune!”
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Having described music as “the language of the heart”, the French composer and music theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau was a major force of the Baroque period of the 18th century, and remained active until his dying day, 12 September 1764. Indeed, the last contribution he made to music was a critique of the quality of religious singing being performed in his room. Perhaps he was already hearing the choirs of angels, and so earthly melodies no longer enthralled him the way that they had during his long career.
4. “Nothing, only ‘love one another’”
William Henry Seward
The death of Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state was also intended on that fateful night in 1865. At the same time that the US president was shot, one of John Wilkes Booth’s fellow conspirators stabbed Seward in the neck and face multiple times. In a bizarre twist of fortune, it was a splint on his jaw, the result of a stagecoach accident several days earlier, that saved his life. His death actually came on 10 October 1872. Sensing the end, his family gathered around and asked if he had any last things to say. His response was simply to “love one another”.
5. “Pardon me, sir. I did not do it on purpose”
Marie Antoinette
King Louis XVI lost his head in the French Revolution and his queen, Marie Antoinette, would follow him to the guillotine. She had become so hated among her people as the epitome of extravagance (that said, she never uttered “let them eat cake”) that all efforts were made to make her execution as humiliating as possible.
On 16 October 1793, she was forced to dress in front of her guards, had her hair chopped off and hands bound behind her back, and was taken through the streets on the back of a cart, jeered all the way. Yet Antoinette maintained her composure, even apologising politely when she accidentally stepped on the executioner’s foot.
6. “One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes”
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock is rightly celebrated as one of the most important filmmakers in the history of cinema, directing dozens of iconic movies like Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho. Dubbed the ‘master of suspense’, he meticulously crafted every scene and knew exactly where the plot was going. His Hitchcockian style and immense talent for storytelling could not be called upon, however, when it came to the grand denouement of his life, as his last words illustrate. He died from kidney failure, aged 80, on 29 April 1980, relying not on plot but his Catholic hopes.
7. “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance”
John Sedgwick
On the morning of 9 May 1864, John Sedgwick set about inspecting the line at the battle of Spotsylvania Court House. A general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, he had been wounded at Antietam in 1862 but did not share his men’s concerns about Confederate sharpshooters that began to make their presence known. He scolded his staff, stating that the enemy “couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance” – right before being felled by a bullet under his left eye.
8. “How’s this for your headline: French Fries!”
James Donald French
How did murderer James Donald French react as he was taken to the electric chair on 10 August 1966? He made a pun for the press. Far from fearing death, the 30-year-old American had been longing for it for years. Following his first murder in 1958, he requested execution and was disappointed to receive a life sentence. So, in 1961, he strangled his cellmate and again demanded the death penalty. It took three separate trials, and French’s constant pleas not to accept any appeals, before he finally got his wish and went out with a gag.
9. “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man”
Che Guevara
The man from all those posters and T-shirts, Che Guevara became a globally recognised name for his role in putting Fidel Castro in power in Cuba. But it was in a doomed insurgency in Bolivia that the Marxist revolutionary had his final fight. Captured by CIA-backed soldiers, he was held in a mud schoolhouse deep in the jungle when the decision was made to have him executed. When, on 9 October 1967, a soldier entered his rudimentary cell, Guevara barked out his final words before being shot. He may have been only a man, but his face became a ubiquitous and enduring icon of revolution.
10. “I must go in, for the fog is rising”
Emily Dickinson
By the time that Emily Dickinson – little known in her lifetime but now regarded as the influential and ever-popular American poet of the 19th century – died, it is fair to say that her spirit had been broken. In the preceding years, she endured numerous deaths of family and friends, most traumatically her young, favourite nephew, and her health collapsed. “The Crisis of the sorrow of so many years is all that tires me,” she wrote in a letter. Dickinson passed away at 55 on 15 May 1886, shortly after penning one last verse that ended, “I must go in, for the fog is rising”.
11. “Turn me over. I’m done on this side”
Lawrence of Rome
Lawrence served as one of the seven deacons of Rome in the third century; this was not a good time to be a Christian as, in AD 258, Emperor Valerian ordered that the pope and clergy be put to death. According to the legend, Lawrence’s method of execution was being burned alive on a gridiron, similar to cooking meat on a barbecue. Lawrence saw the funny side of this image, it seems, since during his martyrdom he supposedly joked that his tormentors should turn him over to ensure he cooked fully. These last words may be apocryphal, but Lawrence is still honoured as patron saint of comedians.
12. “Kurt Russell”
Walt Disney
After Walt Disney’s death from lung cancer on 15 December 1966, his body was not cryogenically frozen, as the urban myth goes. Yet the death of Mickey Mouse’s creator comes with another oddity: the mystery of his final written note. While the meanings of “Ron Miller”, “Way Down Cellar” and “CIA – Mobley” remain unknown, Disney also wrote the name Kurt Russell (misspelled as “Kirt”). The teen actor had signed a 10-year contract with Disney, and it seems that the ailing businessman wanted to plot out the young star’s next project before the end. Even without it, though, Kurt Russell became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.
13. “Thomas Jefferson survives”
John Adams
On 4 July 1826, exactly 50 years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, a 90-year-old John Adams lay dying. Three decades earlier, he had been elected as the second president of the United States, and his final thoughts were with the man who succeeded him. Adams’ last reported words were “Thomas Jefferson survives”.
While the two men had fallen out over how their new country should be governed, they renewed their friendship in their later years, so maybe Adams was hopeful at the end that one of the Founding Fathers remained. Unfortunately, he was wrong: Jefferson, aged 83, had actually died just a few hours before Adams.
14. “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn”
Joe DiMaggio
The retired baseball great Joe DiMaggio may have been married to the glamourous movie star Marilyn Monroe for less than a year, but he remained devoted to her for the rest of his life. He took the lead in arranging the funeral after Monroe was found dead in 1962, and for the next 20 years he sent roses to her grave every week. DiMaggio never remarried and as he lay dying on 8 March 1999, aged 84, he clung on to one hope: that he and Monroe would finally be reunited.
15. “Nothing but death”
Jane Austen
The beloved author of Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion and Emma died at the age of 41 on 18 July 1817. The cause remains a matter of debate, although it is known that she suffered with pains and illnesses for at least a year, which may explain her last sentiments, expressed by her sister Cassandra in a letter to Austen’s niece, Fanny. “When I asked her if there was anything she wanted, her answer was she wanted nothing but death,” it read. These were probably not her final words, however, as Cassandra also refers to Austen saying, “God grant me patience, pray for me, oh, pray for me.”
16. “I did not get my SpaghettiOs, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this”
Thomas J Grasso
With his execution by lethal injection scheduled for 20 March 1995, convicted murderer Thomas J Grasso put in a rather elaborate request for his final meal. It included two dozen steamed mussels, two dozen steamed clams, six barbecued spareribs, a Burger King double cheeseburger, a can of SpaghettiOs with meatballs, half a pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and strawberries. He clearly was not fully satisfied, since he wanted his last statement to be a complaint to the chef that he received spaghetti instead of the canned version he asked for.
17. “More weight”
Giles Corey
During the Salem Witch Trials, hundreds were accused of witchcraft in the small Massachusetts village, resulting in 19 hangings, at least five deaths in prison, and one man – a farmer in his 80s named Giles Corey – being pressed to death. Having refused to enter a plea, he was stripped and laid on the floor with a wooden board across his body, on which heavy stones were gradually put on top. The torture lasted days and was expected to end in confession; instead, Corey kept crying out for “more weight”. He finally succumbed on 19 September 1692.
18. “Thanks be to God. I have but lived this day and now I die content”
Horatio Nelson
It is a well-worn story that when Lord Nelson was shot at the battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, he asked of his friend, and flag captain of HMS Victory, “Kiss me, Hardy”. They were not the great admiral’s last words, though. Taken belowdecks, Nelson continued to issue orders and lived long enough to receive word that several French ships had surrendered. Only then did he say, “Thanks be to God. I have but lived this day and now I die content.” After the battle, his body was placed in a cask of brandy to keep it preserved for its voyage back to England.
- Read more | “A monster of egotism”: Dominic Sandbrook reveals the secret to Admiral Nelson’s unstoppable success
19. “I shoot better”
Hannie Schaft
During the Second World War, a young woman named Jannetje Johanna Schaft signed up to fight for the Dutch resistance. To them, she became ‘Hannie’, but to the Nazis, who came to fear her marksmanship, she was ‘the girl with red hair’. After carrying out numerous assassinations, Schaft was finally captured in 1945 and executed just three weeks before the end of the war. Although, according to her legend, she did not go down easily: the first shot only grazed her, leading Schaft to yell out, “I shoot better!” The executioner did not make the same mistake again.
20. “I am just going outside and may be some time”
Lawrence Oates
Captain Robert Falcon Scott and four other men – Dr Edward Wilson, Captain Lawrence Oates, Lieutenant Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers and Petty Officer Edgar Evans – had set out to be the very first to reach the South Pole, but on reaching it in January 1912 they discovered that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had just beaten them.
Defeated and demoralised, they began the 800-mile trek back to base camp. None of them survived. Oates, suffering from frostbite and gangrene, made the ultimate sacrifice by leaving the tent in a blizzard with the now-immortalised words, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” His body was never found.
21. “Now comes the mystery”
Henry Ward Beecher
In life, Henry Ward Beecher was the most famous preacher in the United States: a passionate minister in Congregational Protestantism, a gifted orator, and a social reformer calling for women’s suffrage and the abolition of slavery. His works had a profound influence on American Christianity in the 19th century and beyond. As he faced the end of his mortal life, having suffered a stroke in early March 1887, his last words were filled with the philosophical curiosity and hopefulness that permeated much of his preaching, as he pondered what awaited him: “Now comes the mystery.”
]]>Admiral Lord Nelson: 10 days that created a legendhttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/nelson-10-days-that-created-a-legend/2022-01-09T07:06:00.000Z9 April 1777: The ambitious teenager shows his potential
Passing the lieutenant’s examination was a hurdle that everyone with ambitions to become a commissioned officer in the Royal Navy had to clear. Nelson was 18 years old when he appeared before the panel to be tested on diverse aspects of his service knowledge. Meeting with success, he wrote to his brother soon afterwards with the news that he had been appointed lieutenant on a frigate, the Lowestoffe. “So I am now left in [the] world to shift for myself,” he continued, “which I hope I shall do, so as to bring Credit to myself and Friends.”
Perhaps chief among those friends was Nelson’s uncle, Maurice Suckling. A captain himself, and promoted to the important position of controller of the navy in 1775, Suckling had carefully guided Nelson’s youthful footsteps, finding commanding officers who would promote his advancement and broaden his operational experience. Indeed, the two ships in which Nelson began his naval service as a boy in 1771 – Raisonnable and Triumph – were both captained by Suckling.
Six years later, this key supporter also sat on the board that examined Nelson for his lieutenant’s commission. Patronage was, of course, part of the bedrock of 18th-century British society, and Nelson was typical of the wider officer corps in seeking to benefit from a powerful contact. However, influence was rarely the sole basis of naval success. It was professional knowledge that the examination was designed to probe, and the patron who backed a dunderhead jeopardised his own reputation in the short or long term.
11 March 1787: Nelson marries into wealth and respectability
The 10 years of peace that followed the American War of Independence put Nelson’s naval career on hold. In 1787 he married Frances ‘Fanny’ Nisbet, a young widow from a wealthy plantation family on Nevis (one of the Leeward Islands). Contemporaries described her as pretty and artistic, though intellectually unremarkable. Prince William Henry, the future William IV and a fellow naval officer, gave the bride away. Privately, the prince wrote more critically to Samuel Hood, saying “poor Nelson is over head and ears in love… I wish him well and happy, and that he may not repent the step he has taken”.
Contrary to much subsequent opinion, the marriage was for many years a happy one. With Nelson often away at sea for long periods, the couple corresponded frequently, their letters showing an affectionate, if formal, relationship. The marriage was a good match for Nelson. Still young, without prize money and relatively unknown, it brought him a degree of respectability. It also offered the prospect of substantial wealth, for Frances stood to inherit a significant estate from her uncle.
The newlywed couple spent the next five years in England, with Nelson periodically – and unsuccessfully – petitioning the Admiralty for a command. With the navy reduced to a minimum footing, there were too few active ships for even a promising naval officer. Residing over a hundred miles from London, in Norfolk, and seemingly forgotten by the naval establishment, he lived the life of a country gentleman, waiting for his opportunity.
1 February 1793: Nelson goes to war with the French
More than any other event, the outbreak of war between Britain and France changed Nelson’s life. His career was seemingly going nowhere – but then, all of a sudden, the deteriorating relationship between the two nations transformed his prospects.
Since the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Britain had watched nervously as the political regime grew more extreme, and revolutionary armies marched across Europe. The French invasion of the Low Countries in late 1792 and the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793 heightened British fears. As the two nations edged closer to war, the British government began to mobilise its navy in preparation, and on 6 January 1793 Nelson was given command of the 64-gun ship Agamemnon.
On 1 February 1793, France declared war on Britain, a turn of events that would be the making of Horatio Nelson. He was immediately sent to the Mediterranean, where he learnt from one of the most able commanders in the fleet, Lord Hood. In the following years, he saw service across the Mediterranean, and won a reputation as a promising officer. He was given his first independent squadron command, blockading the French and Italian coast, and supporting the Austrian army.
Nelson also secured the attention of Admiral Sir John Jervis, the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet. Then, in April 1796, Jervis promoted him to the rank of commodore. In the following years, in the crucible of war, Nelson would go from being one of many hundreds of ambitious officers, to the nation’s greatest admiral.
14 February 1797: A high-risk manoeuvre pays spectacular dividends
Nelson’s actions at the battle of Cape St Vincent saw him catapulted onto the national stage for the first time. On 14 February 1797, Sir John Jervis intercepted a Spanish fleet off the coast of southern Portugal. Nelson recognised that Jervis’s expansive tactical manoeuvre could not be completed, and that the enemy fleet would soon escape. He took his ship, the Captain, out of the line of battle and attacked the leading Spanish ships, closely followed by Culloden, under the command of his friend and rival Thomas Troubridge. An intense fight ensued; amid the broadsides, Nelson’s ship came alongside the San Nicolas. Seizing the opportunity, Nelson launched a daring boarding attempt, which forced the ship’s surrender. He then executed a successful boarding of a second Spanish ship, the San Josef, which had also become entangled.
Nelson’s decision to take his ship out of the line was a risky endeavour. Had the action failed he could have faced a court-martial for disobeying orders. No one though, not least Jervis, could deny that he had played an important role in winning the battle: of the four ships captured, two had been taken by Nelson.
Nelson took steps to ensure that his deeds would be read about across Britain. In a canny public relations exercise, he sent home his own account of the battle, which gave a dramatic description of his actions. As a result, his successes were widely reported in the press and, in recognition of his chivalry, he was made a knight of the Bath.
25 July 1797: A Spanish musket ball creates a one-armed icon
A pinned and empty sleeve is as indicative of Nelson as a hand thrust into a waistcoat is of Napoleon Bonaparte. However, the events that led to this instantly recognisable injury are rather less familiar. Fresh from his dazzling exploits at the battle of Cape St Vincent, Nelson was given command of a squadron and ordered to capture Spanish merchant vessels, and their cargoes of bullion, at Santa Cruz on Tenerife.
The first assault was directed at the forts to the east of the town and was a total failure. The second, led by Nelson himself, was a landing force of sailors and marines aimed at the town. It fared even worse, and the severe cost in casualties included the admiral. Nelson’s right arm was shattered by a musket ball, and his life may have been saved by the actions of his stepson, Josiah Nisbet, who staunched the bleeding with neckerchiefs used as tourniquets.
Back on board his flagship, Theseus, Nelson’s arm was immediately amputated by the surgeon Thomas Eshelby on 25 July. His return to active command of the squadron was remarkably rapid, but a letter in the collections of the National Maritime Museum – the first he wrote with his left hand – reveals the despair and self-doubt that the injury provoked in him. Addressed to his superior, Admiral Jervis, it reads: “I am become a burthen to my friends and useless to my Country,” and continues: “I become dead to the World I go hence and am no more seen.”
Horatio Nelson has gone down in history as the ultimate naval officer: a natural leader, an exceptional strategist, a figurehead determined to sail at the front of the battle. So what is his connection to the phrase 'turn a blind eye'?
21 May 1798: Disaster at sea provides a salutary lesson
Nelson’s successes as a naval officer owed much to the professionalism of the institution in which he served, and his own concerted efforts to hone his knowledge and expertise. The latter involved plenty of mistakes but, crucially, he strove to learn from them. One of the most significant was an incident in 1798, when Nelson’s flagship, the Vanguard, was dismasted in a storm while serving in the Mediterranean. While the blame lay as much on his flag captain, Edward Berry, the incident served to highlight the questionable seamanship of both officers. Vanguard was towed to safety by the Alexander, whose captain, Alexander Ball, had reduced his sails during the storm, and so preserved his rigging.
Coming only a year after his glorious actions at Cape St Vincent, and at a time when he had recently been promoted to rear-admiral, the incident threatened to severely blot Nelson’s professional reputation. He wrote a long, self-critical letter to his commanding officer, Lord St Vincent (formerly Sir John Jervis), taking full responsibility for the incident, and blaming it on his “consummate vanity”.
He had learned an important lesson: while higher rank provided opportunities for fame and glory, an officer neglected his duties as a seaman at his peril. “I hope,” wrote Nelson, “it has made me a better officer as I believe it has made me a better man.” Just over two months later, Nelson would demonstrate this in the most dramatic manner possible.
1 August 1798: The Nile turns a British hero into a global superstar
If the battle of Cape St Vincent had made Nelson famous, then his success at the battle of the Nile turned him into an international celebrity. After a long and frustrating search, Nelson finally tracked down a French fleet that had escaped from Toulon to Aboukir Bay in Egypt. The 13 French ships of the line that had escorted Napoleon’s army to Egypt lay anchored in what they believed was a strong position across the bay.
Taking a calculated risk, Nelson ordered an attack. As the British ships approached, Captain Thomas Foley of the Goliath noticed that there was room on the landward side of the French line, and was followed by the next four ships. The remainder of the fleet attacked the French from the seaward side, doubling the attack on the enemy’s ships by assailing them from both directions. The battle raged into the night; French ships surrendered in turn, and by the following morning 11 had capitulated or been destroyed. Only two ships of the line had managed to escape.
The battle of the Nile was Nelson’s most decisive victory. French naval power had been virtually removed from the Mediterranean, while Napoleon’s army was left stranded in Egypt. News of the battle crossed Europe: Haydn wrote the Nelson Mass, while the victory encouraged the formation of a second European coalition against France. The triumph was celebrated across Britain, where a vast array of commemorative material ranging from ribbons and pipes to domestic furnishings hailed Nelson’s achievements.
22 September 1798: Nelson embarks on his great love affair
Nelson had encountered Lady Hamilton once before. Ordered to Naples in the summer of 1793, the then little-known captain of the Agamemnon was entertained at the residence of the British minister, William Hamilton, and his glamorous wife. By then, Emma Hamilton already enjoyed European fame as an artist’s model, a singer, and also for her ‘attitudes’: neoclassical tableaux vivants that she performed to immense acclaim.
The 35-year-old officer was doubtless flattered by her company. A great deal had changed in the interval before their second encounter in 1798. As victor of the Nile, Nelson was now at the centre of the national and international stage himself. Emma realised that, following the crushing defeat of the French fleet in Aboukir Bay, his arrival in Naples was an unprecedented opportunity to enhance her own celebrity by association. She wrote him a letter of gushing adulation: “My dress from head to foot is alla Nelson… Even my shawl is in blue with gold anchors all over. My earrings are Nelson’s anchors; in short, we are be-Nelsoned all over.”
When Nelson’s flagship, Vanguard, dropped anchor on 22 September, Emma made a dramatic appearance on deck where, in Nelson’s words, she “fell into my arms more dead than alive”. The love affair that followed was the defining relationship of his later years and – as Nelson grew ever more cold and distant to his estranged wife, Fanny – a goldmine for caricaturists. However, for Victorian commentators determined to find only a desire for duty and service burning in their warrior exemplars, it posed something of a challenge.
Horatio Nelson’s letters to his lover Emma Hamilton offer an unparalleled insight into the mind of the naval hero. This is Nelson in his own words, and they reveal his thinking on everything from fame and politics to war and romance...
21 October 1805: Tragedy and triumph at Trafalgar
The day that cost Nelson his life was the culmination of his professional career. On 19 October, word arrived that the combined French and Spanish fleets sheltering in Cadiz harbour were putting to sea. Shortly after daybreak on the 21st, Nelson saw the enemy masts crowding the horizon. The ensuing battle of Trafalgar was one that Nelson had been determined to engineer, and which he exploited as fully as possible.
Nelson perfectly understood the altered realities of war in the Napoleonic era: in his words, it was “annihilation that the Country wants, and not merely a splendid victory”. His tactics – in part novel, in part adapted from precedent – were rigorously directed to that end, and had been communicated to his captains in the weeks before the battle. Nelson ordered his fleet to form two divisions. Sailing straight at the enemy line, these would smash through their formation, precipitating a close-range, pell-mell, and above all decisive engagement.
However, approaching at barely walking pace it took hours of nerve-shredding anticipation before the two forces met. Nelson spent some of that time composing a prayer in his private journal and adding a codicil to his will petitioning the nation to provide for Emma.
When battle came, it unfolded much as he predicted. Nelson was struck by a musket ball at 1.15pm. The manner of his death later that afternoon – with triumph by then assured – might almost have been scripted by him too. The undress uniform coat he wore that day is, and will remain, a treasure of the National Maritime Museum’s collections.
News of the battle, which took place on 21 October 1805, didn't reach the Admiralty until 6 November. So why did news of Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar take so long to reach England?
9 January 1806: A nation venerates its fallen hero
This was a day that cemented Nelson’s status as a national icon. News of Trafalgar had reached Britain in early November 1805, and jubilation at the victory was mixed with mourning for Nelson’s loss. George III approved a state funeral and, on 5 January 1806, the Painted Hall at the Royal Hospital in Greenwich was thrown open for the public to view Nelson’s coffin.
On 8 January, a grand funeral procession began. Nelson’s body was carried upriver in a state barge to Whitehall Stairs. Surrounded by ceremonial craft, and with thousands thronging the banks of the Thames, it was a spectacle matched only by the events of the following day.
Early that morning the coffin commenced its final journey – this time through the streets of London – mounted on a funeral carriage designed to resemble a warship. Its destination was St Paul’s Cathedral, and a service crowded with politicians and dignitaries. At its climax the coffin descended into the crypt, and a party of Victory’s seamen, tasked with placing one of the ship’s flags with Nelson, chose instead to tear off pieces as mementos.
With war still raging against Napoleon, it is certain that the funeral’s ceremonial magnificence was stage-managed to stiffen national resolve. Nonetheless, it also revealed the wide and unforced social resonance of Nelson’s life and achievements. As Lady Bessborough recalled: “The moment the Car appear’d which bore the body, you might have heard a pin fall, and without any order to do so, they all took off their hats.”
Dr Quintin Colville and Dr James Davey are curators of naval history at the National Maritime Museum.
This article was first published in the November 2013 issue of BBC History Magazine
]]>Nelson's sensational mistress: how Emma Hamilton took Europe by stormhttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/nelsons-sensational-mistress-how-emma-hamilton-took-europe-by-storm/2021-09-02T08:15:42.000ZTemptress, seductress, fallen woman, mistress of Horatio Nelson, Britain’s greatest naval hero. During her life and since her death, descriptions of Emma Hamilton have tended to be variations on an old and predictable theme.
It is, of course, a common fate for women in the public eye to be reduced to the sum of their actual or imagined sexual history. However, the gap between salacious stereotype and reality is unusually pronounced for Emma, whose life story is surely one of the most remarkable and varied of the 18th century.
Propelled by performative talent, artistic creativity, beauty and a fierce desire to improve herself, she rose from obscurity to European fame while still in her twenties. Yet, and in spite of some powerful revisionist biographies, we are obliged to peer through a blizzard of moralising criticism to discern her achievements.
Accounting for this profound disconnect is far from straightforward. Few historical figures are so richly supplied as Emma with distorting mirrors created by artists, gossips, biographers, historians and, on occasion, Emma herself.
Her gender, humble background, ambitions, connections and public reputation ensured that many axes would be ground and wielded. Rather than examining them in turn, we can instead explore Emma’s astonishing and ultimately tragic journey from her birth in the village of Ness, Cheshire in 1765, to her death in self-imposed exile in Calais half a century later.
In search of a protector
The daughter of a blacksmith, Henry Lyon, Emma’s earliest years can only be uncovered through fragmentary evidence. Even after arriving in London at around the age of 12, she is slow to emerge from the shadows in which most labouring lives from this period remain shrouded. As with so many, she found work as a domestic servant. Ambitious from the start, though, she was soon drawn to Covent Garden, where high culture and fashionable celebrity met grimier realities. This area was, of course, the centre of London’s sex trade. In the absence of definitive details, lurid and not always reliable accounts have circulated ever since about her activities there, in the process shoring up a distorted impression of her identity and motivations.
What we know for certain is that she became the lover of a young nobleman, Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, but was rejected by him when, aged 16, she became pregnant with his child. Her only chance lay in finding another ‘protector’, and she wrote a desperate, pleading letter to one of Fetherstonhaugh’s friends, Charles Greville.
Knowing that her fate lay in his power, he set out the terms on which she would become his mistress: “If you mean to have my protection I must first know from you that you are clear of every connexion, & that you will never take them again without my consent. I shall then be free to dry up the tears of my lovely Emily… but remember I never will… continue my connexion one moment after my confidence is again betray’d.”
Greville provided for the child, but made clear that it could not remain under the same roof as its mother. Thus presented by Greville with the challenge of mastering a placid and respectable identity, Emma responded with a thoroughgoing performance of virtue, in her words turning “the wild unthinking Emma” into “a grave thoughtful phylosopher”.
Impressed, and keen to profit culturally from his beautiful lover, Greville introduced her to the great portraitist, George Romney. What could have been a brief engagement for a busy artist turned instead into a long- standing creative collaboration. With her innate theatricality and striking good looks, Emma became Romney’s obsession. Over hundreds of sittings he completed more than 70 canvases.
Emma’s importance for Romney operated on many levels. His typical clients were members of the British elite: powerful and influential figures, who were attracted by his status as a fashionable artist but nonetheless expected to be represented in conventional terms. As an obscure provincial girl, Emma as a sitter could be the subject for unfettered inspiration and experimentation.
Anonymity, however, was only the start. Emma was a natural and uninhibited performer with a gift for capturing dramatic expressions and personas. Through this powerful combination of qualities, Emma allowed Romney to reach towards his own artistic ambitions and fascinations, while simultaneously stocking her own repertoire of classical, mythological and historical allusions. It is surely this catalysing quality that made her so enduringly absorbing to him. Certainly she had soon graduated from model to muse.
Greville, however, longed for a wealthy wife, and the conspicuously attractive and increasingly famous Emma became a considerable hindrance. A solution to his difficulties came in the form of his uncle: Sir William Hamilton, the British envoy in Naples. Unknown to Emma, Greville convinced Hamilton to take her on as his own mistress – passed from nephew to uncle like the paintings and sculptures that both men collected so avidly. Emma was sent to Naples in 1786, fully expecting Greville (who she genuinely loved) to join her.
When the truth became clear, she was crushed. Emma sent Greville a torrent of letters full of anger and humiliation, but no reply was forthcoming: “If you knew what pain I feil in reading those lines when you advise me to Whore nothing can express my rage, I am all madness, Greville… to advise me to go to bed with him, Sr Wm [Sir William]. Oh, that’s worst of all… I would murder you & myself boath.”
Emma nonetheless threw herself into Neapolitan life with her typical thirst for education and improvement. Packed with all the accessories of a cultivated mind and connoisseur, Sir William Hamilton’s palazzo was the ideal context. Within a year she was fluent in Italian and French, and had both engaged with Hamilton’s passion for art and classical antiquities and demonstrated considerable talent as a singer.
Fame in Naples
But Emma was no mere pupil. With great rapidity, and Hamilton’s willing assistance, she exploited her sophisticated surroundings to perfect an innovative type of performance art known as the Attitudes. These were fluid tableaux vivants in which Emma brought the paintings and sculptures that enraptured Grand Tourists in Naples dramatically to life before their eyes.
Her poses and elegant use of costume and shawls became the must-see spectacle of the day, winning the admiration of an elite audience all too ready to criticise a girl of Emma’s humble origins. The Attitudes were a tour de force and a creative summit. To some extent, they paralleled Emma’s work as Romney’s model. But she was now both the artist and the artwork, and a degree of power and authorial control came with that territory.
Emma’s life in Naples was a procession of achievements. Following unpromising beginnings, a relationship blossomed with Sir William, and in 1791 she made the extraordinary social leap of marrying him, taking the title Lady Hamilton. As an envoy’s wife, she now had access to the Neapolitan court, where she became the confidante of Queen Maria Carolina. The girl from Ness had come a long way indeed, and was soon steeped in the machinations against Revolutionary France that so preoccupied the queen, whose sister – Marie Antoinette – was executed by the regime in 1793.
Lover to Nelson
It was from Emma’s position as a privileged insider that she encountered the naval hero Horatio Nelson. Following his victory at the battle of the Nile in 1798 she helped to organise lavish celebrations in his honour in Naples. In December of that year, with French troops approaching, she assisted Nelson in evacuating the royal family from the city, and returned to Naples with him and Sir William the following year to advance the queen’s desire to suppress anti-monarchist elements. It was in these highly charged circumstances that their romantic involvement began – a love affair marked by mutual admiration.
From her arrival in Naples in 1786, Emma had successfully cultivated a reputation for constancy and virtue. Although the British grandees who visited Sir William’s palazzo never accepted her on equal terms, she had gained, in his words, their “thorough approbation”. Emma’s love for Nelson came at the price of this fragile and hard-won respectability.
Sir William maintained a philosophical friendship with them both, but damaging scandal grew as they travelled back to Britain together through Trieste, Vienna and Hamburg. Emma was still at the height of her fame, but she would never again experience the triumphs and security of her Neapolitan life. In England, her position among the beau monde was always more precarious, and Maria Carolina’s warm hospitality found no parallel in the resolutely hostile court of George III and Queen Charlotte.
Although she endeavoured to conceal the fact, Emma was also now pregnant, giving birth to her daughter with Nelson in January 1801. Once again, Emma’s experience of motherhood was fraught with difficulty. Horatia, as she was named, was presented to the world as Nelson’s ward, and it is possible that Emma died without telling Horatia that she was her mother. In order to maintain social propriety, Emma was reluctant to bring Horatia to Merton Place, the country house she chose for Nelson and which they shared during his brief periods ashore. Indeed, the redesigned grounds, elegant interiors and hectic sociability of Merton – largely the result of Emma’s tenacious energy – could never conceal the deep fractures caused by their adultery.
Descent into debt
Still greater challenges were to come. Emma and Nelson’s plans for a future together ended when he was killed at the battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. Emma had lost her great love. With Sir William also dead, she no longer had a male protector, leaving her socially and financially vulnerable. With an annuity from Sir William and the legacy of Merton from Nelson, Emma’s life did not collapse immediately, and her name continues to appear in the society pages in connection with powerful figures such as William Beckford and the Duke of Queensbury.
A life of quiet and retired comfort was within her grasp, but Emma’s ambitions were altogether different and drove her into rash spending in order to maintain a social profile she could no longer realise. She was committed to King’s Bench Prison in 1813 for debt. Following her release in summer 1814, she and Horatia travelled to Calais, where her health finally gave way. She died there in cheap rooms in January 1815.
How, then, has this technicolour firework of a life so often been reduced to the label of ‘mistress’? The answer lies, in part, with Nelson’s posthumous reputation. In 1931, the Royal Navy’s professional journal, The Naval Review, published the following chilly notice about a new biography of Nelson by George Edinger and EJC Neep. “There is no doubt in this book much that is true,” noted the reviewer, “especially regarding the sordid story of Emma Hamilton, but it would be far, far better if it had never been written. One is inclined to suspect, or at least to hope, that the writers are of foreign nationality.”
As the great emblem of Victorian and Edwardian heroic masculinity, Nelson had to be absolved of human frailty, and the myth of Emma as the temptress and sexual sorceress who prized him from duty was thus mobilised. The reality of a relationship in which she celebrated his heroism and fired his ambition while he, in turn, admired her strength and achievements was obscured.
However, there is a broader history at work. Women who lived in the public eye during the 18th century were usually censured. The world of the theatre is relevant here. Although Emma never worked as an actress, her modelling for Romney, her singing and her Attitudes certainly identified her as a performer who moved beyond private ‘accomplishment’. Crucially, the association of the public performer with sexual availability and prostitution was entrenched and, in Emma’s case, intensified by her early years in Covent Garden. Unsympathetic observers would have concluded that Emma’s ‘ruin’ in girlhood and her love of ‘immodest’ display as an adult reflected a continuity of moral failure.
It is a considerable historical irony that a woman with such a strong claim to so many different and complex identities is routinely associated with one that is simplistic, disempowering and inappropriate. Emma was a model, a muse, a trailblazing artist, a populariser of female fashions, a singer offered contracts by prestigious opera houses, a politician and a patriot. Surely the time has long passed for viewing her as either a passive beauty or an active nuisance.
Quintin Colville is curator of naval history at the National Maritime Museum in London and the author (with Kate Williams) of Emma Hamilton: Seduction and Celebrity (Thames and Hudson, 2016)
This article was first published in the December 2016 issue of BBC History Magazine
]]>Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson: a rebel with a causehttps://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/horatio-nelson-lord-admiral-life-facts-wives-battles-death/2021-08-24T10:59:23.000ZBritain has had its fair share of heroes, but very few have commanded the same affection that Nelson did.
“We do not know whether we should mourn or rejoice. The country has gained the most splendid and decisive Victory that has ever graced the naval annals of England; but it has been dearly purchased. The great and gallant NELSON is no more.”
With these words, The Times summed up the mood of the nation, for the news of Nelson’s death at the battle of Trafalgar was met with an outpouring of public grief that wouldn’t be matched until the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, nearly 200 years later.
His loss was felt particularly keenly in the Navy. Admiral Collingwood, Nelson’s normally reserved second-in-command, wept at the news, while a boatswain’s mate on board Victory cried so much that he was unable to pipe the men to quarters. When Nelson’s coffin was taken for burial in St Paul’s Cathedral a few weeks later, huge crowds of mourners showed up to line the streets.
Horatio Nelson early life and early career
Horatio Nelson was born seven weeks prematurely, on 29 September 1758 in the Norfolk village of Burnham Thorpe, where his father was the parish priest.
Although he was hurriedly baptised because nobody expected him to live, Nelson survived, but in 1767, when he was just nine, his mother died. It was an event that would leave a permanent mark on his personality.
He developed into an engaging, impulsive boy with a strong religious faith who craved affection, attention and approval – characteristics that he would carry with him to his grave. In 1771, aged just 12, he joined the Royal Navy with the help of his uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling. He spent most of his teenage years at sea, sailing thousands of miles from the Bay of Bengal to the Arctic, and surviving not only a severe bout of malaria but also, if the stories are to be believed, a brush with a polar bear.
Promoted to captain at the age of 20, Nelson spent eight years in command of a succession of frigates – fast, lightly armed warships that were the Navy’s eyes and ears. As they frequently operated independently, Nelson gained valuable experience in decision-making.
Not that those decisions were always right. When the American War of Independence ended, he was given command of HMS Boreas and sent to the West Indies. He soon alienated the locals by overzealously enforcing a trade embargo with the newly independent colonies, and annoyed his superiors by lecturing them on their duty.
General Shirley, the governor of Antigua, was unimpressed, replying “Old respectable officers of high rank, long service and of a certain life are very jealous of being dictated to in their duty by young Gentlemen whose service and experience do not entitle them to it.”
He also mishandled a delicate situation involving the commander of HMS Pegasus, Prince William Henry (later William IV), who was involved in a dispute with his first lieutenant. Unwilling to alienate a potentially powerful patron, Nelson allowed the young prince to flout naval rules.
This time it was the Admiralty who were unimpressed, and between 1788 and 1793, Nelson found himself lingering on half pay in England, and without any naval employment.
While in the West Indies, Nelson had married Frances Nisbet, an attractive young widow he’d met on the island of Nevis. According to Prince William Henry, who gave the bride away, Nelson was “over head and ears in love”, but he privately doubted whether it would last, writing that he hoped Nelson “may not repent the step he has taken.”
The couple spent the next five years in England together, much of it at Burnham Thorpe. Frances, who had lived all her life in the West Indies, hated the bitter Norfolk winters, while Nelson became frustrated as the years passed without a ship to command. Moreover, although Frances already had a son by her first marriage, the couple were still childless.
Nelson enters the Navy
Nelson’s years of inactivity ended in 1793 when war broke out with Revolutionary France. He was given command of a battleship, HMS Agamemnon, and sent to join the Mediterranean fleet under Lord Hood. It was Nelson’s big opportunity, and he was determined to seize it.
“If it is a sin to covet glory,” he wrote, “I am the most offending soul alive.” In 1794, Nelson took part in the capture of Corsica. While fighting on land at Calvi he lost almost all the sight in his right eye when he was hit in the face by gravel thrown up by a French cannonball.
It was the first of a number of serious wounds suffered by Nelson – proof that while his thirst for glory might expose the men under him to risks, they were risks that he himself was willing to take.
In March 1795, Nelson took part in his first fleet battle, off Genoa, and gave the much larger Ça Ira such a pounding that she was easy prey to the British on the following day. The British had the upper hand, but when Admiral Hotham broke off the action after only two ships had been captured, Nelson was frustrated and angry.
Nelson wasn’t interested in damaging the enemy; he wanted their complete annihilation and, as he would prove in the future, he was prepared to take risks to achieve it.
The following year saw Nelson given command of a small squadron of ships off the Italian coast. He blockaded French-held ports and captured the islands of Elba and Capraia. These exploits earned him the respect of men like Sir John Jervis, the new commander of the Mediterranean fleet, but Nelson believed that his achievements were being ignored back at home.
Nelson's famous battles and famous injuries
The year 1797 gave him the opportunity to secure the public recognition he craved. On 14 February, Jervis took on the Spanish at Cape St Vincent. Displaying the kind of urgency so lacking in Hotham, he ordered his ships to make straight for a gap in the Spanish line, splitting the enemy fleet in two.
Nelson played a leading role in the ensuing victory, taking his ship, the Captain, out of the line to thwart a dangerous Spanish manoeuvre. More was to come. When Nelson saw that two Spanish ships, the San Nicolás and the San Josef, had collided and become entangled, he brought the Captain alongside the San Nicolás and then led a boarding party to capture her before crossing her deck to seize the San Josef. It was a quite unprecedented feat.
Nelson was well aware that none of this would have been possible without the support of his captains, and was quick to thank them. But he was equally quick to ensure that this time his actions were not overlooked. He wrote his own, unofficial, account of the battle and sent it for publication back home. It instantly captured the public imagination and made him a national hero.
Five months later, Nelson suffered his worst ever defeat when he led a naval force in a disastrous land assault on Santa Cruz de Tenerife. A quarter of his men became casualties, and Nelson himself had his right arm amputated after it was shattered by a musket ball.
Racked by guilt at the losses he’d incurred and in great pain from his wound, Nelson sank into a deep depression. His mood wasn’t helped by his belief that “a left-handed admiral will never be considered useful”. But Jervis stood by him, the wound eventually healed and, helped by the popular adulation he was now receiving,
Nelson’s flagging spirits revived. The following April, he was sent to the Mediterranean with 13 battleships to hunt down the French. On 1 August 1798, he found their fleet anchored in Aboukir Bay and immediately prepared to attack.
The battle that followed was Nelson’s most decisive victory. Whereas most admirals at the time looked to keep a tight control on their fleets, Nelson was the opposite. He trusted his captains implicitly and, after making sure they understood his plans, he allowed them the flexibility to decide how best to carry them out.
It was a philosophy that paid dividends. When Captain Thomas Foley of the Goliath realised that the water between the French and the shore was deep enough to sail in, he led his ship down the landward side of the French fleet. Three other ships followed him while Nelson led a second attack down the seaward side.
One by one, the French vessels were overwhelmed by superior numbers and gunnery and, with the wind against them, the ships at the other end of their line could do nothing but wait for their inevitable destruction.
In the end, 11 out of the 13 French battleships were destroyed or captured. The victory secured British naval supremacy in the Mediterranean and left Bonaparte’s army stranded in Egypt. The nation went wild with delight. It seemed that the ‘Hero of the Nile’, as Nelson was now dubbed, could do no wrong.
Horatio Nelson and Emma Hamilton
Nelson had been wounded in the head during the battle, and he sailed to Naples to recuperate. Greeted as a hero and feted by the Neapolitan court, he stayed with the British ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, and Emma, his beautiful wife.
What was initially intended to be a short visit lasted nearly two years, and cast a cloud over both Nelson’s personal life and his professional career. Neglecting his wider military responsibilities, he became increasingly embroiled in the murky world of Neapolitan politics. In doing so he found himself drawn into a vicious civil war, and his involvement in the execution of Francesco Carriacolo, a prominent republican leader, further tarnished his reputation.
Eventually, Nelson was summoned home, having been pointedly told by Earl Spencer: “You will be more likely to recover your health and strength in England than in… a foreign court, however pleasing the respect and gratitude shown to you for your services.”
And then there was Emma Hamilton. She nursed him back to health, they shared dangers together, and eventually became lovers.
The desire for an unblemished hero led later generations to blame Emma for the affair, but the reality was more complicated. Nelson was certainly not innocent, and had already had at least one lover since his marriage to Frances. In any event, the attraction was more than sexual.
Emma doted on Nelson, mothering him and encouraging him. They also seem to have shared a sense of humour. When Nelson was rewarded for his victory at the Nile with a barony rather than the viscountcy he thought he deserved, Emma wrote to him, “If I was King of England, I would make you the most noble, puissant Duke Nelson, Marquis Nile, Earl Alexandria, Viscount Pyramid, Baron Crocodile and Prince Victory.”
The pair did little to hide their relationship, and soon it was the talk of a scandalised London. When Nelson returned to England with both the Hamiltons in tow, Frances demanded that Nelson choose between her and his lover. Nelson chose Emma, who by now was carrying his child.
After arranging a generous financial settlement for her, he cut his heartbroken wife out of his life and refused to see her or even write to her again.
The Naples affair had done Nelson’s reputation no good whatsoever. Many considered his infatuation with Emma undignified and ridiculous, while the Admiralty saw him as a loose cannon, not to be trusted. As a result, when a fleet was sent to Copenhagen in 1801 to break up an ‘armed neutrality’ among the Baltic States, the cautious Admiral Parker was given overall command with Nelson as his deputy.
When negotiations with the Danes failed and the British resorted to force, it was Nelson who led the attack. It was a tricky battle. The Danes fought stubbornly, and some of Nelson’s ships ran into difficulties in the shallow waters.
Parker hoisted a signal ordering a withdrawal. Nelson ignored it and continued the action, gaining the upper hand over the Danes and then securing a favourable truce. He returned home with his professional reputation restored, and for the next 18 months he spent much of his time with Emma, Sir William and his daughter, Horatia, in the house Emma had found for him in Merton.
Nelson's death at Trafalgar
When in May 1803 a brief peace with France came to an end, the stage was set for Nelson’s last campaign. For 18 months, Nelson, now commander of Britain’s Mediterranean fleet, blockaded the French fleet under Admiral Villeneuve in Toulon, but in February 1804 the French slipped away.
Their plan was to create a diversion by threatening Britain’s Caribbean possessions before heading back to unite with other French and Spanish ships and sailing up the Channel to support an invasion. Nelson chased them to the West Indies, causing them to sail back to European waters where, blocked by Admiral Calder, they took refuge in Cádiz harbour.
The invasion was cancelled, but the French and Spanish ships in Cádiz remained a threat, and Nelson was given the job of destroying them. After spending a breathless 25 days on shore with Emma, Nelson rejoined his fleet and on 21 October 1805, at Trafalgar, he won his last and most famous victory. HMS Victory lost 57 men that day. One of them was Nelson.
The nation mourned a hero; those who knew him mourned a man. Contemporaries might smile at his vanity, frown at his love life, and worry about his impulsiveness, but it was impossible not to be inspired by this brave, earnest, passionate little man.
Nelson was a true leader, warm and friendly to his brother officers and approachable to his men. Captain Duff of HMS Mars summed up the views of many people when he wrote: “He is so good and pleasant a man, that we all wish to do what he likes, without any kind of orders.”
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]]>Nelson in his own wordshttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/horation-nelson-letters-emma-hamilton-insight-what-tell/2020-12-12T14:15:34.000ZThe relationship between Horatio Nelson and Emma Lady Hamilton is one of history’s most notorious love stories. Over the course of their affair – which began in Naples in 1799, produced a daughter, Horatia, in 1801, and ended with Nelson’s death at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 – the couple exchanged hundreds of letters.
Due to repeated and often prolonged spells of separation, one of which stretched to two years, these intimate messages were a vital means of communication between the two lovers. Sadly, Nelson appears to have burned nearly all of his letters from Emma in order to keep them from being discovered on board ship. (Both were married – Emma to Sir William Hamilton, the British envoy to Naples, and Nelson to the patient Frances.)
Lady Hamilton, however, kept all the letters she received – for as long as she could. On falling into poverty after Nelson’s death, she gave them as pawns to friends who lent her money. Over the course of the centuries since, the letters have been leaked.
The first selection was published in 1814, when Lady Hamilton was still alive. The damage that its publication inflicted on her reputation hurried her to an early death in 1815, in Calais, where she had fled from her creditors. It had a significant impact on Nelson’s posthumous stature, too. During the course of the 19th century, two more substantial publications of letters followed, one in 1849, hidden in what was termed Memoirs of the Life of Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, and one in 1892–93 in a two-volume work that was merely printed for private circulation and thus hardly noticed in public. By the end of the 19th century, as he was reimagined as a figurehead of the naval arms race with Germany, Nelson’s relationship with this great beauty and celebrated artists’ model had been brushed under the carpet.
Over time, most of the letters found their ways into archives – both public and private, scattered from Europe to California. Some of those that Emma gave away as pawns still keep coming up at auction. All those accessible in archives or known from printed sources have recently been published together for the first time in Nelson*’*s Letters to Lady Hamilton, a book that I have edited for the Navy Records Society.
Nelson’s correspondence with Emma offers historians an unprecedented insight into his experiences as a rising star of the Royal Navy and his opinions on everything from politics and romance to seafaring and celebrity – as the following examples reveal…
Life at sea
Life on board a naval vessel in the early 19th century was far from comfortable and Nelson didn’t fare much better than his crews. Even though he enjoyed the comparative luxury of a spacious cabin, he, too, was affected by illness, harsh weather conditions, food shortages and monotony.
When given command of the British fleet in the Mediterranean in 1803, he had to sail out in a frigate and wrote to Emma after two months at sea. “We are anxious for the Victory’s joining as we are almost eating salt beef.” Half a year later he told her: “Our days pass so much alike that having described one you have them all.”
Bad food and boredom weren’t the only threats to a sailor’s wellbeing. Diseases could sweep through a ship at any time – which is why, in October 1804, Nelson was delighted to report: “My dearest Emma, the dreadful effects of the yellow fever at Gibraltar and many parts of Spain will naturally give you much uneasiness ‘till you hear that thank God we are entirely free from it and in the most perfect health, not one man being ill in the fleet.”
Nelson sounded far less buoyant in August 1801 when confessing: “I am so dreadfully sea sick that I cannot hold up my head.” During another buffeting by high winds that same year, he lamented: “The sea is so very high, that I scarcely expect the possibility of getting a boat with this weather; she would be lost in an instant... in my after-cabin the motion is so great that I cannot sit down. We have only to trust to our cables, for the sea is breaking against the rocks mountains high.”
Nelson’s letters to his lover convey not only the highs and lows of life at sea but also the persistent anxiety that stalked the crew of a great man-of-war. Whether you were a lowly new recruit or a lionised admiral, your life depended on the strength of a ship’s cables.
Perhaps it was Nelson’s admission that he experienced fear – a confession at odds with the carefully crafted image of the naval hero – that made 19th-century authors omit this passage from their publications.
Romance
Far away from home, Nelson was often without news from Britain – and Emma – for months on end. In order to stay connected, the lovers had to trust to unreliable means of communication, sometimes via Spain, and even through France, with which Britain was at war at the time.
As Nelson and Emma were rarely alone together (for most of their affair, she lived with her husband, Sir William Hamilton, who appears to have tolerated their relationship), they had to concentrate their erotic life on short and intense moments – and leave much to the imagination. “You may readily imagine what must be my sensations at the idea of sleeping with you, it setts me on fire even the thoughts, much more would the reality,” Nelson wrote to Emma on 1 March 1801. On the same day, he noted in another passionate letter: “Would to God I had dined alone with you. What a des[s]ert we would have had.”
Writing on the Victory in the Mediterranean in October 1804, Nelson was just as affectionate, though a little more restrained. “...my own Emma, you must only fancy all my thoughts and feelings towards you, they are every thing which a fond heart can fancy. I have not a moment; I am writing + signing orders whilst I am writing to my own Emma. My life my soul, God in heaven bless you.”
Politics
Along with descriptions of the mundanity of life at sea and heartfelt expressions of affection, Nelson’s letters to Emma also reveal his views on international relations and Europe’s power-holding elite. He readily shared gossip about leading political and public figures but was not prepared to spend too much time pondering what this gossip meant. “Report says, she [the Queen of Naples] and the king are likely at last to have a serious rupture... However, I never trouble myself with these matters, they may settle their own affairs, they are old enough.”
William Pitt the Younger, two-time prime minister, played a huge role in marshalling Britain’s war effort against Napoleon’s France. When Pitt resigned in 1801, Nelson wrote to Emma: “I am sorry Mr Pitt is out. I think him the greatest minister this country ever had, and the honestest man.” Unfortunately, Nelson does not elaborate on his reasons for this assessment. His matter-of-fact writing style resembled more the entries into a logbook than a fully developed political tract.
Nelson could, however, be crystal clear in his political observations. Following the battle of Copenhagen [for more on this scroll down], he observed: “I look upon the Northern league to be like a tree, of which [Tsar] Paul was the Trunck [sic] + Sweden + Denmark the Branches, If I can get at the Trunk and hew it down, the branches fall of course, but I may lop the branches + yet not be able to fell the tree.”
Another of Nelson’s political desires – the “hope that by the destruction of Buonaparte that wars with all nations will cease” – was just as difficult to achieve. After Nelson’s death at Trafalgar, Britain had to bear a strenuous war effort for nearly 10 more years before enjoying the Pax Britannica that reigned for much of the 19th century.
War
Nelson wrote the above words to Emma on 23 March 1801, less than 10 days before the battle of Copenhagen, a critical clash in the War of the Second Coalition, which saw Britain scrambling to prevent the powerful Danish fleet allying with the Russian and Swedish fleets in support of the French.
By the time of the battle, Nelson had gained the reputation of an audacious risk-taker – the kind of admiral who’d always favour aggression over caution – thanks to his spectacular victory over the French at the battle of the Nile in 1798. But, by 1800, his affair with Emma had become so notorious that the Admiralty did not judge Nelson fit for anything but fighting. As such, he had not been entrusted with the command of a fleet, but rather placed under a senior admiral, Sir Hyde Parker, who began negotiations with the Danes before entering the Baltic.
Nelson’s letters to Emma from this time bear testimony to his impatience to advance into the Baltic and his desire to frighten the Danes into siding with Britain. By contrast, Sir Hyde hesitated until the ice started melting in the Baltic, enabling the Russian and Swedish fleets to join their Danish ally. Pressed for action, Hyde sent Nelson to fight at Copenhagen.
As the battle ran its course, it sounded and looked so dreadful from a distance that Sir Hyde signalled retreat, which Nelson ignored. Famously putting the telescope to his blind eye, he declared: “I really do not see the signal.” Notwithstanding this determination to go on the attack, Nelson started negotiating with the “Danes, the brothers of Englishmen”, rather than fighting to the bitter end.
When he learned that this act of mercy was being criticised back home, he justified his actions to Emma: “The cause that I felt… [was] humanity … when my flag of truce went on shore, the crown batteries, and the batteries on Amack and in the dock yard were firing at us, one half their shot necessarily striking the [Danish] ships who had surrendered and our fire did the same and worse… + it was a massacre, this caused my note… I felt when the Danes became my prisoners, I became their protector.”
Fame
The image of Lady Hamilton rowing her naval hero to shore was never directly caricatured – as Nelson imagines it might be, in his words above – but it easily could have been. As a highly visible public figure, fame was something that he had to grapple with during his career, and he was conscious of how he and Emma appeared to the public. On their joint return from the Mediterranean in November 1800, in the company of Lady Hamilton’s husband, the couple had been subject to quite outspoken ridicule, fanned by a voracious press. Being portrayed in caricature, however, was regarded at the time as a marker of status.
But Nelson did not always enjoy the spotlight. At times he was plagued by his celebrity, as in August 1801, when, as he tells Emma, he was in English waters, protecting Britain from a potential French invasion. “I have given directions to captain Gore (or rather requested) not to let any body come into the ship but who had business with me… Fifty boats are rowing, I am told, about her this moment to have a look at the one armed man.”
The past and future
Of all the passages in Nelson’s letters to Emma, perhaps the most poignant are those in which he imagines their future life together – a future that was dashed by his death at Trafalgar. The notoriety of the couple’s affair meant that, while Nelson was feted by the general public on returning to Britain, the reception he received from the establishment was often more restrained. Aware of his fragile social standing, in a letter from 1801 he wrote: “We will eat plain but will have good wine, good fires + a hearty welcome for our friends, but none of the great shall enter our peaceful abode, I hate them all”.
Nelson’s letters also provided him with a platform from which he could reminisce about the past and pay his respects to those most responsible for his life’s achievements. On 11 June 1801, he observed: “This day 22 syears I was made a Post Captain by Sir Peter Parker, as good a man as ever lived if you meet him again say that I shall drink his health in a bumper this day for I do not forget that I owe my present exalted rank to his partiality, although I feel if I had even been in an humbler sphere that Nelson would have been Nelson still.”
Dr Marianne Czisnik is a historian and lawyer who has published widely on Admiral Nelson. She is editor of Nelson’s Letters to Lady Hamilton, a compilation of 400 letters penned by the naval hero to his lover, which was published by the Navy Record Society in July 2020
This article was first published in the Christmas 2020 edition of BBC History Magazine
]]>The battle of Trafalgar, hour by hour: what happened and why did Britain win?https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/what-happened-battle-trafalgar-why-did-britain-win-nelson/2020-10-20T12:40:31.000ZTrafalgar was fought against a background of fear. An eight-year struggle with revolutionary France had ended in 1802 but war had broken out again in 1803. The undefeated French General Napoleon Bonaparte had been building up forces and constructing barges on the Channel coast. Spain reluctantly entered the war as an ally of France late in 1804. By spring 1805 Napoleon, newly crowned Emperor, had his Armée d’Angleterre poised for conquest. He launched an elaborate plan to lure British ships to the West Indies before massing his fleet in the Channel. The admiral entrusted with the operation, Pierre Villeneuve, succeeded in losing Nelson, then fought an inconclusive battle with a British squadron sent to intercept him off northern Spain.
Judging his ships too frail to continue on to Boulogne where Napoleon was waiting impatiently, Villeneuve fell back on Vigo and then to the Spanish naval base of Cadiz, a strongly fortified harbour where the fleet might be refitted. His decision was influenced by Admiral Gravina, his more experienced Spanish colleague, who had secret orders forbidding him from taking part in an invasion of Britain. Furious at the admiral’s failure to appear, Napoleon decided to strike instead against the Austrians and Russians who had made an alliance with Britain. In late August he commenced a lightning march that culminated in the tremendous French victory at Austerlitz on 2 December.
By 28 September, when Nelson took command of the British fleet blockading Cadiz, the threat of immediate invasion no longer existed. Villeneuve’s fleet received new orders to sail into the Mediterranean. Even at Cadiz men and supplies were hard to find and it was October before the ships were ready to leave. Villeneuve knew that the Emperor was displeased with him and rumours of his imminent replacement had reached the press. However, the Spanish view and that of the French officers was to wait behind the defences of Cadiz, until bad weather provided an opportunity to put to sea without fighting.
Watching and waiting
Nelson withdrew his fleet towards the Portuguese coast, leaving an advance squadron of frigates to watch Cadiz, and a chain of ships to pass their signals to him. Nelson expected the French and Spanish fleet to come out when the weather broke and urged maximum vigilance. If there was to be a battle, he had a plan and he explained it to all his captains over dinner on 29 and 30 September.
Battle tactics of the 150 years prior to Trafalgar concentrated on “the line”. Ships of the line, large warships well-armed with guns down each side but vulnerable on bow and stern, would be arranged in line to stand and fight the enemy’s line by firing broadsides. Breaking the enemy’s line was becoming a standard British tactic. In the simplified version of Nelson’s plan employed on the day, the fleet fought in two divisions, one under Nelson, the other under Collingwood.
Collingwood was at liberty to direct his own ships within the guidelines of the general plan. The divisions would approach in column in order to conceal the point of attack. To further confuse the enemy Nelson would probably steer for the foremost enemy ships. Then, using a signal created for the occasion, he would instruct Collingwood to manoeuvre into line abreast to attack the rear 12 ships of the enemy line. Each ship would seek to pass the stern of its opponent, raking her and then engaging from the leeward (the side furthest from the wind). Having led the enemy vanguard (or van, ships at the front of the line) to expect an attack, Nelson would actually break the line close to the centre, where he expected the enemy admiral to be. He had powerful three-deckers massed at the front of his line. Collingwood’s leading ships were also heavily armed. Together, Nelson and Collingwood would destroy the centre and rear of the enemy before the van could intervene to save them.
These complex evolutions would show off the skill of the British seamen, whilst employing it to devastating effect. To minimise the time during which the approaching ships took enemy fire without being able to reply, the British would attack under full sail. Everything would be done at top speed.
Why did Britain win at Trafalgar?
The main reason why the British fleet won was the superior training and discipline of the crews. They had been at sea for years and most had been together in the same ship for at least two years. They knew their drills and worked as a team. While most French and Spanish ships had recent experience at sea and in battle, some Spanish ships had inexperienced crews who had only served together for a few weeks. There was no shortage of skilled seamen in British ships to make the instant corrections to speed and direction that enabled the ship to manoeuvre into an advantageous position. Nearly every duel involving manoeuvre during the battle was won by the British. The sole clear exception was the French Pluton’s victory over Mars. Having got into a position where more guns could be brought to bear, British gunnery was usually more effective. The rate of fire of most British crews was probably superior and they also had technical advantages. The casting of their guns and quality of their powder were both better. Fewer guns blew up and shot went faster. Most British ships were relatively heavily armed compared with their opponents. The replacement of long guns with heavy-calibre carronades on the quarterdeck, poop and forecastle of British ships gave them a great advantage in close range killing power. Finally, despite the weather, Nelson’s plan worked. Dumanoir was confused and the centre and rear were overwhelmed before the van could intervene.
The race to engage the enemy
On 2 October Nelson sent six of his best ships to Gibraltar for supplies. This proved the catalyst. Villeneuve’s latest information told him that Nelson had only 21 ships, giving the Franco-Spanish 33 an advantage that might be enough to balance their inferior training. With his honour impugned by accusations of cowardice and a hint from his friend Marine Minister Decrès that he should act fast, Villeneuve put to sea before his replacement arrived from Paris.
Warned by his scouts, Nelson raced towards the Strait of Gibraltar, reaching it well ahead of the enemy whose favourable wind had faded away. The next day was rough, but the British frigates maintained contact while the fleet moved out to sea. At dawn on 21 October the British saw the Combined Fleet eleven miles away, approaching Cape Trafalgar and still heading for the Strait. During the night the wind had dropped away to almost nothing, and Nelson’s plan became much more dangerous, his ships advancing at walking pace being vulnerable to enemy fire for much longer. Nelson weighed up the odds, reckoning the westerly swell and the smoke of their own guns would reduce the accuracy of enemy gunnery. The country wanted an annihilating victory; Admiral Calder, who had fought Villeneuve in July, was court martialled for not pressing home his attack. Nelson decided he must fight. It was apparent to all that the leading ships would inevitably take heavy punishment. Nelson and Collingwood both chose to lead their divisions, setting an example to any captains who might now think that the plan had become too hazardous.
Villeneuve anticipated that Nelson would attempt to break his line in more than one place and isolate groups of ships. He ordered 21 ships – to match Nelson’s strength – to form a defensive line of battle in close order, to absorb the shock of Nelson’s attack. Admiral Gravina, with 12 of the best ships, was to intervene wherever he thought most effective. With a shortage of skilled seamen and a surfeit of good soldiers Villeneuve intended to fight at even closer quarters than Nelson. His men had been trained to clear enemy decks and then board, turning the sea battle into a land battle. In this manner Rome had defeated the superior seamen of Carthage.
Villeneuve’s first disquieting observation was that Nelson had 26 ships, not the 21 he had hoped for. One more, Africa, was approaching from the north, having got lost during the night. For tight manoeuvre lack of wind was even more of a problem for his own inexperienced seamen than it was for the British. The ships had great difficulty getting to their place in the line: there were gaps and overlaps. Seeing Nelson apparently threatening his rear, Villeneuve ordered the fleet to veer round, so that it now faced towards Cadiz. This created even more confusion in the line, especially in what was now the rear, where Gravina’s freedom to act was compromised by the entanglement of his ships with the rear of the line of battle. Gravina may have sought to use one of his two squadrons to extend the line to match Nelson’s while doubling up with the second, but the result was so confused that it is difficult to work out what he had in mind.
- Nine of the most overrated battles in history (and one underrated one)
The battle: hour by hour
6.00 am At dawn the British see the enemy fleet 11 miles away. Nelson signals his ships to form in column and sail first east north east, then east.
8.45 am Villeneuve, commander of the French and Spanish Combined Fleet, has countered the threat to his rear by reversing direction. Collingwood signals to get into a line of bearing since lack of wind will stop them forming line abreast later. Nelson heads towards the enemy van, concealing his final point of attack.
11.45 am Villeneuve hoists his flag and orders his ships to open fire. As Victory comes under fire she replies and then changes course to starboard, running down the enemy line towards the centre. Unable to see through the smoke, Dumanoir, Villeneuve’s second-in-command, assumes the assault is still directed at him.
12.10 pm Collingwood’s Royal Sovereign breaks the line astern of Spain’s Santa Ana. Admiral Collingwood has broken the line too far forward, giving his ships more opponents than Nelson intended.
12.45 pm Victory passes the stern of France’s Bucentaure and collides with her Redoutable, punching a hole that is exploited by Britain’s Neptune and the ships following. In a neat manoeuvre Neptune, Leviathan and Conqueror deliver successive raking broadsides through Bucentaure’s stern.
1.15 pm Nelson is shot by a musketeer on Redoutable and is carried below mortally wounded. The French crew masses on deck to storm aboard Victory, but the British Téméraire, out of control, collides with Redoutable. Grape and cannister from her carronades and 18-pounders massacre the French crew.
1.30 pm Most of Bucentaure’s guns have been knocked over or masked by fallen rigging. Villeneuve signals to his van ships to turn round. He tries to sail from danger but the ship will not respond. He finds all the boats shattered by shot. He surrenders a quarter of an hour later.
1.45 pm Dumanoir finally orders his ships to turn back. In the light winds they have difficulty reversing direction and it is half an hour before Captain Hardy on Victory responds with a signal to Nelson’s ships to come to the wind on the port tack.
2.20 pm About this time enemy ships Santísima Trinidad, Redoutable, Fougueux, Santa Ana, Algésiras and Monarca all surrender. The battle in the centre is clearly going in favour of the British. Admiral Gravina, who leads the Spanish fleet, is wounded.
3.00 pm Belleisle, the only British ship in serious danger of defeat, is rescued. Argonauta (Spanish), Swiftsure (French), and Bahama (Spanish) surrender. The area to the rear of centre is collapsing.
4.30 pm Another six ships have surrendered. Dumanoir ceases fire and steers away towards the Straits of Gibraltar; Gravina hoists signal for ships to follow him and makes for Cadiz. According to Victory’s log this was when Nelson died.
5.30 pm Intrépide (French) and Neptuno (Spanish) have surrendered. France’s Achille blows up.
The advance into battle
Once Villeneuve had reversed order, Collingwood found himself, as intended, opposite the enemy rear. Realising that in very light wind the dramatic showpiece evolution into line abreast was impossible Collingwood signalled his captains to form a line of bearing, effectively producing a diagonal row of ships facing forwards. It was a very ragged line: the ships approached in groups, moving as fast as they could. Slower ships were left behind, while one or two may not have been moving quite so swiftly as they should.
As Collingwood raced ahead, Nelson led his roughly formed column towards the enemy van. Most crews took some form of early lunch. At 11.45 with Collingwood’s Royal Sovereign within close range, Villeneuve ordered his ships to open fire and hoisted his flag, finally revealing his position. Collingwood’s leading ships took heavy fire as they came in. Nelson continued to steer towards Admiral Dumanoir, commander of the Franco-Spanish van. Some time after his own ship came under fire he replied with his starboard (the right side looking forward) broadside, then he turned his ship towards Villeneuve’s and sailed down the enemy line towards him, gradually closing with it. Successive British ships, including the approaching Africa maintained Dumanoir’s impression that he was under attack.
Soon after midday Collingwood broke the line and took on the Spanish three-decker Santa Ana. Since this was not the 12th but the 16th ship from the rear, he gave the captains following a tougher task than had been intended. Belleisle broke through and was surrounded by several ships. Mars was prevented from breaking the line and then disabled by France’s Pluton, her captain killed. But the leading ships held out. Eventually, as more British ships joined the untidy melee, they overwhelmed the enemy, capturing or driving off the French and Spanish ships.
Victory had taken severe casualties and was barely under control when she passed the French flagship Bucentaure and collided with Redoutable, punching a hole in the line. Neptune led Leviathan and Conqueror through the gap and they completed the destruction of the French flagship and the mighty Spanish Santísima Trinidad. The battle between Victory and Redoutable was typical of several close fights. Redoutable’s men cleared Victory’s decks with grenades and small arms fire. Nelson was one of the last officers to fall; unlike luckier colleagues, he was fatally wounded. A ball fired from the mizen top lodged in his spine and for three hours he lay dying, his lungs filling with blood. Having cleared Victory’s top deck, Redoutable’s crew massed to board but at that moment the British ship Téméraire crashed into Redoutable’s other side; a volley from her 32-pounder carronades massacred the French crew. Dumanoir turned his ships too late. In the light winds they had great difficulty going about. Those that tried to save their admiral were cut off and defeated. Dumanoir sheered off towards Gibraltar, while the wounded Gravina led those ships that could escape back to Cadiz. Towards sunset the French ship Achille blew up, bringing the battle to a close.
Collingwood now commanded 44 ships, many riddled with holes and with no masts. He had 10,000 prisoners, many wounded. A strengthening wind was blowing towards a rocky shore and the barometer was plummeting. Nelson had ordered the ships to anchor but Collingwood cancelled this. By morning they were strung out in deteriorating weather. In the afternoon one prize sank and one drove ashore. Three French ships were recaptured and several Spanish ships headed for Cadiz, British prize crews combining with the Spanish or French to keep the ships afloat.
On 23 October the French and Spanish sallied from Cadiz and recovered Santa Ana and Neptuno. Algésiras, Aigle and Bucentaure also escaped, though Bucentaure was wrecked off Cadiz. Collingwood took the ships he had with him north to meet them, but they returned to Cadiz. That night in Cadiz Bay fierce gusts of winds dismasted three ships and drove two ashore. Collingwood feared that more prizes might escape. Most of the ships were now in relatively safe open water to the north of Cadiz but some were anchored dangerously close to the shore south of Chipiona. Collingwood decided to take the men off the remaining prizes and then sink them. British crews went out in boats in towering seas to take their erstwhile enemies from ships that were, in several cases, just about to founder.
The storm reached its height on the night of 24 October and continued at fearsome intensity for more than 24 hours. The French Indomptable sank in Cadiz Bay with around 1,000 drowned. Five more ships were wrecked on shore. The storm caused almost as many deaths as the battle. The Britons who survived the wreck of their prize were treated with generosity by the local population, who were shocked by the scale of the disaster and grateful to the British for their efforts in saving lives. The Spanish predicted the destruction of the British fleet. It is a tribute to British seamanship that none of these ships foundered. In the end the British brought four badly damaged prizes into Gibraltar, but the storm completed the work of the battle and the enemy fleet was more or less destroyed.
Historian and writer Tim Clayton is co-author, with Phil Craig, of Trafalgar: The Men, the Battle, the Storm (Hodder and Stoughton, 2004)
This article was first published in the October 2005 issue of BBC History Magazine
]]>From Nelson to Churchill: challenging British heroes with Afua Hirschhttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/challenging-british-heroes-afua-hirsch-podcast-nelson-winston-churchill-debate/2020-06-08T15:30:57.000ZIn this 2018 podcast, author and broadcaster Afua Hirsch argues that we need to seriously revise our understanding of the likes of Admiral Nelson and Winston Churchill.
Opinion: Afua Hirsch on controversial chapters in British history
Rather than simply tearing down the statues of problematic historical figures, it is more useful to have a wider, more honest debate about controversial chapters in Britain’s history
Growing up as a mixed-race girl in Britain, I never read names that resembled mine in blue plaques marking sites of heritage or historical interest. I didn’t see statues of people who looked like me, nor streets named after people who had African roots, like I did. I was not particularly perplexed by this fact. It was obvious that such people had not existed in Britain’s past – or if they had, they had made no contribution worth remembering. Black people were, after all, ahistorical, colonial subjects or slaves. The glorious statues I did see in our great towns and cities commemorated men – they are almost all men – who had nothing to do with any of that part of my heritage.
I believed this messaging that I had received both subtly and subconsciously – and sometimes explicitly and overtly – for the majority of my life. So when I began to learn the true dishonesty of these messages, I was moved to write. I could not reconcile this country I loved with the lies and half-truths it had told me, obscuring the fact that black people have been in Britain for thousands of years, some of them shaping the nation in the most significant way imaginable. I could not continue to celebrate the heroes portrayed as figures distant from any of those vague, problematic events in our past – Horatio Nelson, Winston Churchill, Robert Clive, Lord Kitchener – without correcting the one-sided version of their lives that’s widely communicated and accepted.
I chose Nelson as an example of this pattern of erasure, amnesia and denial. When I wrote last year, in a column in the British newspaper The Guardian, that Nelson was a supporter of the transatlantic slave trade and should be remembered as such, it triggered a tsunami of debate and, in some cases, outright hostility. Yet this anger was directed not towards Nelson for the position he advocated, but instead towards me for highlighting it. That refusal to engage in matters of historical record was, ironically, the best example of the problem I was raising. But it certainly started a conversation. I went on to make a Channel 4 documentary, The Battle for Britain’s Heroes, examining the ways in which we remember Nelson and two of our other great heroes, Winston Churchill and Cecil Rhodes. In that programme I called not for statues of these men to be pulled down, but for them to be remembered in a more thoughtful way. I travelled to Berlin, where statues of key figures from the German empire of 1871–1919 – whose removal was demanded by the Allies following the Second World War – have been placed in a museum at Spandau Citadel. Rather than simply tearing them down – an act of plain destruction – the statues have been carefully restored and placed at ground level, where visitors can engage with them, think about their legacy and learn lessons for the future. This is a far cry from the indifference with which we walk past our pigeon-poo-stained relics in Britain, which seems to me to be the worst combination of ignoring them while simultaneously glorifying them. The long-running conversation about such statues in Britain has progressed throughout the past year. In Bristol, the name of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston will be removed from the hall that previously bore it, while there are calls for his statue – which stands in a prominent position in the city – to be removed altogether. In Edinburgh it’s been announced that a plaque will be added to the statue of Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, explaining that the politician successfully delayed the abolition of the slave trade, allowing for the enslavement of an estimated 630,000 people who might have been spared had it not been for his efforts.
Calls to recognise the full picture of history are not just about changing the way in which we remember, but also about introducing the forgotten. To that end, in October it was announced that a new plaque would be unveiled at the address in central Edinburgh in which famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass lived. The University of Glasgow, meanwhile, published a detailed report on the extent to which it had benefited financially from gifts and support from people involved in the slave trade. Glasgow’s report, in particular, goes into unflinching detail about the gruesome details of the institution’s past. Plantations in the West Indies preferred “to work the enslaved to death and purchase replacements from Africa rather than devote resources to improving living standards and the quality of life amongst those who worked”. The profit that eventually benefited the university was derived from a regime in which a quarter of children died before reaching adulthood. Half of those who survived died before reaching the age of 40. Former student Robert Cunninghame Graham used his Glasgow University education to become Jamaican Receiver General of Taxes, marrying the sister of Simon Taylor, one of the most powerful English slave-owners in the Caribbean. Both men conceived children with women on their plantations; the nature of those relations is unknown, but the power balance between slave owners and enslaved women was notoriously and extremely imbalanced. And in a final twist, Graham – who went on to become rector of Glasgow University– donated part of his wealth to establish a biennial prize for the best student work on the theme of ‘political liberty’. All of this is depressing. Yet, at the same time, simply knowing about it is progress. Glasgow University seems to understand that, in order to erode what it describes as “the legacies of slavery and racism”, it must first face up to them. It’s a lesson that other British institutions could do well to learn. So it’s ironic that critics accuse the movement to challenge our monuments of seeking to erase history. On the contrary: developments over the past year have shown that it only in asking these questions – painful and difficult as they may be – that we are able to truly remember. And it is only by remembering that we can build a future identity as British people – one built on integrity and wisdom, rather than denial and lies. Events of the past year have shown how far we have come – but also just how far we still have to go. Afua Hirsch is a journalist, broadcaster and former barrister This article was first published in issue 13 of BBC World Histories Magazine in 2018
]]>Lord Nelson and slavery: Nelson’s dark sidehttps://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/lord-nelson-slavery-abolition-william-wilberforce-dark-side/2020-06-08T08:05:01.000ZIn the summer of 1805, Horatio Nelson was pursuing the French in the Caribbean. He had been lured there as part of the complex naval cat-and-mouse game that would culminate, some four months later, at the battle of Trafalgar. On learning that the French admiral Villeneuve had crossed the Atlantic with a large fleet, Nelson took his own British fleet straight from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean. Writing from his flagship, HMS Victory, on 11 June, he confessed that he had been “in a thousand cares for Jamaica”, Britain’s most productive and valuable colony, knowing that a successful attack on the island was “a blow which Bonaparte would be happy to give us”. Nelson chased Villeneuve across the Atlantic without orders but calculated, reasonably, that the government at home could have few complaints, because defending lucrative British colonies like Jamaica was a strategic priority surpassed only by the defence of Britain itself.
While he searched unsuccessfully for a Napoleonic fleet in the Caribbean, Nelson also found time to reflect on the relationship between Britain and its precious colonies in the region. In the letter scratched out at his desk on Victory, Nelson proclaimed: “I have ever been and shall die a firm friend to our present colonial system.” He went on to explain: “I was bred, as you know, in the good old school, and taught to appreciate the value of our West India possessions; and neither in the field or in the senate [House of Lords] shall their interest be infringed whilst I have an arm to fight in their defence, or a tongue to launch my voice against the damnable and cursed doctrine of Wilberforce and his hypocritical allies.”
Nelson, whose victories as a naval commander had earned him a parliamentary seat in the Lords, was suggesting here that he would use his political position to speak up against the ideas of the famous British abolitionist campaigner William Wilberforce. His fiery words might seem shocking to modern eyes. Nelson even surprised himself. “I did not intend to go so far,” he confessed, but he went on to admit that “the sentiments are full in my heart and the pen would write them”.
Institutionalised manslaughter
Nelson’s sentiments present us with an untold side to his story. This is generally recounted as a tale of patriotic heroism – of a man doing his duty to protect the nation from a Napoleonic menace. Nelson the dutiful patriot is certainly in evidence in the letter he wrote aboard the Victory in the Caribbean. But we also find a man in heartfelt solidarity with British slaveholders against the perceived menace of Wilberforce and his campaign to abolish the slave trade. This letter, documenting a crucial moment in the war against Napoleon, is therefore also a vivid piece of evidence from another struggle of no less global-historical significance: the internal battle within the British empire about whether British colonialism could, or should, continue without the transatlantic slave trade.
Nelson wrote his letter for a long-standing friend: a slaveholder named Simon Taylor, one of the wealthiest Britons of his generation. Taylor lived in Jamaica, where he owned three huge plantations and claimed ownership over more than 2,000 slaves: men, women and children forced, like countless other captives, to work and die producing huge quantities of sugar. The profits from slave-produced Caribbean sugar were staggeringly high, making fortunes for men like Taylor and flowing back into the wider British economy. This slave system was little other than a lucrative system of institutionalised manslaughter. Poor conditions for slaves meant that deaths outnumbered births, and white managers continually had to replenish their enslaved workforces from slave ships bringing new captives from Africa. By the time of the Napoleonic Wars, more than 3 million people had been taken across the Atlantic in British ships, destined for lives of slavery on New World plantations.
Resisting Wilberforce
Taylor and Nelson had first met in 1779, while the 20-year-old Nelson was stationed as a junior naval officer in Jamaica during the American Revolutionary War. Taylor was the elder of the two, approaching middle age when they became friends. As well as making a huge personal fortune from Caribbean sugar and slavery, he had established a great deal of political influence, which extended beyond Jamaica to London. Taylor was soon to emerge as a powerful voice in the political struggle over the future of the slave trade. Unsurprisingly, he was furious about rising anti-slavery sentiment in Britain and stood bitterly opposed to Wilberforce’s campaign.
The fact that Nelson shared Taylor’s strong dislike for Wilberforce and abolitionism is a stark indication of how out of step he was with the rising humanitarian sentiments of his own times. But in this respect, Nelson was hardly unique. Other British naval officers harboured similar views. Many of them had spent long stretches – months or even years – on one of the Royal Navy’s West Indian stations, often forming strong affinities with white slaveholding colonists.
While stationed in the eastern Caribbean during the 1780s, Nelson met and married his wife, Frances, the niece of a wealthy slaveholder in the British island-colony of Nevis. The Duke of Clarence (and future King William IV) had also served with the Royal Navy in the region, and spoke up forcefully in parliament against Wilberforce and his plans for the abolition of the slave trade. So too did Admiral Lord Rodney, who before Nelson’s dramatic rise had been the most celebrated British naval commander of his age. The influence of such men helped to ensure that the early abolition campaigns of the 1780s and 1790s ended in failure. No wonder slaveholders like Simon Taylor were keen to cultivate their friendship.
- Success, sugar and slaves: the uncomfortable story of Simon Taylor
For nearly two decades, Wilberforce found his calls for an end to the slave trade blocked by conservative elements in parliament. The main reason was that, for all of its obvious inhumanity, the commerce in human beings underpinned a system of Atlantic trade that had defined the 18th-century British empire.
Slave-produced colonial sugar was the nation’s most valuable import, and trading ties between Britain and its colonies were governed by laws designed to strengthen the Royal Navy. These ensured that trade between British possessions was carried on in British ships, crewed by British sailors – skilled mariners who could be pressed into the navy during wartime. In addition, import duties collected on British colonial produce helped fund a treasury whose primary objective was to raise funds for the defence of the realm, which included the high cost of maintaining the nation’s war fleet. Pro-slavery spokesmen like Simon Taylor, the Duke of Clarence and Lord Rodney wasted no opportunities to emphasise that the slave trade, colonial commerce, British greatness, and national security were all interlinked.
Abolitionists were, eventually, only able to counter this old vision of empire when they learned how to go beyond simple moral arguments against human trafficking and offer, in addition, a more pragmatic case. By the early 19th century, British abolitionists were trying to reassure conservative-minded members of parliament that ending the transatlantic trade in slaves from Africa would not damage the colonies or bring about an immediate end to slavery itself. Rather, they claimed that ending the slave trade would trigger useful reforms. Without the option of turning to the slave ships for new recruits, it would be in the slaveholders’ best interest to ensure that births outnumbered deaths on the plantations. This would require an improvement in conditions, which should also make slaves more contented, and so lessen the likelihood of a large-scale slave uprising (the prospect of which struck fear into the minds of colonial slaveholders and British politicians alike). Many abolitionists hoped that such changes could slowly prepare the way for a smooth transition to freedom at some point in the distant future.
Nelson, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, remained unconvinced, influenced instead by the advice of his old friend Simon Taylor. Taylor believed that, despite their claims to the contrary, abolitionists were a dangerous influence. In one of his letters to Nelson, he complained that proposals to end the slave trade spelled “nothing but evil” for “unhappy colonists” in the islands of the British Caribbean, pronouncing that parliament’s decision on the matter would determine whether “the lives of all the white people” in the sugar colonies would be sacrificed. Guided by racist assumptions about the violent character of black people, Taylor presented Nelson with lurid warnings of how white slaveholders could be “butchered, massacred, and murdered” by slave uprisings inspired by misguided reformers acting “under the pretence of humanity”. Reflecting those prejudiced fantasies back to Taylor in his letter from the Victory, Nelson contemplated that the success of Wilberforce and his allies “would certainly cause the murder of all our friends and fellow-subjects in the colonies”.
Would Nelson have spoken out?
Parliament finally outlawed the slave trade in the British empire in 1807 (the abolition of slavery outright followed in the 1830s). In the Caribbean, there was none of the violent bloodshed predicted by the slaveholders; and the measure was popular throughout the British Isles. Would Nelson have followed through on his proposal to speak publicly against it? He had assured Taylor that he was willing to launch his voice against the abolitionists in parliament, but he was under no obligation to act on this suggestion.
Of course, he never had to face the dilemma. By the time the abolition question was debated, Nelson was dead – killed in the brutal sea battle that ended in destructive and decisive victory for the British fleet under his command in the waters off Cape Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. Having tracked his rival to the Caribbean and back, he finally found the fight he craved, and the outcome turned him into a legend. Ever since, Nelson has been remembered primarily as a selfless patriot and military genius. A quasi-religious veneration of his memory, as a heroic warrior and self-sacrificing national hero – synonymous to many with Rule, Britannia! and a strong sense of British pride – has left little space for other assessments of his outlook or legacies.
Nelson’s private pro-slavery leanings have been almost totally ignored, but scrutinising them helps to expose an overlooked facet of the man behind the myth. It also does far more besides. Nelson, like anyone, was a complex human being, shaped by the world in which he lived. His attitudes towards slavery were moulded by close and long-standing ties between the Royal Navy and the British Caribbean. And, more broadly, his views help us to understand what abolitionists like Wilberforce had to overcome. Nelson’s sentiments were just one reflection of a more widely held ‘old-school’ defence of a profitable 18th-century British colonial system dependent on the slave trade. When Nelson wrote bitterly about the “damnable and cursed doctrine” of Wilberforce, he revealed a dislike for “meddling” humanitarians, a callous animosity towards enslaved people, and a desire to preserve the existing system – a system that, to some, seemed synonymous with British strength, and which had helped to build the navy that Nelson led into battle at Trafalgar.
Paradoxically, however, the outcome of the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 created some of the circumstances for the eventual success of British abolitionism less than two years later. Trafalgar confirmed the crushing of French and Spanish sea-power by the Royal Navy. The fact that British maritime strength was now overwhelming helped to ensure that parliament felt safe to embrace new ideas about the future of the empire. Finally, British politicians summoned the confidence to ignore the warnings of doomsayers who urged that ending the slave trade would be a disaster for the colonies and make Britain vulnerable to other maritime powers.
In the end, then, one of the unforeseen consequences of Nelson’s last victory was to provide conditions conducive to the triumph of Wilberforce and his ‘doctrine’. Nelson would almost certainly have disliked this unintended outcome of his deeds. He died content that he had done his duty, and secure in the knowledge that his fleet had won the day. But in the continuing struggle over the future of British slavery, he had backed the losing side.
Christer Petley is professor of Atlantic history at the University of Southampton
Book: White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution by Christer Petley (OUP, 2018)
This article was first published in the Christmas 2018 edition of BBC History Magazine
]]>A visit to HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgarhttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/visit-hms-victory-portsmouth-nelson-flagship-trafalgar/2019-08-01T11:00:54.000ZPortsmouth’s Historic Dockyard houses a wealth of treasures for naval fans – from the Victorian battleship HMS Warrior to the National Museum of the Royal Navy. One of its most treasured attractions holds the btitle of the world’s oldest naval ship still in commission as well as arguably being the most famous British warship: HMS Victory.
The Victory was ordered in 1758 as part of a plan by British Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder to create a new fleet of ships, of which the Victory would be the largest. Designed to carry 100 guns, the name was chosen with some apprehension – the previous Victory had been wrecked in the English Channel in 1744.
Around 6,000 trees were used to build the Victory, which was launched on 7 May 1765 from Chatham Royal Dockyard. The dock gates had to be hewed down as the ship, at 51 feet wide, was too big to fit through.
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The ship was put in reserve, as Britain was not involved in any conflicts at the time. That changed when France became involved in the American War of Independence in 1778. The vessel was swiftly mobilised and, in March 1778, put into active duty as the flagship of Admiral Augustus Keppel for the First Battle of Ushant – a skirmish between British and French forces, just off the island of Ushant, close to Brittany. The clash ended indecisively.
The Second Battle of Ushant in 1781, in which the Victory also took part, was more successful: in that instance, the British fleet managed to capture 15 French ships and more than 1,000 soldiers who were part of a convoy sending supplies to the West Indies. The following year, the ship successfully escorted a supply convoy through a French and Spanish blockade during the Great Siege of Gibraltar.
The Anglo-Spanish War – part of the French Revolutionary Wars – would see the Victory’s next battle as the flagship of Admiral Sir John Jervis. At the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797, the British forces defeated the Spanish who. vastly outnumbered them.
On her return to Britain, the Victory was found to be in urgent need of repair, and so she was earmarked for conversion into a hospital ship for French and Spanish prisoners of war. The refit didn’t take place: soon after HMS Impregnable was lost in 1799, and the admiralty found itself short of a first-rate ship of the line. The Victory underwent an extensive restoration to make it fit for active service once more. By 1803, it was ready to face its greatest test.
None of its previous battles come close to the Victory’s most triumphant hour – the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. On 19 October. 1805, French Admiral Pierre- Charles Villeneuve sailed his fleet from the Spanish port of Cadiz, bound for Naples. Two days later, close to Cape Trafalgar in southwest Spain, the British, commanded by Horatio Nelson aboard the Victory, met him in battle.
In a risky move, Nelson split his fleet into two, causing confusion amongst the enemy and winning a decisive victory. Nelson’s unusual tactics saw 22 French and Spanish ships captured or destroyed, while the British did not lose any.
Trafalgar would be Nelson and the Victory’s last major glimpse of battle – while leading the attack, Nelson was fatally shot through his left shoulder blade, the musket ball breaking his spine. He was carried below and heard the battle was won before taking his last breath.
After Trafalgar, the Victory was recommissioned in 1808 to lead the fleet in the Baltic but by the 1830s, it had been relegated to a stationary flagship for the Royal Navy. In 1922, the ship was placed in dry dock to be repaired and restored to how it would have looked during Nelson’s time.
Portsmouth was heavily bombed during World War II, with an air raid causing some damage to the ship, although much of the Victory that Nelson would have known has miraculously survived.
This article is taken from the August 2019 issue of BBC History Revealed
]]>Britain didn't "rule the waves" after the battle of Trafalgar, says historian Sam Willishttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/sam-willis-historian-was-trafalgar-great-battle-siginificant/2019-07-16T13:14:34.000ZThe battle of Trafalgar is today remembered as "one of the greatest naval clashes in history" – but how much does this claim stand up to scrutiny?
In his article 'Trafalgar: a futile victory?' – available in the August issue of BBC History Magazine – historian Sam Willis argues that Trafalgar was not defined by the strength of the British navy, but instead by the death of its greatest naval hero: Horatio Nelson.
“British naval dominance wasn’t the reason that Trafalgar became famous,” writes Willis. “The events of October 1805 were celebrated both for the sheer scale of the battle and for the fact that it was all wrapped up in the story of the death of Britain’s greatest naval hero. Nelson’s funeral was a national show, only comparable to that of Princess Diana in 1997.”
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What happened at the battle of Trafalgar?
The events of Trafalgar are well known, with the British victory remaining a landmark in naval history more than 200 years later. It took place in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars (c1801–1815), a series of conflicts between France and other European powers.
In May 1805, Britain’s nemesis – the French emperor Napoleon – had recently been crowned king of Italy in Milan. He was determined to dominate Europe, but faced opposition from the Third Coalition (Britain, Russia and the Holy Roman Empire).
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On 21 October 1805, 33 of Napoleon’s ships faced off against 27 British vessels to the west of Cape Trafalgar, Spain. It was a resounding victory for the British Royal Navy, who – under the command of national hero Admiral Lord Nelson until his death part way through the battle – annihilated Napoleon’s combined Franco-Spanish fleet and halted his plans to conquer Europe.
“One of the greatest naval clashes in history”
The numbers involved at the battle of Trafalgar were remarkable, with the total firepower of both armies amounting to more than 13 times those fought with at Waterloo, fought ten years later.
“The British fleet had 2,148 guns; the French and Spanish 2,632. Nelson’s Victory had 821 people on board; the British fleet approximately 17,000 and the French and Spanish 30,000,” explains Willis. “This is why Trafalgar rightly stands as one of the greatest naval clashes in history.”
But, the historian argues, the decisive British victory had less of an impact than might be expected.
“Don’t get me wrong, Trafalgar was a significant victory,” he writes. “It strengthened considerably Britain’s hand in the Napoleonic Wars. Perhaps the biggest dividend of Nelson’s triumph was the removal of Spain as a naval power.”
The situation on land, however, “went from bad to worse” in the immediate aftermath of the battle. And just a few weeks later, Napoleon won “the greatest of all his military victories” at the battle of Austerlitz.
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And did Britain really ‘Rule the Waves’ following its success at Trafalgar?
“Not really,” suggests Willis. “The entire French Brest fleet took no part at all in the battle, and there was another unscathed squadron in Rochefort.
“In fact, if you’re searching for the British action that inflicted the greatest damage on Napoleon’s navy, you may have to look beyond not just Trafalgar but fleet battles altogether, and consider other types of naval operations.”
Sam Willis is a historian, archaeologist and broadcaster who has presented TV series for the BBC and National Geographic. You can read his full argument in the August issue of BBC History Magazine – now on sale or available online for magazine subscribers.
Rachel Dinning is Digital Editorial Assistant at HistoryExtra.com.
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