Vulgar History Podcast
Regency Era It Girl Emma Hamilton (part one)
April 8, 2026
Ann: Welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast. My name is Ann Foster, and we are in our Regency Era! We’re talking about stuff that happened mostly in England and surrounding areas in the early 1800s, the Regency era being… We’re using a broader term for it, but it’s kind of like, the late 1700s to the early 1800s; it’s like, pre-Queen Victoria; it’s that time period where Jane Austen was writing her books; it’s ostensibly when Bridgerton takes place. We will have some Bridgerton crossover in this episode, in the sense of Queen Charlotte will be here.
Today, we’re talking about Emma Hamilton, who was… I’m going to introduce my guest, Amanda Matta. Welcome.
Amanda: Thank you.
Ann: You’ve been a guest on… I don’t even know how many times, on this podcast. I noticed you’re wearing Vulgar History merch, and I appreciate it.
Amanda: Yes, I am. My favourite merch T-shirt. I think this is my third or fourth time, so I’m getting close to earning a jacket, I think.
Ann: I know. Exactly, exactly. So, I love having you on, obviously, just because I love to have a chat with you, and I love to have you on for, like, episodes that have artistic things because you have this art history background. Although I will say for people who don’t know Amanda Matta, you’re a royal commentator, soon-to-be-published author, you talk about the current British royal family, and I think there’s also some… We’re going to get into some comparisons of this story.
Amanda: Oh boy.
Ann: We will. Anyway, you’re bringing everything to the table for this story.
Amanda: There’s layers.
Ann: I was trying to describe Emma Hamilton, and I’m like, how do you even? I will say that she is a well-known figure from British history; she was extremely famous in her time. She was kind of the original it girl.
Amanda: How many times can we discuss the original it girl for different eras on this show? I think every era has an it girl, and we just get to discuss them.
Ann: That’s what I like to bring you on for. You did the episode with me about Madame du Barry, and she’s giving me a bit Madame du Barry. There’s a bit of sort of like, a rags to riches.
Amanda: A bit! Yep.
Ann: Really pretty person ends up getting some opportunities that maybe a less pretty person might not have.
Amanda: Pretty privilege.
Ann: She’s not equipped to know what to do with it. Anyway, what a person!
But first, so Emma Hamilton, like, she’s so pretty, and there’s lots of evidence of this. I believe she is the person, at least in her life, and I think still, who has the most portraits painted of her during her life. I don’t think anyone is coming for that record.
Amanda: No, I don’t think so. I think it’s, like, she has more images of her than, like, Queen Victoria, who famously was the queen when photography became a thing. So, if you can’t beat Emma Hamilton as Queen Victoria, I don’t know who could come for her record. She might have been the most depicted woman until Princess Diana. Who knows?
Ann: Yeah. I think well, and even Queen Victoria had other stuff she was doing. Emma Hamilton was never not posing for portraits, like, she was constantly posing. Actually, it’s funny, you’re wearing the Mazarinettes T-shirt, Vulgar History art – get your own, VulgarHistory.com/Store – but that’s from Hortense Mancini and her sisters, who were kind of the…
Amanda: It girls!
Ann: They were the it girls of that era, and it’s a similar thing where we’re going to get to this, listeners, but just so you know, like Emma Hamilton, there’s so many portraits painted of her because the public wanted them; everyone had a print of her. Like, she was… I don’t know, growing up, for me in the ‘90s, you’d cut out pictures from your Teen Magazine, your whatever, you know, you’d have pictures of Cindy Crawford and, like, whoever, Amber Valletta. You would just be like, “Wow, this is the most beautiful woman. Let’s just have a picture of her.” Who would— Have you been thinking about this? Who would you describe Emma Hamilton is looking like in terms of modern celebrities?
Amanda: Of course. So, I don’t know so much about, like… Because it’s so hard to tell with portraits who she looks like, but I was thinking about who could play her in a movie now, because we mentioned offline, we have to watch now the Vivien Leigh movie. Vivien Leigh famously got cast as many women described very differently to I think how she actually appeared. But Emma Hamilton, I was thinking for a biopic today, I would cast someone like Aimee Lou Wood from White Lotus or a Mia Goth. Somebody… It’s less about the looks to me, but more about being able to slip into different personas, which we will also discuss and, like, have that “natural beauty” but with an edge.
Ann: And I think also with some sort of like, interesting, quirky thing. This is where she stood out from other people. I think Mia Goth and Aimee Lou are both great because they could both be they’re like, “Oh my gosh, you’re such a great, smart hero,” like, they could really do that breathy thing that I think really endeared Emma Hamilton to a lot of people. She could just be like, “Oh, wow, you’re so great!” She could turn that on really well.
Amanda: Specifically, men. Specifically for men, yep.
Ann: Entirely. The person who… Thank you for those two suggestions, because I just kept thinking when I saw pictures of her, and this is partially because of her aura and how she was sexualized from a very young age, I was just like, “Oh, she’s a young Brooke Shields.” In the portraits, she looks so much like a young Brooke Shields.
Amanda: Oooh, I see it.
Ann: And part of it is the story; her story is kind of similar to young Brooke Shields. I was like, googling, I’m like, “Who looks like Brooke Shields now?” Because I was like, I need to say an actor that people know. [laughs]
Amanda: Relevant tie-in for SEO purposes. [laughs]
Ann: Addison Rae came up.
Amanda: Yeah! Okay. Or… Oh, there’s one now that I’m thinking, hang on. There’s another… Emma Chamberlain is another modern influencer who I think has the same kind, like, the eyes suck you in.
Ann: Yeah. Well, I think part of it, Emma Hamilton, if you want to know what she looked like, just google Emma Hamilton, there are one gazillion paintings of her. For a person from where she’s from, like the late 1700s, early 1800s, she looks really contemporary, and I was trying to think about what that is. Part of it is she was always painted with her hair— This is the era of, like, just getting out of the Marie Antoinette sort of era; she’s not wearing white powder in an updo, she’s not wearing that really obvious rouge. She looks really, like, “natural.” She just has brown hair, it’s down, her face is like, you know, no makeup, makeup. So, she looks more contemporary just because of how she’s styled.
Amanda: That was like part of the appeal, too, to again, portray the “natural beauty” and think about Marie Antoinette tried to do it, and it got spun into “She’s wearing fuck dresses.” But here the story gets flipped almost, where – obviously, we’ll get into her background and her biography – but Emma Hamilton, like the natural beautiness is baked in from the start of when the public gets to know her. So, it takes a bit of a different trajectory for her.
Ann: Exactly. She’s not going from like one era to another; not going from like, being done up to like, “No, I’m natural.” It’s like, this is how she’s always been portrayed, and it’s sort of like, I love how many people are going to talk about who I’ve talked about on the podcast before, like Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun is just like, “I have to paint her!” and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun loved a natural beauty; she loved someone raped in Grecian robes. This is what Emma is doing. And if you think about, like, the Marie Antoinette of it all, like, the stark contrast of just someone who’s just kind of wearing, like, a sheer Grecian wrap and her hair is down compared to that. Like, it’s really a shift. Emma was right there, kind of leading the way, making this trend.
Amanda: Yeah, definitely. There will be some reinvention of her throughout her story, which is so fascinating. But she is primarily known to the audience, like, yeah, for her beauty and her naturalness. So, I’m excited to explore where that connects to other people in the Vulgar History canon today.
Ann: This is, you know, we’re still in the Regency Era; there’s several more episodes left, but we’re well into it, heading towards the finale of it, and I feel like Emma Hamilton, I didn’t do this on purpose, I didn’t know how many people she was going to intersect with, but I’m like…
Amanda: [laughs] She ties everyone together.
Ann: She does! If this was a finale, it would make sense because she’s, like, wrapping everybody up. I’m just like, everyone is in this story! She was out and about in the world.
So, I will just say— Wait, no. First, you explain what was your source for this, because we have accidentally, but serendipitously, come in with different information.
Amanda: Yeah. Ann reads the biographies; I look at museum websites, typically. English Heritage was a good one for Emma because they have a lot of the paintings on display that she posed for. Mostly internet sources for me, just based on where I’m at in my professional life. I did not have time to sit down and read a book, to be so honest with you, Ann. [laughs]
Ann: No, but it’s good. I think that aspect is really important, and I think you’re going to get probably some more up-to-date information. What I read is the book England’s Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton, by Kate Williams. This is a biography from 2006, so I’m sure between then and now, a lot more portraits have been discovered, jewelry and things. This is by Kate Williams, who is an iconic British historian. She’s out there, she’s on social media. She’s got a new book coming out, actually, called Regina, that I think she might be coming on this podcast to talk about.
Amanda: Yes! I saw that.
Ann: It’s about all different queens from around the world. Anyway, Kate Williams. Shout out to Kate Williams. 2006 is… I feel like that’s an era…
Amanda: Isn’t that when the Sofia Coppola Marie Antoinette movie came out?
Ann: I think it’s around then. And I think this is kind of like that, it was a wave of kind of feminist biographies. This is around when the Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, book came out as well. So, it’s kind of like, let’s look at these women who are kind of been dismissed as like, well, she was just kind of whatever. But like, “No, who was she? Let’s look at her letters. Let’s look at her diaries.” So, like, taking these women seriously for the first time.
Amanda: Yes, I would say so. It’s the first time they get detached from, like, say, you have a biography from the ‘80s, Josephine and Napoleon. And then, you know, 10 years later, you might have gotten just Josephine for the first time. That kind of thing. It’s the first time I would say women were being considered on their own, and then that gives way to the later era that I would say we’re kind of still in, of, let me look again at this woman and take out some of the spin that we’ve just accepted as fact. And so, yeah, a pivotal time.
Ann: So, I think that’s where it’s good. I’ve got this 2006 biography; you’ve got some more up-to-date stuff. And honestly, listeners, buckle up. I was telling Amanda before we started recording, like, this is a nonstop life.
Amanda: Yeah, it’s a ride.
Ann: In almost— Even in Georgiana, or Madame du Barry, there’s a part where it’s like, “And then she got married, and then for the next 10 years, we don’t really know what she did, and then this.” But for Emma, it’s like, there’s not a period of 10 years, ever, where it’s just like, “And everything was fine.” Everything was nonstop for this person, starting from when she was born.
How much do you know about her parents and her family? Like, how can we set up her backstory?
Amanda: I know a little bit. So, she was born 1765, her dad was a blacksmith who died when she was a full baby, two months old. So, that’s never, never really a great start for a woman in history, if you’re just being raised by a single mother. Her mother, Mary Kidd and her grandmother, Sarah Kidd – who is in most of this story, the grandmother, which is great to see – they are raising her. But Emma receives, like, basically no formal education when she was young.
Ann: And this is like, you won’t have heard this yet because the episode is coming out before we’re recording this, but the last episode I did was about a woman called Mary Bateman, who was kind of a con artist/witch, and Emma’s beginnings are really similar to that, where it’s just kind of, like, you’re a girl, you’re poor. And even Mary Bateman had two parents; Emma Hamilton’s got her mom and her grandma. And Kate Williams sort of, she didn’t really get to the bottom of it, but it seems like something— The dad might have been murdered by the mother or something.
Amanda: Oh!
Ann: Like, for some reason, the dad died in kind of suspicious circumstances, and the mother just, like, fled town, and then for the rest of their life, they’re like, “Don’t talk about him. Don’t tell anyone about him.”
Amanda: Got it, got it, got it! [laughs] Yeah, because I was wondering… I was wondering, like, why, because the mother kind of zigzags in and out of her life throughout her story and the grandmother too. Like, the mom leaves to go to London 1777, so Emma would have been 12 years old, and she’s left with her grandma. They have to struggle to make ends meet, and that kind of propels Emma to get a job at, like, age 12 or 13. So, I was curious. But I’m glad there’s an answer, or a possible answer.
Ann: It seemed like they fled the town where they were, and then later, later, later in their life, like the mother’s siblings, Emma’s uncle, is blackmailing Emma, like, “I will tell the truth about your father if you don’t give me money.” So, something went on with the father.
Amanda: Yikes. And it’s murky, as most things are with women in history. Is that what I…? Okay. Cool. Great.
Ann: And Emma herself, we know stuff about her early life, partially from what she told people, and partially from what people like Kate Williams have pieced together, because Emma, even before age, like, 17, she goes through various sort of lives and some of it she couldn’t keep hidden, and some of it she did want to keep hidden. So, this early part, yeah, she’s young, but also it’s not uncommon for a 12-year-old to be put into a life of service. Like, that’s what happens when you’re poor, and you’re a girl. So, she becomes a housemaid, and she hates it. She is bad at it. But she does make a friend whose name I forget, it’s like, Sarah something. Wait. She makes a friend who’s a housemaid at the same time, who also hates it. I have it down here because later on…
Amanda: Iconic.
Ann: They have this… She gets her friend to kind of… Jane Powell is the name of her friend. They were both maids, they both hated it, and Jane Powell was like, “I want to be an actress. I want to be on the stage,” and she manifests that, and she becomes like the second most famous actress in England eventually, and Emma is like, “Yeah! I want that, too! I want to be famous, too.” So, they’re both just kind of these 12-year-old girls who are just like, “We’re better than this. We don’t want to do this. Fuck this.”
Amanda: That could be like a great YA novel, like a coming-of-age novel. I would read that. Yeah, Emma and Jane. Love it.
Ann: I was thinking about that, too, especially because they intersect again later as adults when they’ve both made successes of themselves. I was like, this would be a good, like, limited series where you watch their two lives and they come back together.
So, she’s a maid, she hates it. A couple of details that I got from the Kate Williams book, just about being a maid. This connects back to last week’s episode with Mary Bateman, who was also a maid, and Mary Bateman was fired for stealing. Emma was fired for just being bad at it. But families would hire young girls because you didn’t have to pay them, because that was how things worked. So, you would just “pay them” with, like, room and board. You just kind of get these young girls to work for you, and you knew that you’re going to cycle through; they’re going to leave because they’re going to either get married or pregnant, or they’re going to run off into sex work or something. And so, the fact that these two girls were there for a brief time is not that strange. But both of them, I love this kind of Hollywood dream. [laughs] They’re just like, “We’re destined for greater things,” and both of them were.
How much do you know about what happened to Emma after she left?
Amanda: Well, so I know she worked for a time in the house of a composer named Thomas Linley, again, around when she was, like, 13. And then from there, she also moves to London, kind of following in her mother’s footsteps, where Thomas Linley, her former boss, when she was a maid and hated it, he had bought shares in the Royal Theatre in Drury Lane. So, she kind of gets her first foot in the door with the theatre through that connection is what I found. The English Heritage website says that she “may have served as a go-between for Mrs. Linley, conveying messages to and from the actresses at the theatre.” Then she started working as a maid for actresses, which, again, you’re so close to the spotlight. I just… The signs were all there.
Ann: This is giving me, like, All About Eve vibes, you know? It’s just like this ambitious girl who’s watching, she’s like, “I will do this one day.” But the actress who she becomes the maid to is Mary Robinson, who was in the production of The Winter’s Tale, playing the character of Perdita. And it was so iconic that people just started calling her Perdita for the rest of her life. That’s just who she is. She was the mistress of the future George IV, AKA Prinny. So, Prinny is in this story much more than I would have preferred.
Amanda: Yeah, I noticed that.
Ann: He’s all over this story. But first, I’m like, oh, Mary Robinson was, like, a really cool person, actually. Yes, she was his mistress, and then she later became a writer, and she did lots of cool stuff. This is a cool person. And so, this is Emma seeing a woman with a similar background to he who becomes a mistress of the Prince of Wales. She’s seeing “Okay, this is a way that one can ascend.” Because Emma Hamilton, like, she wants to be a star, she wants to be famous, she wants to be an actress. And part of that is she wants to just, like, be in the echelon, she wants to be in upper society; she wants to be in that world. And she sees through Mary Robinson a way you can do that.
Amanda: A way to do it. Yeah, definitely. And the theatre scene at this time, it would have been very I’m thinking of like Moulin Rouge, even though that’s a little later, like very Bohemian, a little bit more of the demimonde, that murky underworld kind of vibe than the beaumonde, the upper echelon of society, like, would have kept up appearances in public. So, I did see a notice, I’m curious if you have any other information on it, but English Heritage says that she “abruptly left her employment with the theatre because she was possibly pregnant,” and she would have been around 15, 16 at this time.
Ann: That did not come up in the biography.
Amanda: So, they just said that, [laughs] as with so many things.
Ann: She abruptly left, and what Kate Williams hypothesizes based on what’s going on is it just seems like a general cost-cutting measure, like the theatre just didn’t have money to have a maid for every actress anymore, sort of thing.
Amanda: [chuckles] Yeah, fair enough.
Ann: She certainly does become pregnant later, and we know about it, and it affects her greatly. So, I don’t know.
Amanda: Yeah. Sometimes you’ll just see something like that. They slip in “Possibly because she was pregnant.” It’s just like, well, no, no, no. Go back. Who told you that? Why do they think that? I want to know more. Curious. Very curious.
Ann: But yeah, she left. Anyway, don’t know about that.
But she did leave, and then the timing of this is interesting to me. So, it’s like, December when she’s fired, which is like… When you’re a poor person in London in 1700s…
Amanda: It’s like, the worst time.
Ann: Yeah. It’s cold, things are not great. And so, she turns to sex work. She’s what at this point? 13 or something?
Amanda: I think she’s 16.
Ann: Oh, she’s 16. Yeah. So, she’s still very, very, very young. She turns to sex work, which is sort of like, Kate Williams talks about this, and also, if you read Hallie Rubenhold’s book, The Covent Garden Ladies, it talks about that. Anyway, she’s not in a house. You know, at this point, she’s just kind of like, taverns would kind of have their go-to sex workers, and so it’s probably something like that. But by January, she’s so beautiful, she does this for one whole month before she is snapped up because she’s so beautiful. Is this where she joins “The Nunnery,” Mrs. Kelly’s house?
Amanda: Yes. So, Mrs. Kelly, she was described as “a procurer and the abbess of a brothel.” She’s kind of in between a couple different forms of sex work; she might have also spent time as a courtesan, where you’re specifically linked to a patron. But she definitely lives with Mrs. Kelly at her establishment for a time while she’s 16.
Ann: And it sounds like she’s… I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot of blurry areas, but it seems like she would sort of sing and dance for the men before the men went upstairs with one of the courtesans. So, she’s kind of like a junior sex worker, sort of like… Like, a greeter in a restaurant.
Amanda: Like, a multi-level marketing scheme, you work your way up the pyramid. Yeah, I don’t know. It is murky, and she later references it in a letter to George Romney. She says to him:
You have seen and discoursed with me in my poor days. You have known me in my poverty and prosperity. Oh, my dear friend, for a time I own through distress, my virtue was vanquished, but my sense of virtue was not overcome.
So, I think definitely, like, she was a sex worker, full stop. But she claims, you know, “No, I always had this sense… I was destined, again, for greater things. My sense of virtue was not vanquished, even though my actual “virtue” was.”
Ann: So, at some point in here, she gets a job for – we have to talk about this – the Temple of Health.
Amanda: That’s not the full title, Ann. The full title is the Temple of Health and Hymen, which, this is an establishment, loosely, I’m calling an establishment, run by a Scottish quack doctor. His name is James Graham, basically, he’s a self-proclaimed doctor. He has this establishment, which is not a brothel, but he advertises it as, like, a place where you can come encounter the goddess of health. He’s placing advertisements in papers, like, showing scantily.
Ann: Electricity is a big part of it.
Amanda: Yeah, that’s part of it. There’s a novelty aspect. He’s advertising skimpily-dressed female attendants who assist in things like “The display of the celestial meteors and the sacred fire over which she watches, and whose application and the cure of diseases she daily has the honour of directing.” Also, he gives lectures on sex and fertility, and charges couples £50 to spend a night in the Great Celestial State Bed.
Ann: The bed which would guarantee conception.
Amanda: Perfect babies would be created on this bed.
Ann: Because of electricity. Electricity was involved in the bed.
Amanda: Did you ever play, like, The Sims 2, Sims 3? And there was a vibrate— There was a furniture item, there was a vibrating bed with a headboard shaped like a heart, and that’s what I’m reminded of.
Ann: A vibrating bed. This is really giving me, yeah, sort of like a motel, you know?
Amanda: A love motel, yeah.
Ann: It literally had, like, mirrors on the top of the canopy. But people would come here to have sex in this bed because, you know, fertility; there were lots of people having fertility issues, and he would guarantee conception. So, you’d get on this bed, this electric bed, and the goddesses would be like dancing around you, and Emma was hired as one of these goddesses. They’re wearing sort of like, Greek dresses, so this is, like, foundational in what she ends— The art form that she ends up creating and the modelling that she does owes a lot to this, I think. And so, they would kind of dance around the bed, and they’re like…
Amanda: I’m imagining there’s incense to cover up some funky smells, like it’s probably very smoky in there. [laughs] I don’t know.
Ann: So, she was one of the goddesses. I think this was before Mrs. Kelly’s. I think she was like a street walking sex worker, and then she was scooped up by the Health and Hymen, and then she went to Mrs. Kelly’s, I think, because leaving Mrs. Kelly’s is a whole thing. So, she is a teenage goddess. And then people… Like, Prinny goes there to have sex with his mistress.
Amanda: Of course, he does. Of course, he does.
Ann: Everyone is going there. So, this is like, she’s recognizable. For the rest of her life, like people know— Oh, and her name actually, we should say, was Amy Lyon. That was her name.
Amanda: Oh, yeah! We didn’t mention that. She was born Amy Lyon. Her mom was Mary Kidd, her dad was Henry Lyon. So, she’s not even called Emma Hamilton yet; that’s just the name she’s most well known by.
Ann: I believe she changed her name to Emily when she goes to London. So, then she’s Emily Lyon, so people remember her as Miss Lyon because these goddesses were, like, quasi-famous. If you went there, you’d see them, and she was so pretty, like you would remember her.
Amanda: Like in Friends, there’s the girl that works at the copy store that all the guys know, and Ross eventually hooks up with while he and Rachel are on a break. That’s kind of the vibe I’m getting.
Ann: Yeah, the goddesses are there. Like, she was scouted from literally the street because they wanted for this House of Health and Hymen, they wanted healthy-looking, really pretty girls, and that’s her. If you look at her portraits, she’s always very, you know, rosy-cheeked.
Amanda: Rosy, yeah.
Ann: She’s not gaunt. She’s also tall; she’s described as being tall and leggy, like a young Brooke Shields.
So, she’s working at the House of Health and Hymen, kind of making a go of it. And then, I think she gets scooped up from there, to Mrs. Kelly’s.
Amanda: Okay, okay.
Ann: And then she’s at Mrs. Kelly’s, and the way that you get kind of out of… If you watch the show, Harlots.
Amanda: Great show.
Ann: If you read the book Slashed Beauties, which I interviewed the author about, you know that the women and girls who work at a place like this, they’re in debt. Like, every dress they have, every meal they have is being put down on a tab. It’s so hard to leave there because the people, they own you, really. The only way you can leave a place like this is if one of the men really likes you, and they, like, pay off your debt, and buy you out. That’s kind of what she wants to do.
Amanda: Also, the plot of Barbie Princess and the Pauper, now that I’m kind of thinking about it.
Ann: Is it?
Amanda: A little bit. [laughs]
Ann: It’s a little bit the plot of Pretty Woman as well.
Amanda: Yeah, a little bit.
Ann: So, a Richard Gere type does show up, and he’s not going to buy her out of it, but he’s like, “Can I rent her for the summer for my summer-long bachelor party?”
Amanda: Crazy.
Ann: “That is going to be the month?” And so, she is chosen for this, I think, again, just because she is so pretty. But through all of the sequence of events, from being in the theatre and then the House of Health and Hymen, she’s such a young person.
Amanda: 16, yep.
Ann: But she learns how to appeal to men by being interested in them, and being a good conversationalist, and being willing to talk about anything. Her people skills are so good, she can talk to anybody, and she’s genuinely interested. Like, she figures out how to stand out in a place where everybody’s beautiful.
Amanda: Yeah. And when she’s rented by this guy whose name might be a contender for the most British name I’ve ever heard, Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, multiple syllables.
Ann: Got a lot of GHs in this name.
Amanda: Yeah. So, while she’s there, she’s not just there because she’s a pretty face and knows how to dance, although she does dance nude on his dining room table.
Ann: Every day.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s also, like, the hostess; she’s like, the emcee in a way. You know, country houses would typically have a lady of the house running everything. That’s kind of the role she also steps into, which would be a full-time undertaking, to make sure you’re pretty and, like, your form is good while you’re dancing, but also you’re talking to everybody, but also you’re overseeing and making sure everyone at the party is having a good time. And she’s 16! She’s a child!
Ann: She’s 16, and she came up from, like, the streets. So, she’s such a quick learner in everything. She clearly takes to this task. Although I do want to say, this whole situation of her being there for this summer-long bachelor party and she’s 16, I’m just like, it’s giving Epstein Island to me.
Amanda: Ooh, a little bit, yeah. Or again, Pretty Woman.
Ann: Yeah. Just, she’s so young.
Amanda: I hope there were other girls or women there. Like, I hope she wasn’t the only one.
Ann: I think she was. This is why she was so bored, because, like, the bros would all go out every day, fox hunting.
Amanda: Yeah, hunting and drinking.
Ann: Leaving her behind. And so, she was kind of like… She wasn’t like the household staff; she couldn’t really hang out with the servants, that wasn’t really her level. And so, the one guy who’s at this party who kind of isn’t into hunting is… Charles Greville. So, they just start hanging out with each other, the Honourable Charles Francis Greville.
Amanda: He’s like our Benedict Bridgerton kind of guy. He’s a second son of an Earl, so he’s in this upper echelon of society, but also doesn’t really have anything to do. His brother is the second Earl. So, Charles becomes, like, an MP, but I don’t think he has a lot to do in that job.
Ann: And he’s kind of like Benedict Bridgerton; he’s not into kind of the trappings of society. He’s at this summer-long bachelor party, and everyone goes out hunting every day, and he’s like, “That’s not for me. I’d rather sit around here and talk about books.” And Emma’s like, “Okay! I can talk to anyone about anything.” So, he falls for her because she’s got these amazing people skills, she’s so pretty. And then, by the end of the summer, she leaves with him and becomes his mistress.
Amanda: Yeah. So, he takes her to a small house on Edgware Row, which is in Paddington Green, London. At this time, it’s like a little village right outside of London.
Ann: It’s not part of London.
Amanda: Yeah. But today, today it very much is. So, we kind of glossed over the fact that she was…
Ann: We just glossed over the fact that she was pregnant.
Amanda: [laughs] She was pregnant.
Ann: She becomes pregnant by Fetherstonhaugh.
Amanda: Fether… Wait, Fetherstonhaugh. I don’t really know.
Ann: Fetherston…
Amanda: Someone British is going to be like “It’s Fetherton,” somehow, even though there’s four extra syllables. [laughs]
Ann: Yeah. “Fitton.” So, she does become, she is 16 and pregnant. She becomes pregnant by this guy, and he’s just, like, not into it.
Amanda: “Not my problem!”
Ann: “Sorry. Bye.” And she’s just kind of like, “Oh my God, what do I do?” You know, there’s not lots of options. One of the options is an abortion, which she chooses not to; she wants to have this child. So, she writes to Charles Greville, who kind of fell in love with her over the summer, and she’s like, “Oh my God, what am I going to do?” He’s like, “Come be with me. Be my mistress on the condition that you send this child to foster care and never have anything to do with her.”
Amanda: Which, like, she agrees to. What else can you do?
Ann: She has a daughter, she calls her daughter Emma.
Amanda: Named after herself.
Ann: Listeners know after herself. I love a daughter named after mother moment. So, this little girl, Emma, goes off to be raised by, I forget what family. But anyway, an okay family.
Amanda: I believe it was her great-grandmother, so maybe Emma Hamilton’s grandmother comes back into the picture here. I think that’s what it is.
Ann: There’s a lot of family members, but not Fetherstonhaugh; he never has anything to do with any of this. But Charles Greville pays for the care of little Emma, like he sends an allowance or whatever. So, he will pay for her, but he doesn’t want her to be with them.
Amanda: Yeah. And it seems like Emma was allowed to see her daughter sometimes. But like, there were spells where I think people around both of them decided, like, “No, you’re not going to have anything to do with your mom, or your baby.” And they eventually kind of get established in different places.
Ann: Yeah. Well, and this is Charles Greville. So, his whole thing is he loves her, and part of what he loves is that she’s young and he wants to, like, mould her to be this kind of perfect little wifey.
Amanda: Shades of… Oh gosh, the Emma Stone movie, Poor Things. Did you see that one?
Ann: Yes, very much that.
Amanda: Kind of shades of that, yeah.
Ann: So, he wants to make her into this kind of, like, perfect— So, they’re living in Paddington, which is not in London, and this is intentional because in London, all of Charles Greville’s friends know her as the Goddess of the Hearth and Hymen.
Amanda: As Amy Lyon.
Ann: So, this is where I think she becomes Emma, and he’s like, “Don’t have anything to do with your mother, don’t have anything to do with your daughter. No one can know who you were before. I’m just going to say, ‘This is my mistress. She’s a very shy person from Paddington. Her name is Emma, and you’re never going to meet her.’” And she’s like, “Okay!”
Amanda: “That’s fine.”
Ann: And he gets her singing lessons, like, music lessons, Italian, French. He’s training her.
Amanda: It’s like My Fair Lady.
Ann: It’s exactly like My Fair Lady. He wants her to become not who she is, but she’s such a fast learner, and she’s keen, and she becomes fluent in Italian and French. She has a beautiful singing voice, she learns dancing. The skills that he foists upon her, she throws herself into it, into learning these things.
Amanda: She learns how to enunciate more elegantly. He tells her she should never show ingratitude or caprice. He dresses her in modest outfits and subdued colours, and like you said, kind of keeps her away from the society scene. Again, it’s like a more restrictive version of My Fair Lady. But he also invites her mother to come live with them as a housekeeper and a chaperone, which I think is interesting.
Ann: But also like, “But pretend it’s not your mother.”
Amanda: Right.
Ann: “Your mother could be the housekeeper, but don’t let anyone know that that’s your mother.”
Amanda: [laughs] Yeah. So, after a while of this, she knows how to enunciate and speak Italian or whatever, so he starts to invite, like, friends to meet her and kind of lets her… Not lets her, but she slips back into that role of hostess for parties that Greville is throwing for his friends.
Ann: And one of his friends is artist George Romney, to whom Emma becomes a lifelong muse. Because she’s so beautiful, but as we know from America’s Next Top Model, it takes more than just being beautiful to be a good model. And what she has that other models don’t, I think, because of where she came from… Like, if you’re painting a portrait of a society Missus, Georgiana or somebody, they’re going to stand, they’re going to pose, they’re going to be very composed. But Emma, she was in the theatre for a while, she was the goddess of Hearth and Hymen; she can pose, and she gets, like, emotional. She can act.
Amanda: She’s mouldable almost.
Ann: She can really… She’s the Coco Rocha, she’s the Zendaya of modelling of this time, and everyone’s just like, “Oh my gosh!” She can pose and move and, like, emote in a way that other people just don’t think to do, and this makes her such an incredible person to paint.
Amanda: Yeah, because you mentioned Georgiana, somebody like that who is the subject of a portrait, they would not need to pose and move around unless they were being painted as, like, goddess Athena or whatever, and that’s a specific type of painting. But then you also have this… So, you have sitters, subjects of portraits, and then you have models and muses, who the pictures that they are in are less about… Like you wouldn’t call it a portrait of Emma Hamilton, you would call it Circe, and like, the woman in the costume as Circe is Emma Hamilton. We know that no, but the point of the artwork wasn’t who the woman was.
Ann: Yeah. And so, these portraits of her, it’s a lot of and, like, tying to the Goddess of Hearth and Hymen of it all, it’s a lot of her is like various every ancient Greek woman. It’s like, here she is as Clytemnestra, here she is as Medea, and just all these classical figures. George Romney becomes, I will say…
Amanda: Obsessed.
Ann: Yeah, like, literally obsessed with painting her. This is part of why there’s more portraits of her than anybody else, because he’s painting, I don’t even know, 30 portraits of her a month. He’s just like, “Oh my gosh.” One of the reasons why this is happening is Charles Greville was like, “Oh, well, what if you paint her and then we can make money?” Like, because she’ll be paid to be the model, but he didn’t realize that these are going to be paintings of, like you said, it’s not a painting of Emma Hamilton as so and so. She’s going by the name Emma Hart at this point, by the way. But because there’s so many of these paintings, and because they’re so interesting, because the poses she’s doing, sometimes she looks right at the viewer, which is unusual, or you know, like a sexy pose or something, it’s just like “Whoa!” She becomes famous in a way that I don’t think anyone expected. She becomes famous because she’s in so many paintings, and they’re all such interesting paintings, and she’s so beautiful. So, suddenly, she’s a famous person because of being a model.
Amanda: Like how models, you know, in the ‘90s became elevated to supermodel. I don’t know what the classification actually is, but I think of, like, a supermodel is somebody who has an identity and a model is somebody who has to go to casting and seek out opportunities for herself.
Ann: Yeah, exactly. This is something where it’s like “We want Cindy Crawford for our campaign.” Not just like, “We want somebody to wear these clothes.” And this is where we were saying, like, the original it girl, no one… This is in the wake of, like, Marie Antoinette is in France, still being the queen, none of the shit has gone down there yet.
Amanda: Yeah, this is like, 1780-ish.
Ann: So, Marie Antoinette has been, like, fashion plate; people are obsessed with her outfits, but there hasn’t been a figure like that really in England. Georgiana is kind of that. So, this is the first time that somebody can become a celebrity in this way. Well, I mean, the British royal family at this point is Queen Charlotte, and she’s not…
Amanda: Well, and like Romney is sketching her both clothed and nude, and keeping her likeness to put into other contexts, and you couldn’t do that with a wife in society or a royal, like, that would cause a scandal for them. Like, there’s that painting of Queen Victoria, which was actually the first episode I did of my podcast, Art of History, where, like, her hair is down, and her lips are parted, and that’s enough for people to identify this as a private image just for her husband. There’s different standards. Very sexy, and it’s just a bust of her, like, she’s in a nightgown with her hair down. [laughs]
Ann: No. And so, Emma is just like, every portrait, he’s wearing these kind of diaphanous dresses and/or nude, you know, sprawled on a leopard print rug or whatever.
Amanda: Sensual.
Ann: So, she becomes a celebrity. This is an era, too, where actresses were for the first time becoming sort of celebrities as well. So, she’s just emerging and just the amount of images of her and people are making prints of them, everyone’s house has, like, a picture— Which is so interesting, because you were saying, like, the purpose of these paintings historically had just been like, “Oh, I’m showing the story of whatever,” and it’s supposed to be a painting about like, “Oh, that’s the story of…” whatever. But now it’s like, “That’s Emma as her. That’s Emma.”
Amanda: Yeah, it becomes a little circular.
Ann: Yeah, so this, like, George Romney, Emma Hart relationship, it ascends both of them. He becomes a really famous, she becomes incredibly famous, and Charles Greville does not love this for his little project.
Amanda: He doesn’t like it, no. And I will note, like I noted in my in my research, Greville’s plan, I think, was more akin to just a high-class version of pimping out a young woman. She would have been 17, 18 years old, and he was planning to take a cut of sales of every portrait she appeared in. But what this turned into, like you said, it propelled her into celebrity. It also helped her to connect with other artists, sculptors, writers and wealthy patrons of the arts. So, like, I think she started hanging out with Romney, and he would host gatherings or invite people over to his artistic studio. He lived on Cavendish Square, so more close to the nucleus of London society, so people would come to his studio for a chance of meeting Emma, but also like, Emma got to meet those people. So, it boosted her in that way too; her network was growing.
Ann: Somebody who came by there was Prinny, the Prince of Wales, you know it. If something’s going on, he’s going to be there in this era because that’s what he’s up to.
Amanda: “A new pretty muse in society? I must meet her.”
Ann: He owned a couple of the Emma portraits. People loved to get these Emma portraits. And eventually, Charles Greville gets tired of her, and he handles it in such a bad way.
Amanda: I think it’s a case of… Yeah, I think there’s two things going on here. Number one, he needs a rich wife because he has blown through all of his finances. But also, that classic thing where the woman that you thought originally you were taking under your wing, and now she’s eclipsing you in society. I think that might be going on here, or that’s just my personal bias. I don’t know.
Ann: No, it’s absolutely that. It’s that thing you see in some Hollywood relationships when the woman becomes more famous than the man. Also, I think part of it might be a bit, like, he took in Emma— And she did everything he asked; she dressed modestly, and she took French lessons, and she learned how to sing. And eventually, I think he’s like, he liked who she was before, he didn’t actually want this little trad wife, but she became that for him. And then, he’s like, “Oh, I don’t want you anymore because you’re not interesting.” Like, I think that’s part of it as well.
Amanda: Yeah, maybe. Wow! Sexual politics.
Ann: And she’s what at this point, like 18?
Amanda: I think 18, yeah. Well, maybe a little older… She was born… 1765, it’s now 1783. Yeah, 18! So, this is the point we know Greville has his sights set on a society lady, an heiress named Henrietta Middleton, who he wants to marry. And so, Emma becomes a problem at this point. He doesn’t like all of a sudden being known as her lover; this connection is now common knowledge because she is so famous due to being Romney’s muse. Didn’t think that one through, Greville, did we? So, any prospective wife, after a while, wouldn’t accept him as a suitor if this connection kept going with Emma. So, he comes up with a crazy plan to kind of get her out of the way so he can pursue this other 18-year-old who happens to have money.
Ann: And his plan, part of it is just, like, he’s a coward, and part of it is he doesn’t like an emotional scene. So, he tells… Okay. So, he decides to send her to Naples, where his uncle lives.
Amanda: Yes. His uncle is the British envoy to Naples, so he’s, like, a diplomat. He’s also 55 years old, I think is important to note here.
Ann: And Emma’s 18. So, what Charles Greville tells his uncle is like, “Hey, I’m going to sexually traffic my teenage mistress to you to be your mistress.” But what he tells Emma is like, “Hey, can you just go for the summer to Naples to hang out with my uncle? I just have some business to do, and then you’ll come back. I’m totally not dumping you.” This is the only way that she will go because she’s devoted to him. Like, she’s a very passionate and also needy person, and she loves Greville, so she would never go to Naples— She thinks she’s just going for the summer; she doesn’t pack her winter clothes. She and her mom, like as her companion, they go to Naples, but she thinks that she’s there for a holiday. The uncle thinks that she knows that she’s there to be his mistress.
Amanda: Yes, because that’s part of Greville’s plan. Like, he tells his uncle, “She’ll make a great mistress. Look at all her positive qualities. And once I am married, I will come and get her back.” So, it’s a temporary thing. And the uncle goes along with it, not only because Emma is so charming, but because he was supporting Greville as a “poor relation.” So, he’s motivated because I assume supporting Emma is less expensive than supporting your adult nephew. [laughs] I don’t know.
Ann: All that Emma knows is, like, she’s going to Naples for the summer. Isn’t that nice? She doesn’t know she’s being dumped, she doesn’t know that she’s being set up, that this guy’s been told…
Amanda: This might have been why I thought of Amy Lou Wood, who gets dragged to Thailand in season three of White Lotus by Walton Goggins, and then hijinks ensue.
Ann: Yeah. So, she ends up going to Naples with her mom, and she’s writing letters back to Greville, being like, “You know I miss you and whatever. Your uncle keeps coming on to me, but don’t worry, I’ll never give in.” And the uncle is like, “Why isn’t she having sex with me?” [Amanda laughs] And she’s like, “Why does he keep trying to have sex with me?” Because it’s like, she wasn’t told what was going on.
Amanda: Yes, correct.
Ann: And it’s such a horrible situation.
Amanda: It’s not a great situation, but she is a hostess for the uncle. So, the uncle is a widow, his wife died in 1782. He’s also an expert volcanologist.
Ann: Because they’re near Vesuvius.
Amanda: Yes, kind of, and he collects art, antiquities and studies volcanoes. So, Emma can fit into this world, no problem. It’s just she doesn’t quite understand that there’s another component to this plan that she has been in the dark about.
Ann: So, she was there for about six months before she finally accepts that she has been dumped, and that she is expected to be the mistress. And to Sir William’s credit, the uncle, once he realizes that she doesn’t realize, he doesn’t force himself on her. He’s just like, “Oh! Oh, you don’t know.” So, they’re just kind of like, friends.
Amanda: And her mom’s there, I don’t know. Her mom, I think recently, before they travelled to Naples, the mom had had a stroke, too, which might be part of why she’s allowed to go along. So, they get there in 1786, and Emma is at this point 21 years old, which is a little better. But it does take her about six months to catch on.
Ann: To what’s going on.
Amanda: That Greville’s not coming back to get her.
Ann: She is, in the meantime, using all her skills, like hostessing. She shows up, and everyone’s just like, “Oh my God, it’s Emma Hart, the famous model,” so she’s posing for painters there. At some point, she’s in Naples for a while, but Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun comes to town and she paints her. Everyone is just like, “Oh my God!” To have someone who’s so good at modelling…
Amanda: It’s like coming to your small town, also. Naples, I don’t know.
Ann: Yeah, everyone’s just so excited. And Sir William, because he’s this English envoy, he’s got a good relationship— It’s King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina, the sister of Marie Antoinette, are who are the monarchs at this point, and they really like him, and so King Ferdinand is known for seducing every woman, and he tries to seduce Emma and she says no, and that endears her to the Queen because the Queen is like, “Oh! This is maybe a cool person.” Because the thing with Emma is she’s monogamous to who she’s with.
Amanda: Yes.
Ann: She’s only ever in love with one man, and this is her way. Once she falls in love with Sir William, that’s it for her. She’s not sleeping around. And so, she turns down the King, and this makes the Queen think, “Oh, she’s kind of a chill, okay person,” and they become friends.
Amanda: Yeah. And so, she is using those hostess skills she learned; her classical languages are now coming in handy. Once she kind of realizes that Greville is not coming back to get her, she apparently fires off a succession of very strongly worded letters, which, yes, any woman today I think understands, you’ve just got to get it off your chest and then you can move on. She wallows for a bit, she’s furious, and she goes through the stages of grief. But she kind of accepts this is her new position, and okay, you’re in Naples. It could be worse. It could be London in December, and you’re living on the streets.
Ann: Yeah. No, I was just going to say, when she and her friend Jane were being housemaids, dreaming of a better life, this is kind of what she was thinking of. So, eventually, it seems like she’s the mistress of Sir William, and they get along.
Amanda: He’s into art.
Ann: Unlike Greville, he’s not trying to change her. He’s just kind of this nerd, and she gets interested in his nerd stuff. And eventually, they decide they want to get married. Part of it is he’s friends with the king. But because she’s the mistress, there’s certain rooms that she’s not allowed in, but if she was the wife, she would be allowed in those rooms. And he decides, like, “You know what? Fuck this.” He’s, whatever, 50-something years old, and he’s just like, “I want to marry this young woman.” But because he’s a British diplomat, he has to get the permission of the king, who at this point, King George III, husband of Queen Charlotte from Bridgerton. So, they go back to England to get permission, and her return, everyone’s like, “Oh my God! Emma Hart is back in town! She’s so beautiful!” Romney paints her, like frantically. He’s like, “Am I going to be able to paint her again?” He paints, like, you know, 45 more pictures of her in like, two weeks or something. “Pose for me!”
Amanda: [laughs] “I have to seize the moment.” Yeah.
Ann: And they actually get permission from the king to get married.
Amanda: They do, yes.
Ann: So, they get married, and she becomes Lady Hamilton.
Amanda: Lady Hamilton. So, this is where her name kind of takes its final form, Emma Hamilton or Emma Lady Hamilton. In 1791, she marries Sir William; he is 60 years old, and she is 26 years old.
Ann: And I do want to just say, actually, this is the first time it occurred to me. But when I first started researching her, I just kept seeing her name, Emma Hamilton, and my brain kept trying to put it in the Hamilton, the musical, like, [sings to tune of “Alexander Hamilton”] “Em-ma-ma-ma Hamilton. My name is Em-ma-ma-ma Hamilton.“ So, no relation.
Amanda: No, no relation.
Ann: That’s in everyone’s head now. “Em-ma-ma-ma Hamilton.” So, actually, I said before that she became a confidante of the Queen, she didn’t until now, because before, she wasn’t allowed in the room with the Queen, but now that she’s Lady Hamilton, she can be in the room with the Queen, and they become really close.
Amanda: And that’s Queen Maria Carolina back in Naples. Queen Charlotte did not… Yeah, Queen Charlotte was not as into this, even though her husband gave permission for the marriage. Lady Hamilton was not received at court in England.
Ann: Yes, important clarification. Queen Charlotte, a bitch, historically, on this podcast, never does anything nice to people who I like. So, Queen Charlotte is just like, “I don’t think so. This Em-ma-ma-ma Hamilton…”
Amanda: Even though, like Sir William, he’s inducted into the Privy Council during this visit, where he and Emma get married. Like, he is at the top of his career, he is getting pulled closer into the royal circle. But they’re like, “Even though your wife is now a Lady, we’re still going to be snobs about it.” And his family also doesn’t approve of the match, like, there’s some letters that go back and forth where Emma is trying to get Sir William’s family to approve of her, and I’m just imagining, it’s like Hugh Hefner marrying a 25-year-old, and the relatives on the other side are just, like, appalled at this.
Ann: Yeah. So, I appreciate that George III gave him permission to get married, like, cool of him. But Emma is not accepted into the upper, upper echelons of society, even though she’s pals with Prinny and all of his dirtbag brothers who like to hang out at artists’ studios. So, they go to England, they get permission, they hang out there a bit, they go back to Naples, and there she is given more respect, and she’s able to…
Amanda: Yes. So, she goes back into her host to sing duties like before, but now she’s a wife. Do we want to talk about her “Attitudes” at this point? Because I think this is where she starts to develop them.
Ann: Actually, I think I want to talk about her time in France because I believe this is how she wins over the Queen. So, they go to England, and then I believe they go to Paris, and she’s like, “I want to meet Marie Antoinette!” and this is like 1791, it’s like, “Girl, whaaaat? Like, you want to meet Marie Antoinette now?”
Amanda: The choices.
Ann: So, they go to Paris, and this is at the point where Marie Antoinette and her family are in the Tuileries Palace, so like, house arrest, but not in prison.
Amanda: Things are not going great, yeah.
Ann: Yeah. But she is able to, as the wife of the English diplomat, meet Marie Antoinette, and then Marie Antoinette gives her a letter to give to her sister, Maria Carolina. Emma is so moved by meeting Marie Antoinette, it left such an impression on her, so when they go back to Naples, she’s like, “Hey, Maria Carolina, remember me? The woman who wouldn’t fuck your husband? I have a letter from your beloved sister you’re so worried about.” And this is where Maria Carolina is like, “Okay, bestie. Tell me everything. What’s Marie Antoinette up to?” So, this letter from Marie Antoinette really kind of is how she’s able to get in with her.
Amanda: Yes.
Ann: So, an important thing that she did there. And so, Maria Carolina is very… We’ll talk about this in a bit, but all the French Revolution stuff is happening, Maria Carolina, and this is her sister, she’s understandably, like, really worried, really concerned about what’s going to happen to Marie Antoinette. So, this is where Emma enters her kind of political liaison era.
Amanda: Yeah. I mean, so I did see Kate Williams argue, I think I saw this on her blog, she says, like, yes, the usefulness aspect. She later becomes a link between Britain and Naples when other military stuff kicks off. But also, Emma is so (we’ve talked about this before), she’s so natural and unaffected that Maria Carolina probably genuinely liked having her around and liked the fact that Emma was not jaded, and was excited to be in the presence of royalty and the upper classes. So, she came into this role as kind of a pawn for the men in her life, but she also, like, grows into her role for her own merits, which I love about her. Yeah, she might have been put in this position for her usefulness, her beauty, but then she actually makes something of it.
Ann: That’s the thing, too. She’s not just there. She’s not Madame du Barry, just being like, “Blink-blink. What’s going on?” Like, she’s aware of what’s— But I think, sort of to build on what you said, I think part of what Maria Carolina likes about her, and probably what Marie Antoinette also liked about her, is there’s no artifice with Emma; she’s not like two-faced courtiers. What you see is what you get; she’s just so upfront and honest and natural. You know where you stand with her, you know you can trust her, she’s not duplicitous in any way. And I think that’s so rare for Maria Carolina to encounter anyone who’s like this.
Amanda: Yeah. And she actually, at some point while she and Emma are friends, she starts signing her letters, the Queen does, to Emma as Charlotte, which she would only do with, like, her closest friends and her family. So, they were besties.
Ann: Yeah. So, it’s kind of like… I think Sir William kind of encouraged Emma to befriend Maria Carolina, and she did, but she genuinely did.
Amanda: Genuinely.
Ann: Yeah, they’re actually friends.
Amanda: Just before we go any further, we left Greville, I don’t think he’s at any point going to come back into the story. But remember, he pawned her off to his uncle so that he could marry an heiress. Yeah, they never actually get married, so Emma is the one that makes out better in this situation. [laughs]
Ann: Yeah. Greville never gets the money that he would have gotten.
Amanda: He can’t close the deal, no.
Ann: No. Like Emma, he does not have those people skills that she has.
So, she’s got this political stuff that’s going to, like, that thread is going to continue throughout. She’s thriving in Naples, in Neapolitan society, and this is where she debuts an art form that combines her modelling with what she did at the House of Health and Hymen, with natural skills. Can you describe the “Attitudes”?
Amanda: The “Attitudes.” Yeah. So, it is… [sighs] Okay, there’s this thing in art, today we would probably call it performance art, but at this time, it was known as a tableaux vivants or, like, a living scene. So, you would have people, like artists’ models, but they weren’t being painted; they were posing before a live audience. But this also wasn’t acting, they were just kind of standing like a living sculpture kind of thing, like you might see on the boardwalk, a person painted gold and standing so still. So, she would put on costumes and basically portray famous works of art, sculptures; she would combine classical poses with her very modern sense of style and what was sexy. So, it became this cross between… There was some dance incorporated, her good posture was a big part of it, and it was also a little bit of acting, and people loved it. It was basically just, come look at this fancy, sexy lady. I’m minimizing it here, but it became a sensation.
Ann: Part of it, it’s like, people did stuff sort of like this, but what she brought to it is, I think, similar to what she did in her modelling, is when she would go from one pose into another very fluidly. What other people historically would have done is they would do a pose and stop, rearrange themselves, do another pose. But she would, like, go from one pose into another thing. And everyone’s like, “She just went from one pose into another? What just happened?”
Amanda: “My mind is blown!”
Ann: And she’s wearing these, like, the same way that she’s dressed in the paintings, these sort of like Grecian, draping sort of gowns…
Amanda: Very loose-fitting tunics; she had a lot of veils, which helped with her allure. She also, I noticed in some sources, she would turn it into a game sometimes. Like, the audience would kind of guess…
Ann: Like charades?
Amanda: Yeah, kind of. Like, the audience would guess the name of the character that she was portraying or, like, the classical figure, or what scene she was supposed to be part of.
Ann: And she would do this, like, at dinner, she would just kind of like “And now… the Attitudes!” And people came from all over to watch her do this. It became, like, such— Because she’s this famous person, she’s doing this really interesting thing. I love that one of the people in her repertoire, and this figure that’s connected with her for later for other reasons, is Cleopatra. She started acting, doing some Cleopatra stuff. But even just the way that she’s wearing these draping garments… Her mother was a good seamstress, so she would have the things tailored so they would hang in a certain way when she holds her arm a certain way. It was really, like, the art design of it all; she really thought of every detail. It was such a sensation, people sort of, like, made pamphlets trying to explain what the “Attitudes” are, just kind of like…
Amanda: You’ve just got to see it. You’ve got to go see it!
Ann: You’ve got to come to Naples. You’ve got to see the Attitudes.
Amanda: Like Naples hottest club is Emma Hamilton’s Attitudes.
Ann: Honestly, merch idea. So, this is where… She’s in Naples, she’s honestly thriving. I will mention though too, she has not had any children by Sir William, and it seems pretty apparent he is infertile because we know she is fertile.
Amanda: Yeah. And I will say her daughter is still bopping around out there, and Greville, the first chance he took, he’s like, “Great. My uncle took over my mistress, now you are responsible for the upkeep of baby Emma,” who I guess isn’t a baby anymore. So, he’s financially taking care of her, but makes it clear he has, like, little to no interest in ever getting to know Emma’s daughter.
Ann: And also, this is another thing that was… Like, everything was shitty about the way that Greville just, like, sent her to Naples without telling her he was dumping her, and getting her to be the mistress of his uncle, but had she known she was moving to Naples, she would have said goodbye to her daughter. But she thought it was just for the summer, so she didn’t. So, this is like, she’s being kept from her daughter, and this is affecting her.
Amanda: It’s kind of shitty.
Ann: For someone who wants more children. Although it is interesting, in her life of sex work and then her marriage, she had the one daughter, like early on in her life when she was 17, but since then, she clearly figured out some contraceptive things because…
Amanda: Maybe, yeah.
Ann: A lot of situations came up where she could have become pregnant, but she didn’t. But now she’s married, it would be really beneficial if she had a son, especially, to inherit the money from this guy.
Amanda: Yeah, fair enough.
Ann: But that is not happening, but she’s having a nice time in Naples.
Amanda: That would have also helped to, like, legitimize her among these aristocratic circles that still didn’t quite see her as one of them. There was a note that she still had some mannerisms that were kind of un-aristocratic, and she was a heavy drinker. So, at one point, there was a dinner in Naples, the Duc de Bourbon remarked that she drank port in such a way that “it must have been a habit of hers,” because she did not become drunk after finishing two or three bottles. So, that could have had something to do with, maybe, why she wasn’t having children at this time.
Ann: That could also… And also I would say, like other people we’ve talked about, like Georgiana, Emma has a lot of trauma in her life, and the way that she’s dealing with it, you know, if you have trauma in your life, you’re in a fight or flight, and then when your life kind of calms down, that is often when it catches up with you. So, this could be where she’s just like, “Oh my gosh, I went through all this stuff as a teenager.”
Amanda: “Things are great now.”
Ann: “I should be happy. Why am I not?”
Amanda: Yeah. I could see that definitely.
Ann: Everything catching up with her.
Now, I feel like this is going to be a good— Listeners, this is a two-parter because this woman’s life is unrelenting. But we’re about to move into… She’s married, and Naples is about to have some real political military crisis. So, I will say, I think to just to sort of like cliffhanger end this part.
Amanda: Sure.
Ann: Some shit’s going down in Naples, which we’re going to explain a bit more next time. But basically, such that some British troops arrive, and leading those British troops is a man named Admiral Horatio Nelson, who comes to town, and Emma’s job is to kind of like, charm offensive, like convince him that England will support Naples in these battles they’re getting into, which we’ll explain next time. And Admiral Horatio Nelson is this, like, little, tiny guy.
Amanda: He’s lost an arm at this point. So, Emma had met him earlier.
Ann: No, this is when she first meets him. So, she first meets him, and he still has both of his arms. So, she meets him, he still has both of his arms and both of his eyes.
Amanda: Okay, okay, okay.
Ann: Next time… So, I just wanted to tantalizingly say, like, she meets him, he comes to town, and she’s just like…
Amanda: She’s still the wife of the British envoy, so that’s her role.
Ann: Yeah. And so, she meets him, and just kind of like, I just wanted to dangle that there because what some people might have heard of Emma Hamilton in the context of her relationship with Lord Nelson. So, she meets him, like hi-bye, he’s kind of like “Wow, she’s so beautiful!”
Amanda: “That guy’s intriguing.”
Ann: Yeah. And it’s kind of like, they don’t see each other for a couple of years.
Amanda: It’s like Marie Antoinette and Count Fersen. You know, they meet each other when he is going to go fight in the Revolution for France.
Ann: And then they meet again.
Amanda: “Huh, that was weird. That was a cute guy.” Yeah, and then a couple of years later, he pops back up.
Ann: Exactly. So, we’ve got a meet-cute of Emma Hamilton and Lord Nelson, and at this point, she’s this extremely famous… She’s still famous. She’s in Naples, she’s married to Sir William, she’s doing the “Attitudes.” She’s still, like, it girl, everyone still has their Emma Hamilton posters.
Amanda: Romney has painted his last portrait of her. So, he’s kind of depressed, he’s like “Augh, she’s off doing other things now.” A lot of contemporaries do write about her that she is becoming quite plump and has “lost her figure” as the wife of a British diplomat in Naples. But she’s still beautiful, even if she does kind of let her un-aristocratic side out from time to time. She’s kind of loud, she has a quick temper, but anyone who meets her is still, like, really taken with how charming and beautiful she is.
Ann: She’s so charming. Actually, I want to just mention, I forgot to say earlier, when they were in England getting the permission to get married, she met Georgiana. She went to Bath at one point and Georgiana was there with her sister and Bess Foster, of course. So, she met them, and they were all charmed by her, by Mrs. Hamilton, although Bess Foster said that she found Emma “vulgar.”
Amanda: You’re one to talk, Bess. Okay. [laughs]
Ann: I mean… I mean, like, really, Bess?
Amanda: Girl, you’re in a throuple.
Ann: How many illegitimate children are you carrying around with your best friend’s husband, Bess Foster? Like, okay. So, I just wanted to mention this is one of many, many people. Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun painted her. I’m trying to think of other Vulgar History tie-ins.
Amanda: Oh, I don’t know if it would be a Vulgar History tie-in, but the author, Goethe, came to see the “Attitudes,” and he wrote about her. He specifically wrote about the veils. He said the veils and scarves and shawls, that’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before!
Ann: What she was doing is just like, if only there was cameras. And then Germaine Madame de Staël, she also encounters her, and I think she wrote novels, and one of her novels has a character who does the “Attitudes,” basically. Everyone is just like, “This is a thing. This is happening, I need to include this.” Everyone’s talking about it.
Amanda: But this is not as far as she will find herself rising. Like, there’s still more to come, which is crazy! I’ve done episodes on women who, their trajectory kind of stopped here. Think of, like, Madame X, who kind of had this rise and fall as a society beauty. But like, no, Emma Hamilton is going to be around for a little longer.
Ann: She’s just getting started. She’s like, 21 and just getting started.
Amanda: Yeah, 26, something like that.
Ann: Yeah. So, this is a great cliffhanger for next time. We’re going to pause for now, come back next week, and you’ll hear the Emma Hamilton, Lord Nelson of it all, which gets even more convoluted and even weirder.
Amanda: Somehow.
Ann: Even more cameos. Prinny, all up in her business still.
Amanda: There’s a reverse revolution. I’ll just dangle that. A reverse revolution.
Ann: So, there’s some real Maria Carolina stuff, there’s some spy hijinks. I’m just really, really… If people are like, “Oh, what could possibly happen next?” It’s like, you don’t even know. I was reading this biography, the Kate Williams biography, which I do recommend, and I was just like, “Oh, how much…?” Honestly, I borrowed it from the library as an eBook, and it was like, this eBook is due in two hours, and I’m like, “Well, I’m sure that I’m almost at the end of this book,” and it’s just like, “Nope, I’m not!”
Amanda: “I need to renew!”
Ann: It was like, how much more can happen in this woman’s life? So much. That’s why this is a two-part episode. So, we’re going to pause for now.
Amanda, for people who want to follow you online, what can you plug for them?
Amanda: Well, I actually have a new podcast that I can plug. It is a debut royal news podcast with a news company. It’s called Reign Check, and that should be out now when you’re listening.
Ann: Is it R-E-I-G-N?
Amanda: Yes. Like a pun, absolutely. So, you can find me on there, as well as my show with Meredith Constant, Off With Their Headlines, where we look at royal news and media. And on social media everywhere as @Matta_Of_Fact. Oh, and I have a Substack newsletter as well, which is a great time.
Ann: And I love how your content combines the, like, historical stuff with what’s going on now. It’s because any time something happens with the royal family, and people are like, “Oh my gosh, this is unprecedented!” You’re like, “It’s not.” [laughs]
Amanda: “Nope. We’ve been here before.” Whether it’s somebody being banned from a coronation, as you know, Ann, that’s happened before. These ideas of rival courts, fathers and sons feuding. No, none of it’s new.
Ann: None of it is new, exactly. It’s just like, “Oh, this is unprecedented. It’s like, it’s not.”
Amanda: Nope. Is it?
Ann: So yes, everybody keep up with Amanda in all those places. You can keep up with me, well, here, this podcast you’re listening to, Vulgar History. And you can also read my book, Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Queen Without a Crown, who is going to make an appearance in the next part of this podcast, because Emma Hamilton, like, had dealings with literally everybody, but it’s the same time period. And so, you can get my book, Rebel of the Regency. It’s available as a book, an eBook, a print book. You can get it now, basically everywhere you are, you can get it now. It’s in North America, it’s in Europe, it’s in Australia, it’s in Japan. Lots of places— All in English language, I should mention, it has not been translated. But if you’re listening to this, presumably you speak English. That’s my book.
And then you can keep up with me on social media @VulgarHistoryPod. And yeah, I mean, tune in next week for… Truly, if you don’t know this story, get ready for the second part.
Amanda: Buckle up.
Ann: Because this is like, her life is not calming down. Thank you so much, Amanda. To all listeners, keep your pants on and your tits out.
Vulgar History is researched, scripted, and hosted by Ann Foster. Editor is Cristina Lumague. Theme music is by the Severn Duo. Regency Era artwork by Karyn Moynihan. Social media videos by Magdalena Denson. Transcripts of this podcast are available at VulgarHistory.com by Aveline Malek. You can get early, ad-free episodes of Vulgar History by becoming a paid member of our Patreon at Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. Vulgar History merchandise is available at VulgarHistory.com/Store for Americans and for everyone else at VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com. Follow us on social media @VulgarHistoryPod. Get in touch with me via email at VulgarHistoryPod@gmail.com.
References:
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