England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton

by Kate Williams

The story of Emma Hamilton’s rise, from prostitute to consort of the most famous man in England, has a contemporary ring of the self-made celebrity.

Emma Hamilton was only twelve-years-old when she set off for London, initially as a domestic servant, before finding work as an actress’s maid at Drury Lane. Within a short space of time, this indomitable young woman became the mistress of a leading aristocrat, the wife of another, the Lady Ambassadress to Naples, and the notorious lover of the most sought-after man in England, Horatio Nelson.

In the days before photography, television and tabloid newspapers, Emma Hamilton would make astute use of art to promote an image of herself as an icon of fashion and beauty. The artist George Romney helped make her famous, producing hundreds of canvases devoted to the woman who was his perfect muse.

However, it was her association with Nelson that brought Emma the kind of stardom we associate today with Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. When she first met him — the conquering hero of the Battle of the Nile — he was a small man with only one arm, one eye and his front teeth missing. But he was to be the consuming passion of her life.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, British Literature, Historical, 18th Century, Biography Memoir

480 pages, Hardcover

First published June 2, 2005

About the author

Hello! Thank you for visiting my page. It's a great privilege to be on here - and to say hi to readers. Thank you very much for all your support and interest in my books! My twitter account is @katewilliamsme and I have a facebook page for Kate Williams author, come and say hello! I'm always thrilled to hear from you and your thoughts about my work.

I grew up in a very modern house in a dormitory village in the Midlands- and as a consequence became completely obsessed by the past. When I was about six, we got a new washing machine - and I took the huge cardboard box, covered it in silver foil and told my little brother it was a time machine. I used to rumble it about and tell him 'Look! We're in Egypt in the time of the pyramids - but you can't get out!' So he had to listen to all the stories inside, my poor brother...


'One of Britain's best young historians', Independent.
'Historian Extraordinaire', The Today Programme, Radio 4
'Queen of historical fiction' and 'History at its best', Guardian
'Unforgettable', (the book, not me!), The Lady.
'Gripping, seductive', The Times


I'm still looking for that time machine - and still living in it, really as I am obsessed by history.

Thanks so much for coming with me in my time machine.....

My latest novel, Edge of the Fall, is about the DeWitt family in the 1920s as they try to make sense of their lives in the aftermath of the war. It's the Flapper Age - and everything is in flux. As Kirkus puts it, there is ' a beautiful socialite threatened by a stranger, a murder trial and a baby born out of wedlock' - 'strange disappearances, unexplained deaths, dramatic births and a juicy court case' Grazia


'Brilliant', Daily Mail
'Gripping from the first page', 'Thrilling' 'a must read', Grazia
'Imbued with a sharp awarenss of the devastating effects of war in any era, Williams' novel presents sympathetic characters who transcend history', Kirkus


My previous novel, The Storms of War, is the first in a trilogy about the de Witt family. The first explores their lives from 1914-1918, as the youngest girl, Celia, sees her perfect world crumble and change. I've wanted to write about the wars since I visited the trenches in France when I was ten on a school trip. I was fascinated by how small they were - and how men could ever live in such places. I really wanted to go into the lives of Germans - the Victorians couldn't get enough of them. Then - almost overnight - they were the enemy and people saw German spies everywhere and the newspapers demanded that all Germans in the country be imprisoned. At the beginning of the book, Rudolf and Verena have four children - and their lives will never be the same again.


'Quietly impressive...hard to put down....Gripping, thoughtful, heartbreaking and above all human', Kirkus (starred review)
'truly affecting...richly detailed, light of foot..tantalises with loose ends and disturbs with shocking shadows', Independent
'Fans of Dowton Abbey will love it, as do I', Alison Weir
'Vivid....fascinating,' Observer


My most recent history book was in 2013, Josephine: Desire, Ambition, Napoleon (UK) and 'Ambition and Desire: the Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte' (US). It has been optioned by Ecosse Films (Nowhere Boy, Mrs Brown) and they are working on the script now.

'I send you a thousand kisses, but send me none back because they set my soul on fire', wrote Napoleon to Josephine.


In 2012, my book about Elizabeth II, 'Young Elizabeth' was published, exploring the Princess's life before she became Queen - and how the abdication of Edward VIII changed her world. In 2011, I co-wrote The Ring and the Crown with Alison Weir, Tracy Borman and Sarah Gristwood about the history of royal weddings.

My previous novel,The Pleasures of Men, about Catherine Sorgeiul, a young woman in 1840 who terrifies herself with her obsession with a murderer, appeared in 2012. I began writing the book while living in Paris, one

Reviews

[Jill H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This biography of Emma Hamilton, the mistress of Admiral Lord Nelson should have been a five star read for me as I have always been interested in Nelson and his life, both military and personal. And Emma was the romantic side his life......he loved her to distraction as evidenced by his letters, eye witness accounts, and his attempts to have her looked after in case of his death. But somehow I was not as engaged by the book as I thought I would be......and frankly, I am not sure why it left me somewhat cold. Nevertheless, it is an-depth look at Emma and it appears that the author did intensive research. So don't let my less than sterling rating of this book put you off.....it is enjoyable and fills in some of the gaps in the history of one of the great love stories in history.

[Sean O'Hara · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know what I like about historical biographies? There's no sensationalistic scandal-mongering. Biographers can't pay a maid $5000 to dish dirt. There aren't any former-friends or school-mates who can come forward with an axe to grind. Historical biographies are histories and deal in facts, not gossip.

Well, normally.

In England's Mistress, Kate Williams does her damnedest to bring Kitty Kelley-style biography to the 18th Century. The book is more supposition and innuendo than fact.

This is apparent right from the get-go. Emma Hamilton's childhood is shrouded in the obscurity. Just look at her Wikipedia entry and note how little info there is about her early life. Yet Williams spends several chapters here, spinning a salacious story out of nothing.

We start with Emma's father. Practically nothing is known about him apart from his name (Henry Lyon), occupation (blacksmith at a local mine) and that he died shortly after Emma's birth. Williams concludes that he didn't die in a work related accident. Her evidence for this is that there's no record of an accident (reasonable but hardly conclusive) or that Emma's mother received a pay-out from the mine (more compelling, but still not conclusive). Williams also discounts the possibility that Henry was tubercular, based on the premise that Emma's mother, Mary, wouldn't have married him if he were (reasonable, but women have been known to behave unreasonably out of love). But then Williams doesn't discuss any other diseases that might've killed a working man in the 18th Century; she jumps straight to her preferred theory -- that Henry died from alcoholism or a booze-related incident. Her evidence is simply that alcohol-related deaths were quite common among the working-class of the time.

Okay, all that's fairly reasonable, and if Williams just left it there I'd be fine with it. Henry's dead, doesn't matter how, let's move on. But Williams doesn't do that. Instead, she builds an even more tenuous theory on top of her already shaky conclusion, and decides that either Henry must've committed suicide, or Mary killed him. The evidence for this is simply that Mary left the town where they were living and moved in with her parents -- she must've had something to hide!

Because, y'know, a young, widowed mother would never move back to her parents for financial reasons. The most absurd part comes when Williams claims, no source provided, that widows at the time were often suspected of witchcraft and it would've been dangerous for Mary to remain in the mining town. Um ... what? Henry died in 1765, thirty years after England repealed the laws against witchcraft. I suppose some ignorant hicks might've clung to old superstitions, but such an assertion needs good sources, which Williams doesn't provide.

Then for the next several chapters, Williams keeps mentioning Mary's dark secret. Everything about Emma's early life is filtered through this unproven theory, until I reached the point of throwing the book across the room. Alas, it's an audiobook, so I had nothing to throw.

[Laurie V · Rating 3 out of 5]

The biggest revelation I took away from this book is what a dick Horatio Nelson was. He was a flighty fame whore who was needlessly cruel to the wife he abandoned for Emma Hamilton. He also knew very well that Emma would have struggled financially after his death, but he was so deluded into thinking the government would provide for her despite her tenuous position as his mistress that he never took steps to ensure security for her and their daughter. He got himself killed at Trafalgar because he insisted on making himself conspicuous by wearing all his medals and standing at the front of the deck, even though admirals were traditionally positioned in the back so they could see the entire battle. By his own admission, he fought for glory and his legacy and not because he felt any loyalty for his country.

I also don't get Sir William Hamilton's being so adamant about leaving his estate to his nephew Charles Greville and passing Emma over even though she was devoted to him for a decade. It's true that property traditionally passed from men to men in those days, but both of these tools could have easily done much better by Emma. I won't even start on Nelson's worthless family. Emma made some terrible decisions that got her into a tough position near the end of her life, but what did she know about money? She came from a dirt poor background and clawed her way into respectability by using her charm and beauty to land a powerful political position. Once she had no male protection, she didn't know how to live independently. Who can really blame her? Bottom line -- eff Nelson.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't do better than Sean O'Hara's review--it is spot on. Williams speculates constantly when she doesn't have facts and on the most trivial matters as when she writes, "Worried about her mother's weak state of health, Emma probably paid out to take a boat up the Rhone..." She has no bases for this assumption nor is there any point in making it.

The speculation eases up later in the book but she then proceeded to infuriate me referring to Hamilton, not once but twice, as a "sex bomb" and claiming at one point that she was "swinging with the in crowd." Both phrases made me gag. Am I too sensitive?

I just read Williams' Becoming Queen Victoria which was not like this (thank god). Perhaps her agent told her that she needed to start "swinging with the in crowd."

[Sherwood Smith]

For the longest time, biographical material about Emma Hamilton was difficult to find--either it was repressively short, as befitted a woman "no better than she should be" or else disgustingly salacious. Here's a biography that is sympathetic to women caught in the horrible position of being poor, with few options for earning daily bread.

In the 1770s, when Emma (then Amy) was pretty much on her own, she either had to work under grinding misery for abysmal wages--and could be dismissed on a whim, which she was--or she turned to the theater--or to the streets. Emma worked all three career choices before being taken up by Charles Greville, who kept her while she had another man's baby (she was in her mid-teens), and when he tired of her, passed her off to his older uncle, Sir William Hamilton, who treated her well, fell in love with her, and eventually married her. She proved to be the wife he needed--until Horatio Nelson sailed into port, after which Emma and Nelson became what the other needed, until Nelson's tragic death at Trafalgar. Emma outlived him by a little over ten years.

So much are the basic facts. A great deal was subsequently published about Emma, as she became a celebrity before she ever laid eyes on Nelson. Though she never hid her humble origins, she didn't talk much about them, and about poor women there is scant material, so what we get in the early part of this book is a vivid look at what life in London was like during the mid-century--and a whole lot of guesswork about what might have happened to Emma and her family, and what they might have thought. In fact, all the way through there are a lot of uncited glimpses into minds and motives--usually the playground of the fictioneer.

The book becomes more trustworthy once Emma moves to Naples, about which a great deal is known. Even more vivid is the picture Williams paints of Neopolitan life before and during the French Revolution, and the scary days when Napoleon's forces were on the march toward the south.

Equally descriptive is the Hamilton/Hamilton/Nelson menage, but once again I was surprised to see nothing said about Winifred Gerin's careful work proving that Emma had twins, and that she kept only one of the girls. (There is a reference in the Williams book to one of Nelson's letters that refers to twins, which Williams blithely explains is a sexual reference. Where did she get that?)

So to sum up, I'd say: this eminently readable biography blurs the line between fact and fiction. It does have a splendid biography, and is full of interesting photos.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tis lacking in internality, but that's the nature of biography. And the external's incandescent. Emma was an impoverished teenage prostitute who became the most famous woman in England. Beautiful, brilliant (Haydn was awed by her singing) 'n' fatally passionate.



*reveres*

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, I want to live above my means too.
But I don't want to die penniless in Calais.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exceptional biography at so many levels. It recovers not so much a person as a period.

Emma, Lady Hamilton, was a clever but perhaps not always intelligent person of great beauty and charm, and acting skills, who rose from extreme poverty to become the wife of an ambassador and the mistress of a national hero, Lord Nelson.

Many biographies of such women present romantic fantasies – the sort of rubber-necking at history of those women who wish life was like a Jane Austen novel. This book is a good corrective.

What we have instead is a profound insight into a pre-industrial aristocratic culture where sexuality was a tradable community that women could employ at successive levels of skill in order to rise from the gutter to become the confidante of queens.

The morality that started to be imposed on society not long after Emma’s heyday (of which Austen’s novels represent an important cultural staging post) may have helped to weaken much overt exploitation but it also closed off avenues of advancement for poor, good-looking women.

The early chapters of her life and the book give us a world far more familiar to us than the late-Victorians – a full-blown celebrity culture with people living on credit and manipulating the media with narratives of sexual scandal.

Emma and Nelson were the Posh and Becks of their day with an added element of hysteria that was closer to the fascination of moderns with Diana, Princess of Wales - and with the same public fickleness as soon as their heroes and heroines are shown to be men and women of straw.

There is the same merchandising industry, public performance, status games, fashion-setting, and damned hard work that would be recognisable to the likes Jordan, Britney and Rihanna today.

For Emma, having done time as a high class hooker and in the period’s equivalent of the adult entertainment industry, and been the good little mistress for a while, the path up the ladder came from her celebrity as an artist’s model, equivalent today to a fashion model.

She gets passed by her ‘master’ to his older relative and, somehow, manages, as supermodel, to get herself married, to get entitled by that marriage and to become confidante to the Queen of Naples (which is when Nelson turns up).

These central sections of the book are perhaps the most interesting. This is not a book that will endear the reader to the human species. You need be no Marxist to see the essential truth that morality arises from economic conditions – ‘First bread, then morals’ as Brecht pithily put it.

The early chapters have already painted a picture of extreme poverty and sexual exploitation that is not a simple case of men exploiting women but of them’s ‘as ‘as exploiting them’s as ‘asn’t.

The final chapters will provide a picture of greedy cynicism amongst relatives who would be nothing without the two lovers and whose selfish sheltering behind the strange customs of aristocratic society resulted in a kind if rather dim Emma ending up in poverty and dying in a foreign land.

But all this soap opera nastiness – easily most nasty when within families ambitious for cash and preferment – is as nothing compared to the brutalities of Neapolitan aristocratic society towards its own subjects.

While deploring the rape and murder of Marie Antoinette’s confidante, the blood lust of the guillotine and Napoleon’s murderous march through Europe, the roots of that horror lie in the callous brutality of the ancient regime.

Naples in the late eighteenth century was the epitome of aristocratic cruelty. De Sade might be regarded as the moralist that he rightly was in the context of the actual thuggery of the Neapolitan aristocracy.

At one festival, these vile specimens would pile up a mountain of excess food and then entertain themselves by watching the poor fight amongst themselves and tear live animals apart to get at the food.

Emma, though born in conditions equivalent to those of the Neapolitan Poor in Northern England, is not one for class-consciousness. She becomes the classic lackey of an oppressing class that only takes to her because she is beautiful and patronised by great men.

This is when that vain and courageous little man Nelson pops up – Becks to her Posh in terms of achievement. The man who scores for Ingerland now acquires the media icon of the day.

A sort of polyamorous arrangement emerges – Hamilton is in debt and needs Royal patronage, the war hero want to join the highest ranks and will get into debt to do so, and Emma’s sees her future secured as escort to the war hero and ‘England’s Mistress’. But Nelson does not come out of this story well.

The little patriotic display near HMS Victory in Portsmouth allows that his treatment of his wife Fanny was problematic. She was not right for him at all but his wanton humiliation of her in public and in favour of Emma was celebrity politics at its most vile.

But the real story of Nelson – something to be remembered as we drone people to death across the world – is that he was a war criminal, using a form of slave labour (through impressments) to mount his victories.

Impressment is not such an issue. The pressed seemed to have lived better lives than in the rookeries and to have loved their commanders in that way the weaker or more economically desperate members of our species will kow-tow before bigger ‘baboons’.

However, in one of the few actions he was involved in away from the sea, Nelson’s breach of treaty with the rebels made him directly complicit in the murder of many Neapolitans in the subsequent purges.

We get an account of his vicious treatment of the defeated Admiral Carraciolo that is filled with unnecessary cruelty and malice ... Nelson lacked honour in this act of personal barbarism. But let us put the rather unpleasant and emotionally hysterical Nelson to one side.

What is equally interesting is the public hysteria around him and his mistress that certainly required eighteenth century celebrity culture to fuel it but which took such matters to another level entirely. What was this all about?

The book is less explicit here but the truth of the matter is that the English middle classes were probably genuinely terrified that their throats would be cut and their property taken by blood-crazed Jacobins.

The hysteria about Nelson kicks off with the Battle of the Nile by which Napoleon was deprived of the opportunity to threaten the British stranglehold over India – and a great deal of English wealth was based not on manufactures but on trade at this time.

The US colonies had also recently been lost so that the loss of the East might have been a serious economic matter, while the war itself was causing a major down turn with some important trading interests already questioning its purpose.

Nelson is thus positioned as saviour of the middle classes and as their ‘boy’, a lad made good. Emma cements the vision with super model glamour – sex and violence providing the basis for a massive cathartic outpouring that spreads across anti-Napoleonic middle class Europe.

This is the same psychology of interwar fascism – fear resulting in a loss of self into the hero figure. Of course, it goes rather badly wrong for Nelson and Emma.

He fails to provide for her in a ruthless age, saddles her with massive debts, get conveniently killed (from the point of view of the Government) and becomes a still more massive but dead icon - Emma is surplus to requirements. The rest is depressing tragedy.

This is not a jobbing biography for middle aged female romantics. This is much better than that. It is a rare insight into the heartless centre of English aristocratic society, the lying mystifications of celebrity economics and middle class terrors.

As for Emma herself, I suspect that she would have driven me up the wall for all her beauty and charm. But she comes across as kind if not very bright on occasions.

Her greatest achievement was not to have been Nelson’s Mistress or even Europe’s leading model but to have produced a stable, level-headed daughter, Horatia, who lived long, prospered and built her own extensive middle class family.

From a background of dire poverty and exploitation herself, it would seem that, unable to leave her anything but a moderate education and an example, a loving mother created something more important than her fame. That is a lesson to us all ...

[Marguerite Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent biography of a woman who seems to have been long overdue a reappraisal of her life.

Emma Hamilton was an extraordinary woman. Born into abject poverty, she went into domestic service aged twelve, and not long after was forced into prostitution. Working backstage at the theatre, she progressed into courtesanship, had a child at seventeen, rose to stardom through modelling for Romney, and was then passed on by her lover Greville to his uncle, William Hamilton, consul in Naples, when Greville had had enough of her. This was the turning point in Emma's life, where she transformed herself from courtesan to wife and diplomat, friend of the Queen of Naples, and began performing the 'attitudes' which contributed to her cult and first brought her to the attention of Nelson.

Emma was clearly a great beauty, clearly a brilliant actress, but she also had that certain something that drew men and women to her - not just sex appeal but a personal charm. I admired her. At times she drove me crazy with her spending and her gambling and her blindness to faults. At times I heartily disliked her, at others I felt incredibly annoyed on her behalf and I pitied her. And all the time she fascinated me just as she did everyone she met in life.

This was a fabulous biography. Sparkling, brilliantly researched, a fresh take on many parts of Emma's life and the men she loved, it was also exactly (in my opinion) what a biography should be - a clear, rational take on the subject, not a hagiography, nor the opposite either, but an informed and non-judgemental story of the character. I loved it.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I don’t have time to read, I often download audio books from I Tunes. It gives me the chance to ‘read’ while doing the housework or driving. I have just finished listening to England’s Mistress, while un packing boxes after our move.

I have read very mixed reviews of the book and didn’t really know what to expect. I absolutely loved Williams’s other book Becoming Queen so was excited to see if her earlier book was as good.

England’s Mistress tells the story of Emma Hamilton , famous social climber and mistress to Horatio Nelson. Although not as polished as Becoming Queen, England’s Mistress flows well and paints a wonderful picture of life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The first few chapters describing Emma’s early life are in effect fiction. There is so little known about Emma’s early life that Williams has had to fill in the gaps herself. The problem really is that there are too many gaps to fill. Although well researched, I did feel the early chapters were a little too fluffed out.

This does improve as the book moves on and the author has more material to work with. I really enjoyed reading about Emma’s life before she became famous, each small scandalous step giving her higher status. It is fascinating hearing about her work as an artist’s model and her many many sittings for Romney.

Williams gives the sense that Emma is different from all the other poor country girls who came to London for a better life. Emma uses her beauty and talent all through her life to get what she wants, be it as an artist’s model, courtesan, entertainer or mistress.

The book’s slightly fictitious feel works better as it goes on, and helps the reader to empathise and understand the feelings and desisions of its subject. Key themes throughout the book are well covered, and include Emma’s reliance on the men around her, her need to be a mother and her need for high social status even if it leaves her destitute.

Emma’s life is particularly interesting because of the time in which she lived. The french revolution and the rise of Napoleon all went on around her, with as much turmoil as her personal life. One of the highlights of the book has to be Emma’s life in Naples which Williams covers extensively. Williams’s ability to describe the events of the time with relevance to her subject works very well.

I loved the section on Emma’s life with Nelson in Merton. As someone who was born and raised in the area where they once lived together, I found this all the more fascinating.

In conclusion I think this is a very enjoyable book, and I think it can be praised and criticised for the same thing. Williams tells a very good story and the fine line between fact and fiction which Williams crosses on several occasions are the very thing that makes this a great read. I feel the book would not have been so good had the gaps been left unfilled.

Taken from my blog www.vintagefrills.wordpress.com

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding! A highly readable and informative account of the life of Emma Hamilton.
Kate Williams gives us a rich and detailed account of life in 18th C. England, and of Emma as she grown from a child to become wife and mistress to the great.

Some excellent vignettes on life in the provinces, in London and in Naples, before Emma's penury and death in Calais.

One of the best biographies I have read.

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Colin Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lady Hamilton is a well known figure in 18/19th century English history through her marriage to Sir William Hamilton and her affair with Admiral Nelson. Little is known about her early life and this is reflected in the early of this book which appear to be largely based on speculation and assumption from research of the period. Once in London the picture changes, when her stunning good looks, a great many portraits still exist, and risque life style bring her to public attention. Emma eventually marries Sir William and lives a celebrity life in sumptuous surroundings in Naples, then a kingdom in its own right. Here she meets the courageous Lord Nelson. On the Hamilton's return to London her life starts to unravel and she lives beyond her means finally dying in Calais.

This book is well written in an easy read style. Unfortunately it had little say that has not been recorded before and therefore it just missed the mark for me.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book though, disappointingly for an academic writer, Kate Williams reports the scandalous tabloid versions of the events, and not what sensible historians have suggested is the true course of history. Which is fine, if one is transparent about being fantastical and liberal with sources. Except at the end, Williams explains that the goal of this book was to “reveal the hidden truth about Emma Hamilton”… Kate, you wrote a fun biography to read, but come on- the “hidden truth” is that she probably was not as interesting or notorious as the press made her out to be.

Maybe it’s my fondness for the character of Lady Hamilton that I give this a generous 4 stars.

[Scott Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook. I don't often read a ton of socio-economic type history, but this was a suprisingly good work. I did not have a lot of knowledge about her. I knew a bit more about her from studying her famous lover, Nelson, but did not gleam the impact that she had on his life. Emma Hamilton was comprable to a modern-day Marilyn Monroe, given her modeling/acting career, her famous romantic attachments, fatal flaws and a magnet for the gossip columns. Lady Hamilton was a woman of her times, and Williams does an outstanding job of trying to put Hamilton's actions/thought process/environment into proper context. Born poor, she manages to work her way through mid/late 18th century English society, eventually marrying a British noble and seducing the leading British figure of the age. Not perfect, but not just a pretty face, Hamilton was a story of rags to riches and back to rags. She was a trendsetter who drove fashion in high society for most of Europe at one point, but she who lives by driving trends may not be able to keep it up, and so it was with her. The quest for fame and status is very much evident today (Change painting model for dominating social media and throw in a sex tape or two and she would fit right in (given the stretch of "prostitution" she engaged in at one point in her late teens (unfortunately, a not-uncommon occupation for less-well-off women in England at that time), it would hardly be a stretch). For the audio narration, aside from the reader's annoying habit of stating quotes in a bad accent (especially if quoting a French/Italian commentator/etc) is fine. If a fan of Nelson, or just wanting to read about life in 18th/19 century England, a must read/listen.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
Kate William's biography of the prostitute who became the mistress of Lord Nelson, despite humble origins.

[Michał Hołda · Rating 4 out of 5]

That book in interesting way shows life of 18th century women, her way of her life goals.

Her early years were harsh but despite that she had Interesting life.

She was very often painted as e.g. goddess Circe.

Later on her fashion was desirable, as being quite known in society. When she was with Captain Nelson & in difficult times for aristocracy, revolutionary times. She even become close friend of Queen Maria Carolina of Austria.

And then she was spending lots of pound when being under Nelson's wings. Only to go in debts after his death.

She have left her life in London and Naples but died on French soil “just months before the End of the War.”

It’s moving Biography of women whose life hardened her a bit and with sad ending to the story.

[Bethany Pehora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Williams herself sums up her book best, saying “this is a story about ambition and heartbreak, beauty and pain.” She has done an admirable job in attempting to show Emma Hamilton as a three dimensional and intelligent woman who was far more than the sum of all the salacious tales about her.

[IrmaJolanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliantly researched and written book!

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never realised what a courtesan Amy Lyon/Emma Hart/Emma Hamilton was, no wonder she changed her name twice before marrying! Kate Williams brings not only Emma to life but also breathes life into 18th and early 19th century England. Emma had a difficult childhood and was quickly put into service, which she decided was not for her. She therefore bettered herself and was quickly a favourite model of George Romney, who painted hundreds of portaits of her. She had a child by Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh before becoming mistress to Charles Greville, who eventually tired of her and passed her on to his uncle Sir William Hamilton in Naples. While in Naples she became friendly with the royal family and remained on such terms with them even after she had rebuffed the advances of King Ferdinand. After being Hamilton's mistress, she eventually married him but later met Nelson and was immediately smitten, even though the latter was married to a reportedly dull lady named Fanny. The affair eventually got the better of both of them and, with the tacit blessing of her husband who wanted to remain friendly with Nelson for political reasons, she set up home with the seaman, who renounced his marriage to Fanny. Emma and Nelson had a child, Horatia, lost one, and Nelson, after a brief retirement returned to sea where, as everyone knows, he was eventually killed at Trafalgar, much to the sadness of Emma who was obliged to sell the family home at Merton and fled to France, almost penniless as Nelson's relations would not fulfil his lordship's wishes by bestowing money on her. Nelson's letters to Emma were published, an act which exposed the relationship to all and sundry and Emma died in poverty before she was 50 and she was buried outside Calais (there was no money to transport her body back to England) with her funeral costing £28 compared to the £14,000 lavished on her lover. A rags to riches to rags tale that is a superb portrait of an age long gone.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

England’s Mistress is a well written biography of Emma Hamilton. Unfortunately I discovered that Emma Hamilton is not at all as interesting as I assumed her to be. I don’t fault Kate Williams for this, but I did feel she could have mitigated it some by cutting out much of the final third of the biography. The first half tells of Emma’s rags to riches story, which mostly consists of her being an artistic muse while sleeping her way to fame. However, once she reaches the point most people think of her at (married to Lord Hamilton, sleeping with Lord Nelson) she becomes rather dull. I got the impression she was a pretty shallow woman who spent most of her time in hysterics either excited about her love for Nelson, or upset everyone else wasn’t as in love with Nelson as she was. Lord Hamilton went along with this for reasons that still aren’t clear to me, and Nelson was just an ass who liked to wave his sword around (wow, that just happened). So the final parts of the book reads like one of those breathless, obsessive relationships your friends had in freshman year of high school that you didn’t care about, and really couldn’t stand to hear about either. The pacing was uneven, and towards the end, it was mostly Emma whipping herself into a frenzy, and Williams relating the thousand or so times Emma petitioned the various British princes for money, and was too stupid to realize that it wasn’t coming. All in all, I was pretty excited when Emma died, and rather upset that Horatia wasn’t discussed in much detail. Perhaps I should have looked for a triple biography of the Hamiltons and Nelson.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book!! So insightful and very well written. Lady Hamilton is brought to life once again through an excellently researched, highly entertaining biography. Having known very little about her before I read her story, I now find her fascinating and have not stopped finding out more about since finishing. I would love to see a film as popular The Duchess made about her, as the two were apparently quite well acquainted and shared a similar level of fame and media interest. Their shared love of fashion and unattainable men were also quite remarkable, but while Georgiana had a relationship with an MP, Emma had one with a national hero. Hers and Nelson’s love story is told against a backdrop of war and desperation, and although Williams only had Nelson’s letters to go on (he burnt all hers when he was away so as not to reveal anything about their affair), the sexual tension between the two and their longing for each other is not held back due to this absence. Overall, a thoroughly recommended book, particularly for those who are interested in historical figures, and those who enjoy a good love story.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

A cross between historical fiction and biography, England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton is a biased portrait of an 18th century courtesan turned elite mistress. The fascinating parts of this book, for me, included details of Emma's intimate friendships with Queen Maria Carolina (Marie Antoinette’s sister) as well as her friendships with the famous Duchess of Devonshire and Bess Foster.

I am really giving this read 2.5 stars. Williams' rendition of Emma's life is soft and forgiving and, to an extent, that is a refreshing tone when discussing the life of Emma Hamilton. It is clear, however, that Williams is very sympathetic towards Emma's plights and is equally harsh on the other players throughout Emma's life who are portrayed as quick to take advantage of her generosity and desire to please others.

I would recommend this book if you are particularly interested in Emma Hamilton, her love story with Nelson or gaining different perspectives of European court life in the 18th century. I did not find that this book, however, gave an unprejudiced biographical account of Emma's life or motives and I found that it read more like a novel than a biography.

[River Tam · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some serious errors in the book. At one point, Sir William is described as being 18 months away from his 80th birthday. He was about 20 years younger. He only lived into his 70s.

The author claims Mary Shelly died at the hands of a brutal doctor in childbirth. But she didn't. She died of a brain tumor in her postmenopausal years.

And the account of what happened to Princess Lamballe is a mix of terrible truth and utterly prurient myth.

The author claimed that Frank Austen was Jane Austen's "dearest brother." He was her brother and he was dear to her, but to describe him as her "dearest" brother is inaccurate. Jane Austen's favorite brother was Henry.

Everything the author says about Jane Austen's Emma is ridiculously inaccurate.

Despite the author's claim, no one in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park mentions Trafalgar or Waterloo.

So, although I enjoyed the book, I cannot trust it or its author to give me accurate information.

I have absolutely no faith in the information Kate Williams presents as fact.

It's just not reliable.

[Dorothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. The story of Emma is rather interesting and a true rags to riches to rags cautionary tale. It has all the components of great late Georgian stories: classism, snobbery, sex, beauty, courtesans, playboys and pimps, absurd wealth and despairing destitution, gender struggles, avarice, deluded grandeur and real historical drama. That said, the author's adulation of her heroine blinded her to Emma's fatal flaws and more disappointingly missed an opportunity to draw culturally apt reflections on the real story of this woman's mindful efforts to be a grand dame. The author's insistence that Emma was the catalyst for all fashions and style during her brief reign is simply asinine. That Emma was a reality star and trend-setter is undeniable but her real cleverness lay in anticipating style trends (I.e. neoclassicalism and the Empire) and co-opting them to her distinctive beauty and sensuousness.

An interesting story, a mediocre biography.

[Mark Farley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kate is of a exasperatingly welcome, new breed of historian, leading the way amongst a clever and witty bunch of folk who not only cover history in a stuffy old academic way, but has reinvigorated the genre, making it accessible to those that would not even have the courage and the interest in history. This is no more evident than in both of Kate's wonderful, effervescent tomes and her work so far in TV, where she has redefined the presentation of historical figures and made them the captivating figures they always desired to be in the first place, but images have fallen victim to dull and uninspiring writers and personalities that make you pass the bookshelves or reach for the remote. This book is great and I can't recommend it enough. It has given me a new thirst and interest to read more about history and I have been looking for someone for a long time to turn me onto this genre. If nothing else is achieved, this book has done just that.

[Korynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly extensive biography of the life of Emma Hamilton nee Amy Lyon. It is fascinating how a young girl of no skill manages to use beauty and sex as a way to gain entry into a level of society she would have otherwise been denied. It is more than amazing that she appeared to have tremendous luck in choosing a husband and a lover that were willing to share her. However, too late, Lady Hamilton discovers that her wiles do not make up for the utter lack of compassion that greets her after her husband, lover and close friends die, leaving her penniless and ruined. Obviously she should have spent more time charging for licensing.
The book is fairly balanced and not too adoring of its subject although it does seek to liberate her from her branded profession as a courtesan by showing her tact as a politician and envoy of England.

[Helena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was just re-organising my books and saw this one.It was an excellent read It describes the life of Emma Hamilton born with nothing but a hard life ahead of her who becomes the most famous woman of her times .This is a serious biographical work which is extremely readable . I have lent it to many friends .I have subsequently read a few novels on the life of Nelson .What a short man of few personal charms but his fame . Nelson's harbour is worth a visit in Antigua to get a feel of what life must have been like for a sailor in those times .

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I said earlier during the book progress, I'm not really a fan of biographies but this one was a real page turner. I can now safely Lady Emma Hamilton is now one of my favourite heroines. Williams' diction oozes sympathy towards the protagonist throughout the whole story and although Emma was no angel, the biography transported me back to Georgian England which I missed as soon as I finished the book. Two thumbs up for Kate Williams :))

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was well done, although it took me some time to get into the way it was told. It is amazing the information the author gathered and if there was unknown information it was highly researched, explained and/or hypothesized.
Interesting how you can see parallels with certain current aspects of society. Overall I enjoyed it very much.