Victoria & Friends: Ira Aldridge and Ada Lovelace



The second season of Victoria, the BBC mini-series on the life of Queen Victoria, is currently airing on Masterpiece (PBS) in the U.S. It’s a wonderful production, enriched by the performances of Jenna Coleman as the young Victoria, and Tom Hughes as her great love and husband, Prince Albert.

Regency fans are very aware that Victoria’s story starts in the Regency (she was born in 1819) and continued to involve people and events from that time period. After all, Victoria herself was the niece of King George IV (aka the Prince Regent or Prinny) and if it hadn’t been for the death of George’s daughter Charlotte in childbirth, and the reluctance and/or inability of George’s royal brothers to beget legitimate heirs, she may never have ascended the throne.

Imagine – no Victoria, no Victorian Age. What a loss for Great Britain and the world that would have been!

In the second season of Victoria, there's an episode where we see the young queen and her husband encouraging the arts and sciences to flourish in their kingdom. Featured in that episode were an African-American actor, Ira Aldridge, and a female mathematician, Ada Lovelace (whom I mentioned in an earlier post on Byron, Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know).  

Ira Aldridge and Ada Lovelace weren’t the inventions of some screenwriter’s vivid imagination – they were real people, born during or just before the Regency era. Both were notable pioneers in their respective fields.

I could write lengthy posts about these remarkable people, but I’ll limit myself to a snapshot of their lives. Here are a few facts about each of them:


Ira Aldridge

Ira Aldridge as Othello


  • Born a free man in New York City in 1807, Ira received his education at the African free school and got his first acting credit performing at the African Grove Theater in New York, the first African-American playhouse in the US., known for its productions of Shakespeare’s plays.
  • Though he landed some roles on the stages of New York, he was discouraged by the segregation and discrimination he encountered in the U.S. In a bid for greater career opportunities, Aldridge decided to go to England in 1824. (Parliament outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807 and abolished slavery altogether in 1833.) 
  • He was the first African-American actor to establish an acting career in a foreign country, starting with a 7-week run at the Royal Coburg Theatre in London in 1825.
  • One of his most famous roles was the lead in Shakespeare's  Othello, and it’s in that role that we see him in Victoria.
  • In 1824, Aldridge married a white English woman, Margaret Gill. Their union lasted for 40 years until Margaret died.
  • Aldridge intended to go back to the United States after the Civil War ended, but he never made it. He died in 1867 during a visit to Poland, where he is buried.
  • Aldridge’s life and work inspired the creation of acting companies bearing his name in cities across the United States. And in 2012, Red Velvet, a play by Lolita Chakrabarti about Aldridge and how he broke the color barrier for actors performing Shakespeare, premiered in London. Since then the play has been produced in several U.S. cities, most recently enjoying a nearly 2-month run in Chicago (December 1, 2017, through January 21, 2018.) 



Ada Lovelace

Ada Byron at age 17 

  • She was born Augusta Ada Byron in 1815 in London. Her parents were aristocrats – her mother was Anna Isabella Milbanke, and her father was the poet Lord Byron - and they separated soon after her birth. Byron was reportedly disappointed that his only legitimate offspring was a girl.
  • Ada’s mother was so determined that Ada not take after her father and become a poet that she steered the young girl towards science and mathematics. Ada proved to be especially gifted at math.
  • Ada met mathematician Charles Babbage (sometimes called the father of the computer) when she was 17. A decade later, Ada translated an Italian mathematician’s article on Babbage’s Analytical Machine. She added a set of notes that were longer than the original article, explaining in detail how the machine could function. In her notes, she wrote and published the world's first computer algorithm.  
  • Ada was one of the first people to realize that Babbage’s machine could do more than just compute numbers, and could have applications in music, graphics, and other areas. 
  • She married a high-ranking peer, William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace, and bore him two sons and a daughter.
  • Ada died of uterine cancer in 1852, when she was only 36. Coincidentally, that was how old her father was when he died of fever in Greece in 1824, where he was supporting that country’s war for independence.
  • Ada continues to inspire professionals and students in technical fields like computing, engineering, and mathematics. Schools and computer centers around the world are named in her honor. And here a few other ways she's remembered: the Lovelace Medal, a British Computing Society award; the Ada Developers Academy in Seattle; Ada Lovelace Day, held every October to celebrate women's achievements in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); and Ada, a computer language used by the U.S. Department of Defense.  


So there you have it: two people who lived almost two centuries ago, whose legacy continues to inspire contemporary ideas and innovation in the arts and sciences.

Victoria and Albert would be proud.


For more on Ada Lovelace, here’s a quick clip explaining her contribution to the computing world:






Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Friday Follies: The art of the circus


"The Circus" by George Seurat

With its bright colors, nonstop action and death-defying stunts, the circus is an irresistible draw for artists and audiences alike.

You can find circuses in movies, books, paintings and even music. Just this past holiday season, The Greatest Showman, with Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, and Zendaya, debuted on the big screen. The film is a fictionalized account of the life of Phineas Taylor (P.T.) Barnum, who among his many diverse accomplishments established a traveling circus.




But The Greatest Showman is only one of many circus-themed films that have graced the cinema. In 1952, The Greatest Show on Earth, starring Jimmy Stewart, Charlton Heston, and Betty Hutton, was a big hit, winning an Oscar for Best Picture at the 1953 Academy Awards.  

Burt Lancaster, who as a young man worked as a circus acrobat, starred in 1956’s Trapeze, along with Tony Curtis and Gina Lollobrigida.

And a bit more recently, the 2011 film Water for Elephants, with Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, and Christoph Waltz, explored life and romance behind the scenes of a traveling circus.

Water for Elephants isn’t just a movie; it started out as a book by Sara Gruen. And Gruen isn’t the first, nor will she be the last, writer to inspired by the romantic lure of a circus.

In my post earlier this week on Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre, I described how the imagination of Regency audiences was captured by this first circus. This fascination was reflected in the literature of the time.

Jane Austen's Emma
(title page from the 1909 edition)


In Emma (published in 1815), Jane Austen used a show at Astley’s to reunite her two secondary characters, Harriet Smith and Robert Martin, after her title character, Emma, had done her best to split them apart.

And in his book Sketches by Boz, (published in a series of newspapers and other periodicals from 1833-1836) Charles Dickens devoted a chapter to a description of a family enjoying a night of entertainment at Astley’s.

The same sort of scene appears in The Newcomes, Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family (1855), by William Makepeace Thackeray. The Victorian novelist also describes a family enjoying a circus performance at Astley’s, where they laughed at the clown’s jokes and thrilled at seeing the Battle of Waterloo acted out in the sawdust circus ring.  

Boomers and others who are familiar with all the songs on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) might be surprised to learn that there's a reference to a performer who once worked at Astley's in the song “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”

Pablo Fanque, aka William Darby


The subject of this Lennon-McCartney tune is a Victorian traveling circus, and the song mentions Pablo Fanque, who once wowed audiences in the ring at Astley’s Amphitheatre. 

Born William Darby in Norwich, England, Fanque made history as the first non-white British circus owner in the United Kingdom. The Illustrated London News described him as “proficient in rope-dancing, tumbling, posturing, etc.” adding that he was a “skillful rider” and was considered a “very good equestrian.”

Fanque established his own circus, (Pablo Fanque's Circus Royal) which he took on tour throughout the British Isles. Here’s an 1843 poster advertising a show in Rochdale, England. Scroll through it; you can see where John Lennon got the inspiration for his lyrics.




And speaking of the song, here it is:





And to think it all started with Philip Astley!



Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Astley's Royal Amphitheatre: the first circus

Astley's Royal Amphitheatre in London around 1808


“Damn everything but the circus!” e.e.cummings famously exclaimed during a series of “non-lectures” he gave at Harvard in the early 1950s. Few in Regency England would’ve quibbled with that viewpoint if it’d been expressed over a century earlier. Because for visitors to London in the late 18th or early 19th century, a visit to Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre to see the circus was an absolute must.

Philip Astley (1742-1814) was an expert horseman and riding teacher. Six feet tall, he learned how to ride when he was a cavalry officer in the British army. Astley decided to teach riding, and he also wanted the show off the tricks he and his horses could do. So he opened a riding school in Lambeth (located on the southern outskirts of London just across the Westminster Bridge) in 1768. He taught in the morning and did tricks with his horses in the afternoon. His wife Patty provided musical accompaniment for the action on the field by banging on a drum.

Patty was also an expert on horseback, and she joined her husband’s performances. The two Astleys must have been something to see. Her best trick was riding while wearing a “muff” made of live bees on her hands and arms. Astley was famous for combining comedy with horseback riding, which he did in an act he called the Tailor of Brentford. 

Astley added other acts to his shows, additions that included "rope dancers" (acrobats on a tightrope), strong men, and jugglers. By 1780 he’d built a roof over the open field he used so audiences could enjoy the show during rainy weather.

Philip Astley, regarded as
the father of the modern circus


Astley didn’t create the art of trick riding, nor was he the first person to use acrobatic stunts to entertain audiences. But he did combine these two types of performances, and it was a wild success.

And Astley’s amphitheater was also innovative in that the horses and their riders did their tricks in a circle, instead of the straight lines that other trick riders used. Astley’s circus ring, which he debuted in 1768, was 42 feet in diameter, and that’s been the international standard size of a circus ring ever since.  

His idea of using a circle was a good one for two reasons: the audience could see the riders better, and by going round and round in a circle the riders were able to use centrifugal force to stay balanced as they stood on their mounts.

Astley opened his "Royal Amphitheatre" in 1795 after his first building burned down. (Theatres and buildings of this time it were lit by candles, which meant they inevitably caught fire and burned to the ground. Astley's amphitheaters were no exception; they were destroyed by fire and had to be rebuilt several times over the years.)  


The original Astley's Amphitheatre in 1777, before the roof was added

Astley's new building had a proscenium arch over a massive stage, with ramps connecting the stage to the circus ring. That design not only brought the audience closer to the action, but it also increased the possibilities for dramatic acts and stunts, which Astley took full advantage of in his shows. 

Astley himself didn’t use the term “circus;” that word was coined by his rival, Charles Dibdin, who used the circular ring as inspiration for the term. Dibdin created a show almost identical to Astley’s in 1782 and called it “The Royal Circus.”

Astley’s shows became famous throughout Europe. In 1772 he was invited to Versailles to perform for King Louis XV and his court. Astley went on to build amphitheaters in 18 other cities across the Continent, including one in Paris in 1782.

By the early 1800s, his London show was housed in a splendid space. Regency audiences thrilled to see the daring exploits on horseback performed by Astley’s son and daughter-in-law, John and Hannah Astley.

Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre was described by contemporaries as “the handsomest pleasure haunt in London.” Though the exterior wasn’t that impressive, the inside was adorned by hanging chandeliers and three tiers of seats surrounding the sawdust ring. There was an orchestra and a stage that for a time was the biggest in London. 



Pablo Fanque performing at Astley's in 1847. (He's mentioned
in the Beatles' song "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"
on their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.)


Audiences were thrilled by the inventive acts, including melodramas that incorporated magicians, sword fights, tightrope walkers, and clowns. Jugglers kept audiences entertained between acts. And of course, grand feats of horsemanship and were also on the bill of fare, while elaborate “equestrian spectacles” were the big draw.

Astley’s show was so popular that mention of it can be found in the works of 19th-century novelists like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and William Makepeace Thackeray.

Though it had different owners following Astley’s death in 1814, Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre provided circus entertainment for the public throughout most of the 19th century. It finally closed in 1893 and the building was torn down the next year.

But Astley’s original idea didn’t die; it evolved into countless other circuses around the world, including the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (now defunct) and today’s popular Cirque de Soleil. 

Cirque de Soleil performing Dralion in Vienna in 2004, photo by
Clemens Pfeiffer (Wikimedia user Jean Gagnon)


And currently performing in cities across North America is a touring entertainment company called Cavalia that features horses and riders in what's been described as an "equestrian ballet."  

A Cavalia show can include riders doing acrobatic stunts on horseback like the “Haute Ecole” (a trick where the horse jumps, also known as “airs above the ground”), vaulting (where the rider does gymnastics on horseback) and riding without a bridle. In other words, trick riding.


So, in many ways, Astley’s vision of circus entertainment is still alive and well here in the 21st century!



A Cavalia "mirror" scene
(Lynne Glazer, CC-BY-SA 2.0)




All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons


Sources for this post include:
  • "The First Circus" from the Victoria and Albert Museum website
  • Laudermilk, Sharon H. and Hamlin, Teresa L., The Regency Companion, Garland Publishing, Inc., New York & London, 1989

Friday Follies: Best and Worst Pride and Prejudice Film Adaptations




As I promised in my last post, today I’m going to review a few of the many versions of Pride and Prejudice modified for the screen. The Internet Movie Database (IMDB.com) lists seven television mini-series, going back as far as 1952, a short movie made for TV in 1938 by the BBC (yes, I’m as surprised by the date as you are), and at least three full-length feature films with that exact title.

But that number doesn’t begin to cover the many movies that have used Jane’s story and title either as a basis or a starting point for something quite different, or the scores of TV shows that feature a “pride-and-prejudice” themed episode.

Clearly, Jane’s tale of love and marriage has struck an enduring chord.

Which brings me to today’s Friday Folly: my very own, admittedly opinionated take on the best and worst adaptations of Jane Austen’s classic tale.

Let’s get the worst out of the way first:


1. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

Sorry, horror fans, but I think it’s a sacrilege to insert the walking dead and their penchant for eating brains into Jane’s gentle tale. And I say that with regret because Lily James (Cinderella, Lady Rose in Downton Abbey) is one of my favorite actresses and I think she would’ve made a fine Elizabeth Bennet without all the gore. I guess you just have to be a zombie fan (which clearly I'm not) to really appreciate this one.


2. Snide and Prejudice (1997)

My main objection to this one is that once again Jane’s title has been invoked for something quite different – a story about a mental patient who thinks he’s Hitler. This movie has its fans, including one very enthusiastic user reviewer on IMDB, but why, or why, must Jane be dragged into Hitler’s mess?


3. Pride and Prejudice, the 1940 MGM production

It pains me to include this movie on my worst list. The acting is fine – how could it not be with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy? And one of the screenwriters is the distinguished Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World. 

But the history nerd in me can’t get past the wardrobe department's disregard for the story's Regency-era setting.  

I mean, look at the gowns the Bennet sisters are wearing in this scene. Where's the distinctive Regency silhouette, with its loose, slender lines and high waists? The full skirts and leg of mutton sleeves shown here are from another era altogether. And don’t even get me started on Garson's 1940’s hairstyle.





Even if I could let those anachronisms go, I can’t forgive the publicity department's attempt to sell tickets by using advertising that promises something racier than Jane wrote. You can see what I'm talking about in this movie poster:




“Not Suitable for General Exhibition”? Really? And even worse, this tagline: “When Pretty Girls T-e-a-s-e-d Men into Marriage!” Jane would’ve probably reacted to all this hype with a wry smile, but I’m indignant on her behalf.


And now for the best adaptations, in my view:

1. Pride and Prejudice, 1995 BBC mini-series

For me, this is the gold standard by which all Pride and Prejudice adaptations, past and future, will inevitably be judged. Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth captured the essences of their roles perfectly, and their reward is that these roles will follow them for their rest of their careers. Remember the scene in The King’s Speech where Colin Firth as King George VI briefly interacts with Jennifer Ehle, who played the wife of the King’s speech therapist? It only lasted for a few moments, but for me, it was Mr. Darcy meeting Elizabeth all over again.


2. Pride & Prejudice, the 2005 movie

While Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen didn’t quite capture, in my opinion, the characters of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy the way Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth did, the movie was quite lovely, and the details – hair, costuming, setting – were believably accurate. This is a worthy addition to the list of great Pride and Prejudice adaptations.


3. Bride and Prejudice (2004)

This story, set in modern-day India, doesn’t try to invoke Regency England. Yet the spirit of this Bollywood musical is very close to the spirit of Jane’s novel, and I found the film delightful. I thought the lovely Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was very effective channeling Elizabeth Bennet in her role as Lalita, and you’ll see some familiar faces in the family of “William Darcy,” including Marsha Mason and Alexis Bledel (The Gilmore Girls) when the action shifts from India to Beverly Hills.

If you’re not familiar with the movie, here’s the trailer:




Before I wrap this up, I feel obliged to give an Honorable Mention to 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary (the first installment, not its dismal sequels), which is a merry riff on the basic themes of Pride and Prejudice. You know it’s a P&P adaptation at heart when you see Colin Firth reprise his role as a character named “Mark Darcy.” Though I doubt the level-headed Elizabeth Bennet would ever get into the kind of trouble Renée Zellweger does in this movie!  

So that's my list. What do you think - did I omit (or misjudge) a favorite of yours? Let me know in the comments!



Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The debut of Pride and Prejudice

A watercolor portrait of Jane Austen,
done in 1804 by her sister Cassandra


January is a banner month for Jane Austen fans like me – and if you’re reading this blog, I suspect you’re one of us, too. Towards the end of January 1813, Pride and Prejudice was published to the everlasting delight of millions of future readers.

Of course, it was published anonymously, but that wasn't unusual for women writers then. There were a few published female authors (Maria Edgeworth, author of Castle Rackrent, Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, to name two) around this time, but literature, like most other intellectual pursuits, was a predominantly male domain.

And, I suspect it took critics a while to consider Jane Austen the literary heavyweight she is, and fully appreciate her work. In fact, when I was a college student some years ago, Austen didn’t make it into the 2-volume Norton Anthology of English Literature (3rd edition) I had to study as part of my English major curriculum. The books, which together contained over 4,000 pages, covered English literature from the Middle Ages to the mid-20th century, but apparently, there was no place in all those pages for Austen.

But back to Pride and Prejudice  - though published in 1813, Jane may have actually written it as far back as 1796. Initially, the book was titled First Impressions, and her family liked it so much that in the autumn of 1797 her father George sent his daughter’s manuscript (perhaps without her knowledge) to a London publisher, Thomas Cadell. Cadell rejected the book in the most dismissive way – he sent it back like a boomerang marked “Declined by return of post.”

And thus Cadell joined the ranks of publishers who rejected books that would go on to become best-sellers, a no-doubt rueful group that includes the publishers who rejected J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Stephen King's Carrie, and Herman Melville's Moby Dick, among a legion of others.
  
Pride and Prejudice was not Jane’s first published work. Jane’s brother Henry Austen helped her get Sense and Sensibility published in 1811, anonymously, of course – the byline reads “By a Lady.”

And when Pride and Prejudice was published two years later (after Jane revised and retitled her First Impressions manuscript) its byline read “By the author of 'Sense and Sensibility'.”


Original title page of Pride and Prejudice


Before her death in July of 1817, Austen saw two other books published, though still anonymously. Mansfield Park was published in 1814, and Emma came out in 1815. Following Jane's death, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously as a set in 1817.

As part of the Northanger Abbey/Persuasion set, Henry included a tribute to his sister, identifying her as the author of the books. But it wasn’t until Persuasion was published in France, in French, in 1821 that Jane Austen’s name appeared on the title page of one of her books.

In addition to the published novels written entirely by Jane, there are other three other manuscripts published under her name, one that she wrote but never tried to publish herself Lady Susan (published in 1871), and two that were unfinished manuscripts completed by others, The Watsons (1871), and Sanditon (1925).

But Pride and Prejudice remains Jane’s most popular novel. Since its publication, it’s sold over 20 million copies and never been out of print. (Take that, Norton Anthology of English Literature!) Austen's work has been adapted almost more times than I can count, especially if you add all the books and films that have used its title and theme as a starting point before veering off into uncharted territory. (More on the adaptations this Friday.).

The most recent movie adaptation (that doesn’t feature zombies) is the 2005 movie with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. The critical reviews were good and the scenery was gorgeous, but for me, the best casting of Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy was not Knightley and Macfadyen but rather Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth in the 1995 BBC TV mini-series.  

Here’s a popular scene from the mini-series, an unexpected and awkward meeting between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy at Darcy’s Pemberley estate, in which both he and she have reason to be embarrassed:




Happy 205th publication anniversary, Pride and Prejudice!


Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Friday Follies: Five Famous Romances

My post earlier this week on Emma Hamilton got me thinking about famous romances, especially those of real-life couples, which I find much more interesting than storybook lovers like Romeo and Juliet.

So, in keeping with my focus on British history, I’ve compiled a list of five famous couples from the 19th and 20th centuries. All but Napoleon and Josephine are English, and I included the Emperor because he's so closely tied to the Regency period and in many ways a mirror image of Nelson, his contemporary and foe. 


1. Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton


Admiral Nelson and Emma in Naples, as seen in this
early 19th century German painting

I went into detail on the love affair of Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton in my post on January 10. But no mere account of their romance can explain the hold it has had on the popular imagination over the last two centuries. Emma herself, and her love affair with Nelson, has inspired painters, novelists, musicians, and filmmakers. These artists have tried to capture or explain the magic that drew the military genius to the beautiful and effervescent Emma, who proved in the Naples that she could be just as brave and resourceful as her famous lover. 

Perhaps her charm and artless intelligence was a balm to the man who constantly had to carry the heavy burden of protecting England from a French invasion when it seemed inevitable that Napoleon would conquer all of Europe. Nelson was known for being an effective leader who inspired loyalty among his men; he certainly inspired loyalty in Emma, who kept his memory alive for the ten years she lived after his death. 


2. Napoleon and Joséphine de Beauharnais

A young Napoleon sits on a bench with Josephine in this
19th-century Italian painting by an unknown artist

Joséphine de Beauharnais was born on the Caribbean island of Martinique. Before she met Napoleon Bonaparte in 1795 she'd been widowed courtesy of the guillotine and survived a stint in prison during the Reign of Terror. Napoleon, six years younger than Joséphine, fell passionately in love with her and made her his mistress. But that wasn't enough for him; he proposed her in January of 1796 and they married two months later. 

The course of their relationship was never entirely smooth; there were affairs on both sides, which dimmed some of Napoleon's ardor. Still, he made Joséphine Empress of the French, along with crowning himself Emperor, in 1804 in Notre-Dame Cathedral with Pope Pius VII presiding.

While on his military campaigns, Napoleon wrote passionate letters to his Joséphine, eloquently expressing his love. Many of these letters still exist. But their marriage didn't last. When it became obvious that Joséphine couldn't give the Emperor a child, he had their marriage annulled in 1810 so he could beget an heir with a younger woman. It was an unusual divorce; at the ceremony, Napoleon and Joséphine read statements declaring their love and devotion to each other, and the Emperor decreed that Joséphine keep the title of Empress

Napoleon was in exile on Elba in 1814 when he heard of Joséphine's death. He reportedly locked himself in his room for two days, talking to no one while he worked through his grief. And, when he died seven years later on St. Helena, "Joséphine'"was the last word on his lips.

 
 
3. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

Prince Albert and Queen Victoria
on their wedding day, Feb. 10, 1840


By all accounts, Victoria's marriage to her cousin Albert was a love match that only grew stronger with time. The couple married in 1840 and had nine children before Albert's death in 1861. Following Albert's death, Victoria went into deep mourning that lessened only slightly before her own death 40 years later in 1901. For the rest of her life and reign, Victoria dressed in black mourning clothes and limited her appearances in public. She focused on building public memorials to her husband, and in the homes she shared with her late husband she made sure that his rooms stayed exactly as he'd left them before he died. People referred to the Queen as "the widow of Windsor."

Recently Victoria has been the subject of two films that do a good job of showing her as a living, breathing woman capable of a passionate love, instead of the dour, overweight figure we've come to associate with her. One is a PBS Masterpiece series called simply Victoria, starring Jenna Coleman and soon to air its second season here in the U.S. The other is  The Young Victoriaa 2009 film in which Emily Blunt does a great job portraying Victoria in the early years of her reign and her marriage. 


4. King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson

Prince Edward with Wallis Simpson in 1934,
before he became king and they got married

The Prince of Wales and future King Edward VIII was a playboy who’d had many mistresses by the time he met the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. In fact, it was one of his mistresses, Lady Furness, who introduced the Prince to Wallis in 1931 while Wallis was living in London with her second husband, Ernest Simpson. After the introduction, the Simpsons became part of the Prince’s social set, and Wallis and the Prince saw a lot of each other from 1931 to 1934. In 1934 Wallis was even presented at court, and that was also the year the Prince reportedly took her as his mistress.

But their affair became an international incident and provoked a constitutional crisis after the Prince became King in January of 1936. By this time Edward was completely infatuated with Mrs. Simpson and he wanted to marry her. Wallis was in the process of divorcing her second husband, but that didn’t matter to Parliament or the governments in the British Dominions, all of whom opposed the King’s marriage plans. Declaring that he couldn’t rule without the woman he loved by his side, Edward abdicated in December of 1936. He married his lover in France in June of 1937 after her divorce became final. Wallis and Edward stayed married for the next 35 years until his death in 1972, but they never lived in England again. 

5. Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall in Northern Ireland,
May 2015. Photo by Aaron McCracken, (CC-BY-2.0)

This pairing is no doubt the most controversial on my list, in part because the love and affection many people have for Charles' first wife, Princess Diana, is still strong 20 years after her death. Some also still fault the Prince for not severing his ties to his former mistress Camilla when he married Diana. (For my take on Diana's life and death, see my earlier post Remembering a Princess.) 

But I believe that Charles and Camilla's love affair was one of the most significant of the 20th century because it resulted in a precedent-shattering royal divorce, and also because Camilla will most likely sit on the throne beside Charles when (and if) he becomes king. Plus, I figure that if Prince William and Prince Harry can accept their stepmother, as they apparently do, who am I to judge?  

So, there you have it - my list of five famous couples, most of whom braved convention and scandal for the sake of their love. (Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are the exceptions.)

Not all these love stories ended happily, especially for the women involved. As I detailed in my earlier post this week, Emma Hamilton died alone and poor, her glory days long behind her. When Joséphine agreed to her impatient lover's wishes to marry, she was rewarded by being cast aside when she couldn't produce an heir. And although Queen Victoria had nothing to complain about in Albert, she mourned his death for 40 years, unable to move beyond her loss.

Wallis Simpson put a brave face on, but I don’t think her life turned out the way she’d planned, and she died alone in the glamorous exile she’d shared for many long decades with her disgraced royal lover. As for Charles and Camilla, their story isn’t over yet, so the ending of their romance is yet to unfold.

Still, the lives of most of these famous lovers (especially Simpson’s) bear out the truth of Oscar Wilde’s quip from The Ideal Husband“When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.”



Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Emma Hamilton


Emma as the temptress Circe, by George Romney, 1782

This month marks the sad end of one the most famous love stories of the Regency era – that of Emma Hamilton and Lord Nelson.

Now, I find Emma fascinating for a number of reasons. She was a bright spark of a girl, born in poverty but soon able to use her good looks and vivacious personality to get ahead in life.

She was fortunate to find a kind man to marry her and a great man to love her. But she was unable to secure the affection of her children, and by the end of her life lost everything, perhaps because she never developed the strength of mind and character that's often needed to deal with life's vicissitudes. 

See what you think. Here are some biographical facts about Emma:

Emma Hamilton was born as Amy (some sources say Emily) Lyon to an illiterate blacksmith and his wife in a Cheshire country village in 1765. At some point early in her life, she changed her name to Emma. Her mother also changed her name from Mary Kidd to Mrs. Cadogan, and Mrs. Cadogan spent the rest of her life (she died on a January day in 1810) by Emma's side, apparently exerting a good influence that was sorely missed later.

Emma's beauty was abundantly apparent at an early age. With her lithe figure, masses of red-gold hair, and large blue-gray eyes, she became a magnet for artists wishing to capture her likeness, most notably the painter George Romney. Emma was Romney's muse, and he made about 30-50 portraits of her (some clothed, some nude) when she was a young girl. 

Emma was also famous for her “attitudes,” a performing art she helped popularize that combined modeling, acting, and dance. These “attitudes” were a popular parlor game, much like charades, at the end of the 18th century, with girls striking poses and their audience guessing who they were trying to be. Of Emma, it was said that with nothing but a shawl and a couple of scarves, she could convincingly portray any number of classical figures from Greek myths.

Here’s a serious portrait, made in 1790 by French painter Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, of Emma posing as the Greek mythological figure Ariadne:



And here’s a caricature of Emma, drawn around the same time, by satirist Thomas Rowlandson:



Emma had natural talents in singing and dancing, and her beauty caught the attention of men who wished to do more than paint her. In her early teens, she worked for a time as a maid, and also as a model and dancer at Scottish doctor James Graham's "Temple of Health." But by the age of 15, she’d found a protector, Sir Henry Fetherstonhaugh, who used her as a hostess to entertain his male friends who came to visit him, shoot pheasants and basically "party" like frat boys at his country estate, Uppark.

About this time 16-year-old Emma became pregnant, and a furious Sir Henry turned her out. There’s some dispute among her biographers whether Sir Henry was the father, or the father was one of his guests, the Hon. Charles Francis Greville, younger son of the Earl of Warwick. In any case, it was Greville that a frantic Emma appealed to for help and Greville who took her in, arranging support for her child. (One biographer claims that Greville would've been unlikely to do that if he didn’t believe himself to be the father, and I tend to agree.) 

Though the teenage Emma was allowed some contact with her daughter, the child was raised by another, and later in life, Emma refused to even acknowledge the girl as hers.  

It seems that the ebullient Emma believed herself madly in love with the much older and more serious Greville, and he took care of her for a time. But when he realized he needed to find a wealthy wife he handed Emma off to his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, who was serving as a British ambassador to the Court of Naples.

Hamilton was in his 50s and a widower when he met Emma, who was half his age. At first, their relationship was platonic, but he gradually became enamored of the young woman and they began an affair. Hamilton sought and received special permission from King George III to marry his mistress. That permission was grudgingly granted, and they married when the diplomat was 60 and his young wife was only 26.

Sir William Hamilton in 1774


Despite the wedding, George III still disapproved of the new Lady Hamilton, and Emma was never received at Court back home in England. At that time, once a woman’s reputation was lost she never really recovered it, even with the mantle of respectability that matrimony might bestow.

In Naples, Emma did some amazing things. She became the friend and confidante of the Queen of Naples and Sicily, Maria Carolina, sister of Marie Antoinette. Emma bravely helped Maria Carolina and her children escape the French mob that threatened to overrun Naples while the French Revolution raged in France. Emma was also awarded the Cross of Malta medal for her work in getting supplies to that island while the French occupied it in 1798.

Nelson painted in 1798 

Though uneducated, Emma seems to have been remarkably intelligent, witty and resourceful, a friend to crowned heads and consort to famous men. And in the late 18th and early 19th century, few men were more famous than naval hero Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson, who was also 1st Viscount Nelson. (Here's a post I wrote about this Regency superhero a while back.)

Nelson met Emma in Naples after his victory at the Battle of the Nile. Nelson needed a place to stay while his ships were being refitted and supplies obtained, I'm sure he also needed some rest and relaxation following the fight. Sir William graciously invited Nelson to stay with him and Emma.

It’s hard to picture the physical appeal Nelson must have had. By the time he met Emma, he’d lost an arm and most of his teeth in battle, along with the sight in one eye (from a spray of gravel). He had coughing spells and a head wound that left him with a scar and blinding headaches. 

He was also married, with a wife (Frances "Fanny" Nisbet) back in England. But Nelson was a national hero, and he must've had some personal magnetism to boot because Emma fell passionately in love with him. And he, for his part, was utterly captivated by her.

Emma wearing the Cross of Malta. It was Nelson's favorite
portrait of her, which he displayed in his cabin aboard ship.
Pastel by Johann Heinrich Schmidt, 1800

Their love affair blossomed in Naples, where Emma became the hero’s mistress. In 1800 Emma became pregnant with Nelson’s child, and gave birth to Horatia on January 29, 1801, at the Hamilton home in Piccadilly, London. Nelson was in Torbay preparing to sail into battle (for the Battle of Copenhagen) when he got the news of his daughter’s birth. He was overjoyed. 

Nelson and Emma were godparents at the child's baptism, and later they officially adopted the “orphan." When Nelson returned to Britain, he and Emma lived together with Sir William at Merton Place, the Hamilton home in Surrey, in a much-gossiped-about ménage a troisEmma became pregnant by Nelson again, but this child, another daughter, died soon after birth.

How much of the love affair between Nelson and his wife Hamilton knew about and tolerated is uncertain. During his life, he acted as though Lord Nelson was merely a good friend of the family, and never showed any animosity to him or treated him as a rival. 

Perhaps Hamilton's age and ill health had something to do with his attitude. He died, age 72, in April of 1803, leaving Emma free to remarry. But she couldn’t marry her lover unless Nelson could get a divorce from his wife. And that was something Fanny adamantly refused to do, even though Nelson never lived with her again after she demanded, back in 1800, that he choose between her and Emma.

His actual response to his wife's ultimatum, sent via letter, was: "I love you sincerely but I cannot forget my obligations to Lady Hamilton or speak of her otherwise than with affection and admiration." 

And that was the end of that marriage, except of course for the pension Fanny received along with other tributes as Nelson's wife after his death.

Emma and Nelson stayed together in England, maintaining separate residences for propriety’s sake following Sir William’s death until Nelson returned to sea once more in 1805 to fight his old foe Napoleon at Trafalgar.

That glorious victory also marked the end of Nelson, who died a hero, shot through his spine while standing on the quarterdeck of his ship, the HMS Victory, during the battle. As he lay dying below decks, among Nelson’s last words was a plea “to take care of poor Lady Hamilton,” a request that went unheeded. 

Not a rich man himself, Nelson had actually left instructions for the government to provide for Emma and Horatia, but that never happened. Instead, the grateful nation showered money and titles on Nelson's family, particularly his brother.


The Fall of Nelson, by Denis Dighton 1825
(Nelson's on the right, prone after being shot.) 


Meanwhile, Emma was denied permission to attend Nelson's grand state funeral.

Sir William had left Emma a modest pension, but she soon exhausted it through gambling and extravagant spending. She even lost Merton Place, because she couldn't afford to maintain it.

In the years following Nelson's death, she repeatedly asked the government for money but was ignored. She successfully petitioned others for financial relief but was never able to hold on to the small sums she sometimes received. 

While Nelson was alive, apparently neither she, Sir William nor Nelson saw anything wrong with their unconventional living arrangement. But the rest of England didn't agree and society judged her harshly for it when the men involved were gone. 

As she aged Emma's charms faded; she grew quite stout and began to drink heavily, to the detriment of her health. She went in and out of debtor’s prison, keeping her daughter Horatia beside her, in the vain hope that the child would give her some leverage with her creditors.

On a temporary reprieve from prison in April of 2014, Emma managed somehow to get passage across the Channel to Calais, with thirteen-year-old Horatia in tow. She eventually went from a hotel lodging to a squalid single room where Horatia had to tend to her bodily needs, nursing her mother and pawning their meager belongings for money to survive.

Emma finally died, of liver failure and in dire poverty, at age 49 in Calais on January 15, 1815.

There was no money for a funeral, no money to honor Emma's wish to be buried in England. It was thanks to the charity of an Irish officer on half-pay that she had any services at all.

But on the day Emma was laid to rest, the master and captain of every English ship in the port of Calais put on his best clothes and went into town to follow her coffin to her grave. They did it as a final act of loyalty to Nelson who had been so steadfast and sincere in his love for his mistress.

Emma at age 17, painted by George Romney in 1782 

Following Emma’s death, Horatia went back to England, traveling in disguise as a boy to escape Emma’s creditors. She was taken in by one of Nelson’s sisters, and eventually married a clergyman, Philip Ward.

Horatia got to enjoy the happy family life that eluded Emma; she bore Ward 10 children and lived to be eighty. However, although she was proud that Nelson was her father, she never publicly admitted that Emma was her mother. That could be because she never got over her miserable experiences in debtor's prison and later in Calais with Emma.

Horatia Ward, Nelson's daughter
(Lilystyle, (CC-B-SA-4.0)


The love affair between Emma and Nelson has inspired many books (fiction and nonfiction) and films over the years. One of the better-known films is the 1941 movie, That Hamilton Woman, starring real-life married lovers Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier as Emma and Nelson. The accuracy of the film is a bit suspect; I can't help but notice that the anachronistic hairstyle and clothing Leigh wears are reminiscent of her 1939 hit movie, Gone with the Wind. 

If you'd like to see Olivier and Leigh in action, here's the trailer:



So next week on yet another January day I'll be thinking of "poor Lady Hamilton," a woman who, like  Shakespeare's Othello said of himself, "loved not wisely but too well." 



Sources used for this post include:

Emma Hamilton, by Norah Lofts, published by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc. New York, 1978

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