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The Wife's Tale: Frances, Lady Nelson and the

breakup of her marr iageColin Whit e

a

aDirector, Trafalgar 200

Version of record first published: 08 Feb 2011.

To cite this article: Coli n Whit e (2003): The Wif e's Tale: Frances, Lady Nelson and the b reakup of her m arriage, Journal

for Marit im e Research, 5:1, 121-142

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2/23

The Wife's Tale: Frances, Lady Nelson

and the break-up of her marriageISSN: 1469-1957

Journal Issue: October 2003

Colin White

Director, Trafalgar 200

I was truly Sensible of my good fortune in having such a Husband

An important new archive

Frances, Lady Nelson; miniature by Daniel Orme (watercolour on paper). Neg. No.

A0094; NMM.

In late June 1801 Frances, Lady Nelson learned that her husband, Vice Admiral Lord

Nelson, had been released from his post as Commander-in-Chief in the Baltic and was

daily expected home in Britain. She had not seen him for six months, during whichtime he had made it clear on a number of occasions that he considered their marriage

effectively at an end. So the news of his impending arrival both excited and upset her.

On 26 June she wrote to Alexander Davison, Nelson's prize agent and close friend,

'When I heard on Sunday that My Dear Lord was expected My heart was all

thankfulness and pleasure, but a moments unwelcome and intruding reflection made

me truly a miserable and pitiable being.' She then went on,

I love him I would do anything in the world to convince him of My affection I was

truly Sensible of my good fortune in having such a Husband Surely I have angered

him it was done unconsciously and without the least intension1 I can truly say,

My wish, My desire was to please him.2

121


3/23

This warmly loving and expressive passage challenges the traditional view of Frances

presented in most Nelson biographies. Even those most sympathetic to her have

tended to regret what A.T. Mahan described as 'a somewhat colourless womanly

affection'3 that made her unable to match her husbands energy and passion. Others

have gone further and sought to blame the breakdown of the marriage on her

emotional and sexual inadequacy. As recently as 1972, Geoffrey Bennett wrote, 'Amarriage between a man so warm-blooded and high-spirited and a woman so frigid

and neurotic was ill-starred from the beginning.'4

Until now, the problem biographers have encountered when dealing with Frances's

side of the Nelson story is that comparatively few of her letters survive in the

otherwise voluminous Nelson archive. Only seventy-four of her letters to him can

now be traced as opposed to almost 250 letters from Nelson to her and these cover

only the years 1794 and 17971800.5 Nelson habitually destroyed her letters even

before their marriage encountered difficulties for example, on the eve of the attack

on Tenerife in July 1797 her son Josiah Nisbet, then serving with his stepfather as a

lieutenant, found him burning some Frances's letters.6 As a result Frances has beenjudged, usually most unfairly, on the strength of a wholly unrepresentative body of

material and there has arisen what one of Nelsons latest biographers rightly dismisses

as, 'the lasting myth'7 of Francess inadequacy and coldness.

This is particularly true of the breakdown of the marriage. Nelson's version of events

is minutely recorded in the letters he wrote almost daily to Emma Hamilton, all of

which she carefully kept. Although he destroyed her replies, many of Emma's letters

to other correspondents notably Sarah Nelson, wife of Nelson's brother William

have survived; as have the letters of a number of other participants in the drama. From

these it is clear that Emma worked hard to establish her version of the story, in which

Frances was, unsurprisingly, cast as the villainess and, despite the sensible caution of

some historians, this biased version still appears in biographies. On the other hand,

Frances's point of view of the events has hitherto been represented by only a small

handful of letters a dozen at the most each of which was clearly constructed very

carefully, sometimes painfully, so as to conceal her true feelings and bring about a

reconciliation with her husband. As a result, her story has never been told fairly. For

example, the editor of Nelsons letters and dispatches, Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas,

claimed that after the couple parted in January 1801, 'Lady Nelson never made the

slightest effort to recover his affection; nor was it until 23rd April that [Nelson]

signified his determination to be "left to himself."'8 New documentary evidence has

recently been located that enables us to demonstrate that both these statements arefalse. Indeed, the first cruelly wrongs Frances: as we shall see, the new evidence

shows that she did all that a woman in her situation could do to save her marriage.

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Alexander Davison (1804); mezzotint by Abbott, Lemuel Francis (artist); Barnard,William (engraver); Andrews, George (publisher). Neg. No. B141; NMM.

The new material is a remarkable series of seventy-two letters written by Frances

Nelson to Alexander Davison. They were discovered in 2001 by Martyn Downer of

Sothebys, literally in a trunk in the attic, in the home of one of Davisons direct

descendants. When they were examined, it soon became clear that a significant

number dated from the time of the break-up of the Nelson marriage and that they

offered a fascinating insight into Francess feelings and actions at that unhappy time.

Sold at Sotheby's on Trafalgar Day 2002, the Davison Archive was acquired by the

National Maritime Museum and the letters have now been arranged in chronological

order and catalogued.9 A full-scale scholarly study of the whole series is planned but,in the meantime, this article is offered as an initial assessment of the letters and, in

particular, of the new light they throw on the breakdown of the Nelson marriage. The

opportunity has also been taken to include other new material, relating to this period

and recently located by the Nelson Letters Project.10

All this new material not only enables us to challenge some key aspects of the

traditional accounts of the breakdown, it also helps us to explain some of the

complexities that have hitherto baffled historians. Above all, we can now construct a

new and more accurate narrative that is much fairer to Frances and thus likely to be

closer to the truth. If we liken the traditional story to a string quartet, it is as if the first

and second violin as represented by Nelson and Emma have been allowed to

monopolise the theme, accompanied only by the double bass commentary from their

family and friends. Hitherto, the voice of the viola has been almost entirely missing.

Now, as a result of the discovery of this important series of letters, Frances can be

allowed to join in the melody and make her own distinctive contribution. And, as we

will see, the addition of her voice adds poignancy and sweetness to the music that was

not present before.

He treated her with every mark of dislike and even of contempt

Tense reunion

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NovemberDecember 1800

panied by Sir William and Lady Hamilton,

the King George packet boat at the end of their

ered

On 6 November 1800 Nelson, accom

arrived at Great Yarmouth on board

extraordinary three-month tour across Europe, during which Nelson had been che

by excited crowds and fted by monarchs and politicians at almost every stop.

"Dido in despair" (1801): caricature of Emma Hamilton by Gillray, James (artist &

engraver); Humphrey, H (publisher).Neg. No. PW3874; NMM.

t

his very obvious infatuation with Emm

e

But beneath the public cheering, an undercurrent of gossip was already flowing abou

a Hamilton, and this gossip had found its way

into the fashionable salons of Bath and London, and thus into the newspapers and

caricatures. Historians have always assumed that Frances Nelson must have been

aware of the gossip and we now have documentary evidence that she was. So, for

example, in one of the newly-discovered letters to Davison, dated 2 March 1801, sh

reminded him,

Do recollect the Numbers who openly mentioned the subject to me Even at theDrawing Room [i.e. at Court] and Lord St Vincent's long conversation twelve months

before his Lordship's arrival.11

Or again, almost two years before, on 11 April 1799, she had told him, 'Lord Hood

always expressed his fears that Sir W & Lady Hamilton would use their influence to

keep Lord Nelson with them: they have succeeded.'12 Even Nelson's elderly father,

Rev Edmund Nelson, had become aware that all was not well: in a letter dated 18 July

1799, Frances tells Davison that the old man had said that 'if he lived to see

[Nelson] the first thing he should say to him was to take care of me.'13

Even so, it is clear from her letters to Davison, that Frances's mood as she waiteher husband's arrival in the autumn of 1800, was predominantly one of ex

d forcitement

.

and happiness at the thought of seeing him again, mingled with practical concerns

about accommodation. At that time, the Nelsons owned Roundwood, a modest house

and small estate in Suffolk, just outside Ipswich, but they did not have a town house

On 20 September Nelson wrote to Frances from Vienna to telling her that he had

asked Alexander Davison to rent a house for him in London, 'to which I shall instantly

proceed and hope to meet you in the house.'14 He also added that he would arrive 'the

2nd week in October' and that he would be in London for only a very short time.

Frances did not receive this letter at Roundwood until 19 October, and her immediate

preoccupation was with the difficulty of taking a house for such a short time, and at

such short notice. Writing to Davison the next day, she explained that she had sent aletter to her husband, to await his arrival in Yarmouth, saying that she thought it

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would be better for them to go into an hotel. She added, 'I begged My Dear Lord just

to stop at his own door for a few minutes and I would have everything ready to sett

off with him.'15 So the seeds were sown for a misunderstanding that was to sour

reunion of husband and wife right from the very start.

Davison replied to Frances's letter urging her to travel straight to London withoutwaiting for her husband. Frances duly obeyed, leaving

the

Roundwood on 23 October

with Nelson's father who had been staying with her and taking rooms at Nerot's Hotel

eron King Street, in fashionable St James's. She took the precaution of sending anoth

letter to her husband in Yarmouth telling him of her change of plan. However, when

Nelson eventually arrived a fortnight later, he and the Hamiltons were swept into a

busy programme of public events and so, as he told Frances in a hurriedly scribbled

note on 6 November, 'I have only had time to open one of your letters my visits are so

numerous.'16 Clearly he opened the first one, in which she had told him that she

would wait for him at Roundwood for, when he and the Hamiltons set off for the

London the following day, they called off at Roundwood only to discover that

Frances was already in London. It was an inauspicious start and meant that Nelsowas already irritated and embarrassed when he and Frances finally met up at Nero

at about 3.00pm on the 7th.

In the past, Frances and Nelson have each been blamed for this incident. Some

historians have suggested tha

nt's

t Nelson forgot that, in his letter from Vienna on 20

September, he had told Frances to wait for him in London.17 Others have seen it as

yet another example of Francess ineffectiveness as a wife.18 Thanks to the Dav

archive, we can now see that it was simply an unfortunate misunderstanding that

would have been avoided if Nelson had opened all of Francess letters while he was

Yarmouth.

The next two months were for the Nelsons a painful mixture of public triumph and

private distr

ison

in

ess that have been well-documented in most of the biographies.19 There

were banquets, appearances at the theatre and official attendance in the House of

Lords and at Court so much so, that on 24 November, old Edmund Nelson wrote

plaintively to his daughter Catherine Matcham, 'your bro is so constantly on the

wing that I can get but a short glimpse myself.'20 As Jack Russell remarks, 'Nelso

was showing a disposition to keep clear of Fanny, or at least to avoid her company b

being in company.'

n

y

21 Nothing in the newly discovered archive throws any light on

Frances's feelings at this critical and awkward time. The only document dating from

this period is a list she prepared on 18 November of Nelson's jewels.22 However wedo know of a number of public incidents that show tension was high between the

couple. For example, less than a week after Nelson's arrival in London, he treated

Frances 'with every mark of dislike and even of contempt' at a dinner at the house of

the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Spencer, causing her to break down and tell

hostess, Lady Spencer, of her unhappy situation.

her

23 However it should be remembe

that this story was related by Lady Spencer some years after the event, and it is likely

that she improved on it with hindsight.

After Nelson's death, Emma Hamilton, assisted by Nelson's family and friends,

succeeded in establishing the idea that F

red

rances made Nelson desperately unhappy at

this time. In Harrison's biography of Nelson, published in 1806 and written underEmma's direct guidance, we are told,

125


7/23

At the obvious coldness of her ladyship, however, the warmth of his affectionate hear

felt a petrifying chill, which froze forever the genial current of supreme regard that

had hitherto flowed with purity through

t

the inmost recesses of his soul.24

t 4.00 in

the morning and threw himself on the bed 'in an agony of grief much too poignant for

Harrison is also the source of the story of an argument between them so painful that

Nelson left the house even though it was late at night. Having walked for hoursthrough the streets of London, he finally arrived at the Hamiltons lodgings a

expression.'25 However, Harrison then undermines any trust we may have in his

veracity by adding that the very same day Nelson went to the Admiralty and offe

his services in any capacity. In fact we know that Nelson had already volunteered for

active service some weeks before. On 6 November, the day of his arrival in

Yarmouth, he wrote to Evan Nepean, the Secretary to the Admiralty saying, 'my

health being perfectly re-established, it is my wish to serve immediately.'

red

26

Portrait of Nelson by John Hoppner (1800). Royal Naval Museum; used by

permission.

Certainly, Nelson was unhappy and this can be seen most strikingly in the very

pner,

ooks haggard and haunted.27

powerful oil sketch of him painted at this time by the court portraitist John Hop

in which he l But the warm expressions of love and

continuing affection that Frances uses about him in her letters to Davison mean that

3

we now have documentary evidence with which to refute Emma's accusations of

coldness. It is much more likely that Nelson's unhappiness was due to guilt and to the

awkwardness of trying to settle down with his wife while, at the same time,maintaining a relationship with his mistress. We can see this tension, and resulting

depression, vividly expressed in a letter he wrote to Emma early in the morning of

January 1801, just before he set off to attend the funeral of Captain William Locker,

one of his early mentors,

It is now Six Oclock and I dread the fatigue of this day being not in the best Spirits,

and believe Me when I say that I regret that I am not the person being attended upon

at this Funeral, for although I have had my days of Glory, yet I find this World so full

of Jealousys & envy that I see but a very faint gleam of future comfort.28

And, of course, his sense of being torn in two would have been heightened by the fact

that Emma was by now about to give birth to their child. Scarcely surprising then, that

126


8/23

he longed to get back to sea, away from the increasing complexity of his private life.

elson was promoted to Vice Admiral of the Blue on 1 January and on the 9th he

as second in command of the Channel Fleet in HMS

d at the head of his boarding party at the Battle of

97. On 13 January he left London in company with his

t time that he and Frances ever saw each other.

e

I only wish people would never mention My Name to you

Confused messages

JanuaryFebruary 1801

N

received orders to hoist his flag

San Josef, which he had capture

Cape St Vincent in February 17

brother William it was the las

We now come to the critical period when the irrevocable rift occurred and, thanks tothe new material, Frances's part in the story, hitherto obscure, can be reconstructed

with some precision. As soon as her husband left London, she started writing to

Davison again, using him both as a confidant and as a source of information about her

husband. In doing this, she was reviving an old habit, for the earlier letters in th

Davison Archive show that she had used him in this way before her husband returned

to England. For example, on 18 July 1799, she had written, 'You are very good to us

for truly we know nothing of My Dear Husband but what you communicate to

me.'29 It is clear from all the sources that Frances did not realise that, when her

husband left her on 13 January, he intended it to be a final parting. There is no hint of

it in her letters to Davison and many years later, her friend Lady Berry, wife of

Nelson's flag captain at the Nile, Sir Edward Berry, told Nicolas that 'when sheparted from her Lord, on his hoisting his flag again, it was without the most distant

suspicion that he meant it to be final and that in this life they were never to meet

again.'30 But material located by the Nelson Letters Project shows that the signs were

already there. First, there is a memorandum in Nelson's hand that has previously been

thought to date from March 1801 but which the new research shows must have bee

written at this time. In it, he divides his income in half, allocating Frances an

allowance of 2,000 a year.

n

31 Then there is a formal letter in the third person, which

he wrote to Frances on 9 January, 'Lord Nelson directs all his papers parchments &

freedoms should be delivered to the charge of his brother the Revd William

Nelson.'32 This confirms that the couple were no longer living together by then and

shows that Nelson was taking from Frances any possessions that he regarded as his

own and, moreover, using brother William to do this unpleasant errand for him.

Finally, legal documents in the British Library show that, on 10 January, the couple

went together to Lincoln's Inn where they appeared before Thomas Ryder, the Deput

Steward of the Manor of Christ Church, of which Roundwood was a part. The

purpose of their visit was to surrender their property and the documents reveal that

Frances was 'first examined separately and apart from her said Husband touching

her Consent to the surrenderand freely and voluntarily consented thereto as the La

requires.'

y

w

33 Roundwood had proved an unfortunate purchase it was too far from

London and from the three main naval ports of Portsmouth, Plymouth and Chatham

and was moreover not in good condition. As early as April 1799, Frances had toldDavison that her agent had given her a bad account of the state of the house 'roof

127


9/23

very leaky, the walls are in a bad state, in short not fit for me to inhabit.'34 Even so,

this gradual stripping away from Frances of some key symbols of their life together

coupled with the division of their income, is very telling and shows how Nelson's

mind was already tending when he said goodbye to her in January 1801.

However, like so many absconding partners before and after him, Nelson was clearlyunable to tell Frances to her face that the marriage was over and relied on her to pick

up the signals he was sending. And we can now see, thanks to the letters in the

Davison archive, that those signals were contradictory. So, for example, al

,

though

some of his letters to her immediately after their parting are taken up with irritable

rtly

to your tristesse

complaints about her inefficient packing of his belongings, he usually ends them

'Your affectionate, Nelson'. We now know that she even received a friendly letter

from Emma Hamilton at this time. Although not dated, it was clearly written sho

after Nelson's departure on 13 January,

My Dear Lady Nelson

I wou'd have done myself the honner of calling on you & Mr Nelson this day but I am

not well nor in spirits and wou'd not add Sir William & self feil the

Loss of our good friend our Saviour I may call him the good Lord Nelson permit me

he pleasure of seeing you & hoping my Dear Lady Nelson the

Continuance of your friendship which will be in Sir William & self for ever lasting to

ll to pay his respects

I beg my compliments & to Capn Nesbit.35

in the morning to have t

you & your family your Ladyship's ever obliged & affectionate

Emma Hamilton

Sir William begs to say as an old & true friend to Lord Nelson if he can be of any use

to you in his Lordship's absence he shall be very happy & will ca

to you & Mr Nelson to whom

Emma, Lady Hamilton; pastel by Johann Heinrich Schmidt (1800). Neg. No. A4288;

NMM.

Frances does not mention any visit from the Hamiltons in her letters to Davison and,

bearing in mind that Emma was by then within days of giving birth, it is doubtful that

128


10/23

Frances received from Emma and we now know that, very shortly after, Emma

suddenly went onto the offensive against a woman she clearly perceived as a rival. On

,

5 February Frances wrote to Davison 'I will relate you a thing which seems nothing

but coming from Lady Hamilton I am certain some mischief is brewing.' By then, she

had left London and taken up lodgings in Brighton and the story she told is a

convoluted account of some gossip relayed to her by her housekeeper. ApparentlyEmma had been heard to say how surprised she was at Lady Nelson's leaving London

and parting with all her servants because 'to My Knowledge Lord Nelson allows

her 2000 a year and with that she might make a very pretty appearance.' As Frances

commented to Davison 'It was the talk of the kitchen.None of us I believe like the

servants to know our incomes.'36

There is plenty of other evidence that Emma was mischief-making at this time. In the

British Library are a number of letters from her to Mrs Sarah Nelson, wife of brother

William and it is clear that Emma was doing her best to woo the couple onto her side.

On 20 February she wrote, 'you

souls were congenial not so with Tom tit

and I liked each other from the moment we met our

37 for their was an antipathy not to bedescribed.' This first appearance of Emma's cruel little nickname for Frances (a

reference to her awkward way of walking) shows that she was already setting out to

ridicule her and, from then on, she did all she could to blacken Frances's name.

Indeed, it is not too strong to say that she came to hate her. By September 1801, she

was calling her 'a very wicked artful womana wicked false malicious wretch who

rendered [Nelsons] days wretched and his nights miserable.'38 The Frances Nel

Myth was already well under way.

So what had happened to bring about this change in Emma's attitude? There is no

evidence to provide us with a firm answer but an informed guess might be that

Frances rejected Emma's apparently friendly overtures in January, thus showing that

she was not prepared to play the complacent spouse as Sir William Hamilton was

doing. And if she was not prepared to play the gam

son

e, then she had to be eliminated.

s no

e

had

Worse still from Emma's point of view, Frances clearly did not realise that she wa

longer expected to play an active part in Nelson's life, continuing to write to him as if

nothing had happened and sending him copies of newspapers. Moreover, thanks to th

new archive, we now know that she made her first attempt to rejoin her husband,

scarcely a month after he had left her. Around the second week in February, she

learned through her son Josiah Nisbet that Nelson was suffering from an inflammation

of his good eye. 'Upon this,' she told Davison on 20 February,

My affection My anxiety My fondness for him all rushed forth and I wrote him last

Wednesday week and offered to Nurse him and that he should find me the same I

ever been to him, faithful, affec. and desirous to everything I could to please him.39

The letter in which she made this offer to Nelson has not survived clearly, he

destroyed it.

A visit from Frances was, of course, the last thing that either Nelson or Emma wanted

and it is clear from Nelson's letters to Emma at this time that she was getting worried.

'Only rest quiet,' he told her on the 14th,

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11/23

you know that everything is arrainged in my head for all circumstances. You ought to

know that I have a head to plan and a heart to execute whenever it is right and the

time arrives. That person has her separate maintenance. Let us be happy that is in our

power.40

t

used blunt, even harsh, terms:

re I should not have gone on Shore nor

would you have come afloat. I fixed as I thought a proper allowance to enable you to

r

Even so, he now realised that he had to make it clear to Frances that he did not wanto see her again. So, on 17 February, he sat down and wrote to her again and for the

first time he

I have received your letter of the 12th. I only wish people would never mention My

Name to you, for weither I am blind or not it is nothing to any person. I want neither

nursing nor attention. And had you come he

remain quiet and not to be posting from one end of the Kingdom to the other. Weithe

I live or die am ill or Well I want from no one the sensation of pain or pleasure. And I

expect no comfort until I am removed from this World.41

Until now, the only known reference to this letter was in a letter from Nelson to

Emma, dated 17 February in which he tells her 'that person at Brighton' has offered to

come and nurse him, 'but I have sent such an answer that will convince her she will

not be received.'42 The original letter to Frances has not survived for reasons that will

be explained later. It has only emerged now because Frances sent a copy of the e

quoted above in one of her letters to Davison on 24 February once again, the new

archive has enabled us to fill a gap in the story. It clearly came as an appalling shock

'you may suppose the consternation it threw me into,' she wrote and added sadly, 'I

think you had better not mention my name but leave me to my fate.' Now, for the first

time, the full truth of her situation was becoming plain to her.

However, Nelson could not keep up this level of harshness for long and the messages

he sent to Frances quickly became confused again. He had by now transferred to

HMS St George in preparation for the expedition to deal with t

xtract

:

he Armed Neutrality of

the North, in which he was to be the second in command. On 20 February, she sailed

ut

for Portsmouth at the start of the build-up of the fleet for the Baltic. Nelson planned to

take the opportunity to visit London for a few days to see his new-born daughter b

he wanted to make sure that Frances did not try to come and see him. So, on 24

February he wrote, signing himself, 'As ever your affectionate Nelson,' to tell her, 'I

would not on any account have you come up to London but rest quiet where you are,'

and then turned to practical matters about Josiah's appointment to the frigate HMSThalia and the selection of his lieutenants.43 In reporting this letter to Davison,

Frances described it hopefully as 'upon the whole milder'.44

Indeed, Nelson went further than this. While he was in London, on 26 February,

Josiah called on him to thank him for his help. Emma had told Sarah Nelson, 'I o

hope he will not come near me. If he does, "not at home" shal

nly

l be the answer.'45 But

Nelson over-ruled her, and few days later she wrote, 'The Cub dined with us but I

never asked how Tom Tit was.'46 Based on these spiteful asides, historians have

supposed until now that the dinner must have been awkward but the new archive

shows that Josiahs memory of it was pleasant and positive. On 15 March, Frances

told Davison,

130


12/23

When [Josiah] returned from seeing my Dear deluded Lord he told me he received

him in the most affectionate manner desiring him to be as much with him as he coul

'Breakfast with

d.

me and I will get you a dinner wherever I dine.' 'Ah,' said Josiah, 'I

told you it would end well, he has the best of hearts.'47

So Frances's hopes began to rise again and this led her to make her third attempt atreconciliation, which earned her another crushing blow.

My terrible letter

The rift widens

March 1801

Bgratitude for her husband'

another letter. Once again, it has not surv

uoyed up by Josiah's report of his warm reception, and with her heart filled withs continued care for her son, Frances now wrote Nelson

ived and once again we only know about it

eference in one of her letters to Davison in which she says that she

k him for his goodness in getting [Josiah] a ship.'48

from a passing r

wrote to 'than She must have

foradded something else perhaps another reference that betrayed that she still hoped

a reconciliation for she received in return what she ever afterwards referred to as

'my terrible letter.'

There are two versions of this letter. First, there is an apparently complete version in

the National Maritime Museum, dated 4 March.49 However, this is clearly a draft it

is on larger paper than Nelson habitually used for his correspondence and has notbeen folded for an envelope. Second, there is an incomplete version in the British

Library.50 This is the version that Frances received, for she has written across it,

as

This is My Lord Nelson's letter of dismissal which so astonished me that I

immediately sent it to Mr Maurice Nelson [Nelson's eldest brother] who was sincerely

attached to me to me for his advice, he desired me not to take the least notice of it,

his brother seemed to have forgot himself.

Frances Nelson's letter to Alexander Davison of 15 March 1801. (Click top or bottom

half to enlarge relevant section.)Neg. Nos. F1331_1, _2; NMM.

We now know that she also sent the letter to Davison for his comments: 'Read the

enclosed letter and let me have it by return of post. I need not express my feelings,'51

she wrote on 15 March.

131


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Most of the letter that Frances received, now in the British Library, is missing and so

we have only the text of the NMM draft as an indication of its contents. It has been

ade by earlier editors and repeated in some

printed many times but it is worth quoting in full again, so that it can be compared

with Nelson's earlier letter of 17 February quoted above. It is presented here exactly

as Nelson wrote it, without the slight errors of transcription, and changes in spelling,

punctuation and capitalisation, mbiographies:

St George, March 4th: 1801

Josiah is to have another ship & to go abroad if the Thalia cannot soon be got ready. I

have done all for him, & he may again as he has so often done before Wish Me to

Break my Neck,52 and be abetted in it by his friends who are likewise My Enem

but I have done m

ies

y duty as an honest generous man, & I neither want or wish for any

f Me, weither I return or am left in the Baltic. Living I

Dead you will find I have done the same,

body to care what becomes o

have done all in my power for you, and If

therefore my only wish is to be left to Myself and wishing you every happinessBelieve that I am Your affectionate

Nelson & Bronte53

This is indeed a brusque letter - but does it really justify Frances's description of it, in

her letters to Davison, as 'terrible'? It is, on the whole, less harsh than Nelson's letter

of 17 February. Two possible explanations present themselves. The first is that

Frances was particularly hurt by the unkind reference to Josiah it must have been

especially distressing after her hopes

account of his meeting with his stepfather

had been raised by her son's very positive

on 26 February. The second is that the final

version of the letter contained other, harsher, material not included in the earlier draft

and possibly supplied by Emma. In support of this supposition, it is interesting to

note that, although the draft is dated 4 March, the final letter was not actually sent

until 11 March, the day before the fleet sailed from Great Yarmouth for the Baltic

plenty of time for Nelson to submit his first version to Emma and to receive her

amendments.54 And in case this may seem a far-fetched theory, it is worth

remembering that this is exactly what happened with a letter he wrote to his father in

October 1801 in reply to one that appeared to reproach him for his irregular way of

living. He submitted a relatively mild draft to Emma, who then toughened it up.55

The difference in the dates of the two versions of the letter has not been noticed by

previous historians and so they have missed the particularly cruel irony that Nels'letter of dismissal' to his wife was eventually posted on the fourteenth anniversary of

their wedding. It seems, however, that this did not escape Frances's notice for,

instead of being located with all her husband's other letters, the 11 March letter is

filed separately next to her copy of their marriage certificate.56

on's

Thanks to the material in the Davison archive, we can now resolve a question that has

puzzled historians why is part of the 11 March letter missing? On 2 March,

obviously in response to a worried enquiry from Davison, Frances wrote,

Be assured I never spoke of my extreme Misery at the loss of his affection to anyo

but those who had been Eye Witnesses and yourselfNo one shall know of these

ne

harsh and cruel letters.57

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It would seem that, true to her word, she destroyed the 17 February letter altog

and cut away the 'harsh and cruel' section of the 11 March letter, leaving on

ether

ly her

husband's statement that he wished to be left to himself. It was not her fault that the

, displaying a loving devotion to her husband, and a carefor his reputation, that deserves to be better acknowledged than it has been in the past.

stock. In the light of all the new evidence,

enuinely trying to remain on friendly terms with Frances and her son providing

at she respected his wishes about living apart. Having forced her submission by his

. But he

full

misread his attempts to be friendly and to repeat her

in turn forced him to write the second harsh letter. Of

ct

contents of both those letters have eventually to light the former through Davison's

copy and the latter through her husband's own draft. Once again, Frances emerges

from this story with dignity

Let everything be buried in oblivion

Frances's final attempts at reconciliation

MarchDecember 1801

This is a good moment to pause and takewe can now see that, at least in the early stages of the separation, Nelson was

g

th

harsh letter of 17 February, he was then prepared to be conciliatory

underestimated the power of her love for him, and her longing for a

reconciliation, which led her to

attempt to win him back. This

course, none of this exonerates him; but it is clear that he did at least try to settle

matters amicably. As for Frances: far from making no effort to recover her husband's

affection, as Nicolas and subsequent biographers have wrongly suggested, she in fa

kept on repeating her willingness to forgive him and to accept him back. Indeed, asshe promised Davison, as late as 26 June, 'I will make it my study to obey him in

every wish or desire of his And with cheerfulness.'58

The one wish or desire of her husband's, however, Frances would not obey was to

leave him alone. Despite the shock of this second harsh letter, she still continued to

try to find ways to bring about a reconciliation. The next straw she clutched at was the

matter of a house. On 8 March Susannah Bolton, Nelson's elder sister, wrote to her,

Will you excuse what I am going to say? I wish you had continued in town a little

longer as I have heard my brother regretted he had not a house he could call his ow

when he returned. Do, whenever you hear he is likely to r

n

eturn, have a house to

receive him. If you absent yourself from him entirely there can never be a

reconciliation.59

Almost pathetically eager to please, Frances immediately wrote to Davison, 'I shall

without loss of time through your goodness procure a good house in the part of Town

you think will be liked by Lord Nelson.' But this only got her into more trouble

because Emma got to hear of her quest and complained to Nelson, who replied on 9

April that he had not written to Frances since he sailed from England, 'and all the

parade about a house is nonsense.'60

By now, Davison was in a most awkward position. At the same time that he was

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receiving these regular confidences and commissions from Frances, he was also

acting as a go-between for Nelson and Emma. So, for example, on 7/8 February, he

paid Nelson a visit on board his flagship, HMS San Josef, in Torbay. The day be

he left London, he received Frances's letter, quoted earlier, telling him that 'some

mischief is brewing' and blaming Emma for it. However we know that he also call

on Emma before leaving, because he c

fore

ed

arried with him a letter from her to Nelson,together with a verbal message. 'He says,' reported Nelson, 'you told him to tell me

dnot to send you any more advice about seeing company for that you are determine

not to allow the World to say a word against you.'61 Despite a rough passage out

the ship a recently located note from Nelson warns him, 'Do not I charge you risk

drowning consult with the boatman as to the Weather'

to

62 Davison duly made his

visit. He then returned to London bearing a pack of letters and notes from Nelson

Emma, which he faithfully delivered. And he also wrote to Frances for, on 20

February, she replied,

I return you many thanks for your letter, the account you give me of My Lord's healt

and his speaking of me with affection are truly good tidings, and I hope in God that athat you say will prove true.

to

h

ll63

Clearly, therefore, despite all the evidence of Nelson's continuing infatuation, Daviso

still hoped at this stage that the marriage could be saved and was encouraging F

to persevere. At the sam

n

rances

e time, however, he was encouraging Emma to think that he

was on her side. Such double-dealing may seem unheroic but he was certainly not

e being on the surface an enthusiastic supporter of

Emma, Parker clearly distrusted her influence on Nelson and confided his true

alone. For example, other letters in the Davison Archive show that Nelson's beloved

young protg, Captain Edward Parker, whom he treated as a son, was also writing

privately to Davison. And, despit

thoughts to Davison, 'that B- will play the devil with Him She is endeavouring to

persuade Him that the Ministry are jealous of his proceedings.'64

In fact, had they but known it, Frances and her supporters had no chance of

persuading Nelson to return to her. He had already committed himself wholly to

Emma and, in early March, he even began to refer to her as his wife, 'Now my own

dear wife,' he wrote 'for such you are in my eyes and the face of heaven.' On 11

March, the very day he sent the 'letter of dismissal' to Frances on their wedding

anniversary, he told Emma she was 'his afflicted Wife that is to be.'65 But it is also

apparent that he was torn apart by the decision he had made. There is a telling phrase

in a letter he wrote to Emma on 17 March less than a week after the 'dismissal'

not

letter

I dreamt last Night that I hurt you with a Stick on account of that fellow & attempted

to throw over [your] head a tub of hot water I woke in agony and my feelings can

be very comfortable.66

'That fellow' was the Prince of Wales, who Nelson was convinced fancied Emma and

so the dream was no doubt related at least in part to his jealousy, as he supposed.

dreams u

But

sually have much deeper roots than the emotion of the moment Freudians,

for example, would have a field-day with the fact that Nelson dreamed of throwing

'hot water' over his mistress! So perhaps his subconscious desire to hurt Emma wasalso the product of his continuing guilt that he had been forced to hurt his wife

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because of his love for his mistress?

The Battle of Copenhagen, 2 April 1801, by Nicholas Pocock.Neg. No. BHC0529;

NMM.

Amidst all this emotional turmoil, the surface world of war and battle went on and for

the next three weeks Nelson was preoccupied with the Baltic campaign, culminating

in the Battle of Copenhagen, fought on 2 April. When the news of the victory reached

London on 15 April, Frances could not restrain her affectionate impulses, and made

her fourth attempt at a reconciliation, writing to her husband,

be silent in the general joy throughout the Kingdom, I must express my

thankfulness and happiness it has pleased God to spare your lifeLet me beg, nay

I cannot

entreat you, to believe no wife ever felt greater affection for a husband than I do. And

to the best of my knowledge I have invariably done everything you desired. If I have

omitted any thing I am sorry for it.67

The original of this letter was destroyed (presumably by Nelson) and the contents

only known because Frances kept a draft indeed until now historians have beenunsure whether it was actually sent. A note from Frances to Davison in the new

archive, dated 7 May, confirms that it was: 'I have sent My Lord a Congratulatory

letter and saying at the same time if I had ever done anything which offended him I

was sorry for it.'68

This time Nelson changed tactics. Instead of replying himself, he wrote to Davison on

son

23 April,

You will at the proper time and before my arrival in England signify to Lady Nel

that I expect, and for which I have made such a very liberal allowance to her, to be

left to myself and without any enquires from her.69

This was the letter that Nicolas believed gave the first indication that Nelson wished

ten directly to Frances. But Davison did not obey orders. On the contrary,

he did the opposite of what Nelson wanted and continued to encourage Frances to

Frances to leave him alone we now know of course that there had been two previous

letters writ

hope. As late as 12 July, he wrote to her, 'I have the same opinion I ever had of his

sincere respect for you. I have no right to doubt it.'70 Ever hopeful, Frances took thi

as an encouragement to approach her husband again a

s

nd made her fifth attempt,

writing to him in late July to thank him for her allowance and concluding, 'Be assured,

every wish, every desire of mine is to please the man whose affection constitutes my

happiness.'71 Once again the original has disappeared and historians have beenunsure whether the letter was actually sent. Once again, the Davison letters confirm

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that it was: on 22 July Frances tells him that she has written to Nelson.72

Indeed, Davison was not the only member of Nelson's circle who was advising

Frances to persevere. She sent a copy of her April letter to his close friend and fo

Nile captain, Sir Thomas Troubridge, 'who was very much pleased and requested

me to write often to My Lord and he thought it would do no harm and might do somegood.'

rmer

73 And, around the same time, Nelson's father also made a very public

demonstration of support for her. On 14 March he wrote enquiring about her health

and talking about his 'unpleasant feelings respecting yourself as well as my own

thoughts about what indeed in some measure may affect us both.'74 We now know,

own

his

from the Davison letters that Edmund had heard gossip in Bath about the breakd

of Nelson's marriage. As Frances tells the story,

Mrs Jeffreys Wilkes told him of the Reports of Lord Nelson's determination not to

live with Me he was so shocked he could hardly keep his chair. He then told

daughter he wou'd try and get me down here [to Bath] and silence people.75

Frances duly joined her father in law in Bath but as she told Davison ruefully, the old

man's gesture was only partially successful, 'it has [silenced] some but not all Mrs

Matcham tells me it is the conversation before her every where.' Later, on 27 June,

she gave Davison a poignant picture of the old man's distress,

ery

ne a

little out of the straight road. He will see his error and be as good as ever.76

My Old Gentleman is sadly disturbed in short his temper is so very irritable that ev

body is astonished.he says 'My Horace was always a good Boy but He is go

Indeed almost everyone associated with Nelson seems to have shared Edmund's

bewilderment about his unkind treatment of Frances and the belief that he would soo

recognise his error and return to the 'straight road'. Repeatedly i

n

n letters of this period,

his family and friends emphasise how good-hearted Nelson really is as if they are

on 26

June, 'he will not make me Miserable.'77

trying to convince themselves that his affair with Emma, and his resulting cruel

behaviour, is just a temporary aberration. Frances herself, constantly talks of his good

nature, 'he is affectionate and possesses the best of hearts,' she tells Davison

Josiah tells her, after his dinner with his

.'78stepfather on 26 February, 'I told you all would end well, he has the best of hearts

Susannah Bolton reassures her, 'he has not an unfeeling heart,' adding, 'Keep up

your spirits as well as you can and all will do well.'79 And even Davison who, as we

have seen, was better placed than anyone to appreciate the strength of Nelson'spassion for Emma, was still telling Frances in July, 'His heart is so pure and so

extremely good that I flatter myself he never can be divested from his affection.'80

In the light of such unanimous encouragement it is scarcely surprising that Frances

went on hoping and continually tried to effect a reconciliation, despite all that Nelson

could do to deter her. And so, in the end, he was forced to deal her the cruellest blow

of all, for which he has been universally condemned. On 18 December 1801, Frances

made her sixth attempt to win him back, writing to tell him that she now had 'a

comfortable warm house' to offer him.

Do my dear husband let us live together. I can never be happy until such an eventtakes place. I assure you again I have but one wish in the world, to please you. Let

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everything be buried in oblivion, it will pass away like a dream.81

By then Nelson was living openly with the Hamiltons at Merton and so she sent the

letter to Davisons London house, presumably trusting that the man who had so

consistently encouraged her to persist in her approaches to her husband would find

some way of ensuring that Nelson saw the letter when Emma was not present.

Such a rejection was hurtful enough but, to Frances, the signature at the end of the

hat he

e again

ness. She

st

Myth

ditor of Nelson's letters and dispatches.icolas had told him that the prevailing opinion was that Nelson had abandoned his

t. 'His father,

and Mrs

atcham, and their husbands,' he wrote, 'well knew that the separation was

navoidable on Lord Nelson's part.'82

However, as is well known, the letter was returned to her with the shocking

annotation, 'Opened by mistake by Lord Nelson but not read. A. Davison.'

curt message must have been the worst blow of all. The man to whom she had

confided her most personal feelings about the pain she was suffering, believing t

sympathised with her and wanted her to succeed, was now exposed as a double-

dealer. Abruptly, her letters to Davison dried up and, when their correspondenc

resumed in June 1803, it was distant and concerned only with matters of busi

must have felt doubly betrayed and humiliated.

She also accepted, finally, that she could not win her husband back. This was her la

attempt to bring about a reconciliation.

Should he receive me with affection I will do every thing for him

Discarding the Frances Nelson

In April 1846, Nelson's former solicitor William Haslewood, then in his late

seventies, wrote a letter to Nicolas, the eN

wife and Haslewood was anxious to defend his former patron and clien

his brother, Dr Nelson (afterwards Earl Nelson) his sisters, Mrs Bolton

M

u He then went on to tell of an incident he

d apparently told her

resolved you shall

while at

ces

ast

pendices in the last

claimed he had witnessed in January 1801, when Frances ha

husband, 'I am sick of hearing of dear Lady Hamilton and am

either give up her or me.' According to Haslewood, Nelson tried to calm her,

the same time repeating his obligations to Emma, upon which,

Without one soothing word or gesture, but muttering something about her mind being

made up, Lady Nelson left the room and shortly after drove from the house. They

never lived together afterwards.

Having thus shifted most of the blame for the separation onto the unfortunate Fran

(who was by then long dead and unable to defend herself), Haslewood added one l

cruel blow, 'to the day of her husband's glorious death she never made any apology

for her abrupt and ungentle conduct above related or any overture towards a

reconciliation.' This letter arrived in time to be included in the ap

volume of Nicolas's great work and so Haslewood's version of the marriage

breakdown has become part of the 'authorised version of Nelson's story.

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To their credit, Nelson's more discerning biographers have been uneasy about the way

in which Frances is portrayed in this story, realising that her behaviour, as described

by Haslewood, is totally out of character. But such definite testimony from a man

supposedly impartial, repeated in a work as authoritative as Nicolass, has meant that

the story has continued to be quoted, albeit with caveats. The new evidence presented

here shows that Haslewood's story is false in every verifiable particular.

As we have seen, far from failing to apologise, Frances blamed herself for the

n

If this much of Haslewood's account is demonstrably untrue,83

coolness between herself and her husband and asked for his forgiveness. She made six

separate attempts at reconciliation, which were repeatedly rebuffed, with increasing

harshness. And most of Nelson's family and friends did not believe that a separatio

was 'unavoidable': on the contrary, they did all they could to encourage Frances to

persevere in her attempts to win her husband back.

we can also be

ng

from anyone anything that renders my own fidelity

disputable?' In Hammonds version, Nelson simply replies that he has not. However

d to

confident that his central picture of Frances as the sharp-tongued woman stalki

angrily out of her husband's life is false as well, or at any rate very exaggerated. Buthis story stuck and has contributed as much to the Frances Nelson Myth as Emmas

accusation of coldness a myth memorably personified by Gladys Coopers vivid

portrayal of Frances as a stiff-backed, icy and embittered shrew in the Alexander

Korda film,Lady Hamilton.

There is in fact another more plausible, but lesser-known, account of their final

parting. It was told by Sir Andrew Hammond, an old friend of the Nelsons, who

probably heard the story from Frances herself. In this version, Nelson calls at their

London lodgings shortly before leaving for Plymouth in mid-January 1801 and finds

his wife in bed. She holds out her hand to him and says, 'There is not a man in the

world who has more honour than you. Now tell me, on your honour, whether you

have ever suspected or heard

Frances later told Clark and M'Arthur that Nelson's actual words were, 'I call Go

witness there is nothing in you, or your conduct, that I wish otherwise.'84

Before now, those few of Nelson's biographers who have troubled to repeat this

poignant story have struggled to reconcile this low-key, almost affectionate, parting

with the jagged tension of Haslewood's version and the Grand Opera drama of Em

Hamilton's, as relayed by Harrison. Thanks to the letters of the Davison Archive,

can now see that such attempts at reconciliation are unnecessary. Haslewood's andEmma's versions are equally false the product, on the one hand, of an old mans

misguided attempt to protect his former patrons reputation and, on the othe

ma

we

r, of a

mistresss guilty conscience. It is time, therefore, to discard the Frances Nelson Myth

donce and for all and allow to be heard instead the authentic voice of the loving an

forgiving woman whom Nelson abandoned,

If you do not think I have expressed My feelings My affection and My sincere desire

to do every thing he wishes me I am willing to say more if possible Should he

receive me with affection I will do every thing for him and in a gracious manner he

shall have no reason to regret his goodness to Me I give you my honor.85

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ootnotes

a proliferation of intrusive sics, it may be assumed that

all spellings etc. in the quoted passages are shown exactly as written, except

where the footnotes indicate that they have been copied from printed sources.

F

1. Each of the three main correspondents quoted in this article - Nelson, Frances

Nelson and Emma Hamilton - used idiosyncratic spelling, capitalisation and

punctuation. To avoid

elson (FN) to Alexander Davison (AD), 26 June 1801, NMM2. Frances N

DAV/2/50. [ ]

3. A.T. Mahan, The Life of Nelson, I, p.386.

4. G. Bennett,Nelson the Commander, p.184.

5. Frances Nelson's letters to her husband only came into the public domain

when the Nelson Papers were purchased from Lord Bridport by the British

Museum in 1895. Even then, they were little used by biographers and it was

not until 1958 that they were finally collected together by Katherine Lindsay-

MacDougall and published in G. Naish,Nelson's Letters to his Wife. Unti

then, they were known only from a few very selective, and unrepresentative,

l

tters oextracts quoted by Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas in hisDispatches and LeLord Nelson.

6. Nelson did not destroy only his wife's letters - it would seem that it was his

usual practice to destroy personal letters, especially before a battle. So, for

example, very few letters to him have survived from his father, or his early

mentors such as Maurice Suckling or William Locker.

7. T. Coleman,Nelson p.75.

8. Nicholas Harris Nicolas, The Dispatches and Letters of Vice Admiral lord

Nelson, VII, p.392.

9. The full catalogue is available online and may be viewed via the National

Maritime Museum's Library and Manuscripts

catalogue www.nmm.ac.uk/librarycatalogue. (Enter the search term "Daviso

Alexander" in the Title field.)

10. The Nelson Letters Project, sponsored jointly by the National Maritime and

Royal Naval Museums, is currently undertaking a systematic survey of all the

For

at is

available collections of Nelson letters aimed at locating and cataloguing any

that are unpublished. To date, over 1000 unpublished letters have been

identified and they are currently being transcribed for publication in 2005.

a brief description of the Project, and an analysis of the type of material th

being discovered, see, C. White, 'The Nelson Letters Project',Mariners

Mirror, 87, November 2001. An update on the Project's progress will bepublished in the Mariners Mirror in November 2003.

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11. FN to AD, 2 March 1801, NMM DAV/2/31.

12. FN to AD, 11 April 1799, NMM DAV/2/7.

13. FN to AD, 18 July 1799, NMM DAV/2/16.

14. Naish, op. cit. p.496.

15. FN to AD, 20 October 1800, NMM DAV/2/24.16. Naish, op. cit., p.496.

17. For example, J. Russell,Nelson and the Hamiltons, p. 142.

18. For example, T. Pocock,Horatio Nelson, p.217.

d

owever, the book has no

nd properly sourced, in

the marriage breakup, as does Coleman, op. cit.

19. The best account of this period to date is in Jack Russell's book,Nelson an

the Hamiltons, which includes some of the material cited in this article

(although not material from the Davison Archive). H

footnotes, and only a basic list of sources. So, much of the material that

Russell consulted has only recently been relocated, a

the course of the Nelson Letters Project. Naish op. cit. also includes a good

narrative of

20. Edmund Nelson to Katherine Matcham, 24 November 1800, NMM: MAM/44.

21. Russell, op. cit., p.142.

22. NMM: DAV/2/26.

23. Quoted in Richard Edgecombe, The Diary of Frances Lady Shelley.

24. James Harrison, The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount

Nelson, II, p.270.

25.Ibid.,II, p.278.

26. Nicolas, op. cit., IV, p.267.

covered only recently

al sketch, done from the

to Nelson's mood at this time.

27. Royal Naval Museum 19992/407. This portrait was dis

and it has been established that is Hoppner's origin

life. (See R. Walker, The Nelson Portraits .p. 242) It therefore gives us a

fascinating glimpse in

28. Nelson (HN) to Emma Hamilton (EH), 3 January 1801, Unpublished letter in

private collection.

29. FN to AD, 18 July 1799, NMM DAV/2/16.

30. Nicolas, op. cit., II, p.354.

31. British Library (BL): Add Mss 28333 f.5. Published in Naish, op. cit. 580. Tmemorandum is undated. Naish dates it 4 March and subsequent biograph

have followed this. I date it earlier for the following reasons: (1) Nelson signs

himsel

heers

f simply 'Nelson' and, by 4 March he was using the 'Nelson & Bronte'

allowance in early February

red

form. (2) It is clear from a reference in one of Frances's letters to Davison, that

Emma Hamilton knew of the amount of Frances's

(see Note 36 below). (3) Nelson refers to the allowance in a newly-discove

letter to Frances dated 17 February (see Note 41 below).

32. HN to FN, 9 January 1801, BL Add Mss 34902, f.181.

33. BL Add Mss 30170, f.28.34. FN to AD, 22 April 1799, NMM DAV/2/10.

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35. EH to FN, No date (? Mid January 1801) Private collection. This letter has

always been in private collections and so has never before been transcribed in

full.

36. FN to AD, 5 February 1801, NMM DAV/2/27.

37. EH to Sarah Nelson, 20 February 1801, BL Add Mss 34089, f.36/7.

38. Naish, op. cit., 592.


40. Russell, op. cit., p.171.

41. Quoted in FN to AD 24 February 1801, NMM DAV/2/30. Until the discovery

of this copy in the Davison Archive, the existence of this letter was unknown.

42. Part of this letter was published by Pettigrew (Vol I pp. 427-8) but this

particular passage was edited out and was only restored when the original

Fiske for drawing myexamined some years ago. I am indebted to Mr Ron

attention to the existence of the missing passage.

43. Naish, op. cit., p .691.44. FN to AD 2 March 1801, NMM DAV/2/31.

45. EH to Sarah Nelson, 26 February 1801, BL: Add Mss 34989, f. 42/3.

46. EH to Sarah Nelson, 2 March, BL: Add Mss 34989, f. 45/6.



49. NMM: AGC/17/10.

50. BL: Add Mss 28333, f.3/4.


52. This phrase offers a good illustration of why it is important to transcribe

rs do not appear to have appreciated that Nelson often used

n

n with which he wrote the

Nelson's letters as closely as possible to the way he wrote actually them.

Earlier edito

capitals to emphasise words. So, here, the capitalisation of the phrase "Wish

Me to Break my Neck" makes it stand out from the rest of the text, as Nelso

clearly intended, and vividly conveys the indignatio

words.

53. Most of the text of the British Library letter has been cut away and the

remaining text begins at the words, 'or am left in the Baltic'. The

surviving text is identical to the text of the draft.

54. The NMM draft is clearly dated 4 March. The section of the BL lettercontaining the date has been cut away but the envelope has survived and it is

dated (in Nelson's handwriting), 'Yarmouth March Eleventh 1801'.

55. For a full exposition of this story see Russell, op. cit., pp.239-40.

56. Most of Frances Nelson's letters from her husband are now in the archi

the Nelson Museum, Monmouth. However the 'dismissal' letter is in a separate

ve of

ning

om the rest of her husband's letters.

file, along with the marriage certificate and the legal documents concer

the sale of Roundwood, in the British Library (Add Mss. 28333). It would

seem that Frances deliberately filed these key documents relating to her

marriage separately fr

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58. FN to AD, 26 June 1801, NMM DAV/2/50.

59. Naish, op. cit., p. 582.

60. HN to EH, 9 April 1801, A Morrison, The Hamilton & Nelson Papers, II

p.136.

61.Ibid., II, p. 112.62. HN to AD, (Undated), BL: Eg 2240, f.47.


64. Edward Parker to AD, 9 August 1801, Private collection.

65. Morrison, op. cit., II, p. 123.

66. HN to EH, 17 March 1801, NMM MON/1/8.

67. Naish, op. cit., p. 585,

68. FN to AD, 7 May 1801, NMM DAV/2/44.

69. Nicolas, op. cit., VII, p. ccix.

70. Naish, op. cit., 589.

71.Ibid, p. 588.72. FN to AD, 22 July 1801, NMM DAV/2/49.

73. FN to AD, 7 May 1801, NMM DAV/2/44.

74. Naish, op. cit., p. 583.

75. FN to AD, Undated - but clearly dating from May 1801, NMM DAV/2/71.



78. FN to AD, 20 February 1801, NMM DAV/2/ 29.

79. Naish, op. cit. p.582.

80.Ibid., p.588.

81.Ibid., p. 596.

82. Nicolas, op. cit. VII, p. 391.

ith

83. It should also be remembered that Haslewood even told Horatia a direct lie

about who her mother was, claiming that she was a lady 'well acquainted w

Lady Hamilton.' See Carola Oman,Nelson, p. 674.

84. Clarke and M'Arthur, op. cit. Vol II, p.380.85. FN to AD, 27 June 1801, NMM DAV/2/51.

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c.white.the wife tale:francrs lady nelson and the break-up of her marriage

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