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- [00:00]
Dominic Sambrook
Thank you for listening to the Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes ad free listening, early access to series and membership of our much loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club that is thereestishistory.com.
- [00:20]
Tom Holland
This episode is brought to you by Hive.
- [00:23]
Dominic Sambrook
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- [00:43]
Tom Holland
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- [00:56]
Dominic Sambrook
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- [01:08]
Tom Holland
So history's next great transformation may not be happening in parliaments or palaces. It may be happening in your home. A quiet revolution minus guillotines.
- [01:20]
Dominic Sambrook
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- [01:35]
Tom Holland
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- [01:38]
Dominic Sambrook
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sambrook
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- [02:19]
Tom Holland
This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the team behind Claude Thomas.
- [02:25]
Dominic Sambrook
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- [02:49]
Tom Holland
Try Claude for free at Claude AI Restishistory and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner. When Nelson's carriage drew up outside Nerrat's Hotel in one of central London's most elegant streets, the pavement was packed with well wishers. He was dressed in full uniform with three stars on his breast and two gold medals, reported the Naval Chronicle and was welcomed by repeated huzzahs from the crowd, which he returned with a low bow. He looked extremely well, but in person very thin. In the hotel lobby, Fanny and Edmund were waiting, nervously wringing their hands. When they saw him, relief and joy flashed across their faces. Then two more figures came in behind him. An older man, long faced and beaky nosed, and a younger woman with an enormous mass of chestnut hair and almost bursting out of her dress. And although Fanny tried to smile, it was as if somebody had snuffed out all the lights. So that, of course, is from Adventures in Nelson, Hero of the Seas by our very own Dominic Sambrook, out in paperback today. And it gives you a sense of the incredible stylistic range of this book. In the previous one we had some vivid and highly original travel writing. Naples is a city of contrasts. And now with this scene we are launched into something redolent of, well, of kind of. Some sites might say melodrama, others more kindly might say reminiscent of Jane Austen, perhaps. So the scene, it's on the 8th of November, 1800. Nelson has been away for more than two years from his wife Fanny and his father, the vicar, Edmund Nelson. And they realize to their horror that he has brought with him to their meeting his mistress, Emma Hamilton, who is pregnant by Nelson. So hence Dominic's very diplomatic description of her bursting out of her dress. And her husband, Sir William, her elderly husband, Sir William. And you know, this is either the rankest melodrama or reminiscent of Mansfield park, take your pick. But it's high, high drama, isn't it, Dominic?
- [05:37]
Dominic Sambrook
It is indeed, Tom. We should be getting into more soap opera style shenanigans later in this episode, but maybe first we should remind ourselves where we've got to. So this is the first time Nelson has been in England since April 1798. Listeners will recall that he chased Napoleon's fleet across the Mediterranean, destroyed them at the Battle of the Nile, then went north to Naples and was embroiled in the poisonous politics of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. And there he slightly let himself down, I think we agreed, by shooting.
- [06:10]
Tom Holland
Yeah, shooting prisoners, that he said he wouldn't shoot.
- [06:12]
Dominic Sambrook
And then he started, or about the same time he started an affair with the wife of the British minister in Naples, Emma Hamilton, who we met earlier on. So shall we pick up the story in the late summer of 1799? Let's. So this republic that was set up in Naples, the Parthenopian Republic, has been crushed. King Ferdinand, an oaf. Queen Maria Carolina, you ventriloquized her as Bill Sykes, they are back on their thrones. Nelson is the temporary commander in chief in the Mediterranean, but he's keeping the seat warm until casting agents favorite Scotsman, Admiral Lord Keith returns from leave.
- [06:54]
Tom Holland
He is very much not a man who would look favourably on a former prostitute doing attitudes correct.
- [07:01]
Dominic Sambrook
So the priority really is the Admiralty want to retake Malta, where there is a French garrison, because of course Napoleon took Malta on his way to Egypt. And historians disagree about this and indeed Nelson's own contemporaries disagreed about it. Whether Nelson's heart was really in retaking Malta or whether he was distracted. I'm sure we will come to this later on. He has based himself not in Naples but back in Palermo where he is joined with the Hamiltons. And again, there are criticisms at the time, aren't there, that he has perhaps lost sight of his duty, that he has preferred, he prefers to moon around with Emma in Palermo than going off and attacking Naples. But Tom, you think that's a little bit harsh?
- [07:50]
Tom Holland
I do. Because the pitch is that Nelson is Anthony frolicking with Cleopatra in the flesh pots of Alexandria. That's the parallel that people endlessly, endlessly draw. But the thing is, Palermo is not at all a mad base from which to prosecute what Nelson, as acting commander in chief in the Mediterranean, sees as his responsibilities, which are chiefly to keep an eye on the endangered Kingdom of Naples and if possible, to roll the French backwards up through Italy and secondly to maintain and coordinate the blockade of Malta, because the fall of Malta will give Britain an absolute strategic naval prize. And the thing is that although Britain is funding some of the blockade, the other key person who is contributing towards this blockade is Ferdinand. And the reason he's doing that is because he's. He basically thinks that he's going to end up with Malta. I mean, whether. Whether he does, we will see. But I think that there are lots of people who don't understand what Nelson is facing at this time, the threads that he's holding in his hands. And so they assume, well, the only reason he could possibly have for lying in Palermo is because he's.
- [08:58]
Dominic Sambrook
Canoodling is the word. Yes, but I mean, both of those things can be true at once, can't they? Because it's possible that the, the word good grounds to be in Palermo and yet at the same time there's undoubtedly an awful lot of canoodling. Even Nelson's probably one of his most admiring biographers, John Sugden, has this stuff he describes as a repugnant cell of self congratulation Flattery and manipulation in the court in Palermo. And he talks about the sort of the intoxicating sultriness about the Palazzo Palagonia, fatally attractive like a delicious sin. Now a lot of this you could say is artistic projection and a lot of this is describing the court rather than Nelson himself. But there is a sense of the time among some of Nelson's comrades that he has succumbed to the allure. And this is the only time in his career when people make that claim, right, they never make it any other point that he succumbed to the allure of the exoticism and the sensuality and all of this.
- [09:59]
Tom Holland
I think that this is a tradition that goes back. Obviously people are saying this at the time. It feeds into biographies of Nelson throughout the 19th and 20th century who are generally written by kind of bluff naval types. And I just don't think that they approve of Italians, of showgirls. I think there's a kind of weird obsession with the idea that everything Nelson is doing is because he's been seduced by, by A Emma Hamilton and B the flesh pots of Italy. Palermo, Naples, take your pick and the two get elided. You know, I think undoubtedly he is having this affair. Probably hasn't gone beyond the canoodling stage by this point, but I think equally it does. You know, he can have this affair but it doesn't stop him from being as effective and efficient and dynamic as he has ever been.
- [10:47]
Dominic Sambrook
And yet there are, there are complaints from very early on from people who have gone to visit him, people who might be expected to be sympathetic to him, who feel that something has gone wrong. I'll just give you a couple of examples. So one of them is Lord and Lady Elgin. Lord and Lady Elgin are going through Palermo on their way to Constantinople. Lady Elgin writes of Nelson and the Hamiltons and their relationship with the Royal family. I never saw three people made such thorough dupes of as Lady Hamilton, Sir William and Lord Nelson. It's really humiliating to see Lord Nelson as if he had no other thought than her. This is actually Maria Carolina. Is it not a pity that a man who had gained so much credit should fling himself away in this shameful manner? Now that's not an uncommon thing to say. So the other example I was going to give you was Nelson's old friend Thomas Trubridge, with whom he later falls out. Troubridge wrote to him and said, please, I'm hearing really disturbing reports about you. If you knew what your friends feel for you, I'm sure you would cut out all the nocturnal parties, the Gambling of the people in Palermo is publicly talked about everywhere. I beseech your lordship, leave off. Lady Hamilton's character will suffer. Nothing can prevent people from talking. A gambling woman in the eye of an Englishman is lost. Now, putting that last bit on one side, this sort of sense that is clearly current not just among later sort of Victorian biographers or whatever, but among some of Nelson's friends, that his focus isn't quite what it was, that he's keeping late hours, that, you know, maybe you can say some of this is projection and some of this is Antony and Cleopatra, but surely not all of it, Tom.
- [12:26]
Tom Holland
No, I mean, clearly it causes gossip, it causes scandal. The two most, you know, the most famous man, the most famous woman in Britain having an affair. I mean, of course, I mean, it's absolute catnip for anyone who loves a scandal. And bear in mind that that thing you read about, you know, it's shameful what's going on here. This is about Nelson's relationship to the Queen of Naples. And I think that the feeling is that a British admiral should not be behaving like a flunky to rulers of some kind of tin pot Italian kingdom. I mean, I think that's, that's the vibe, basically. And you could argue that perhaps Nelson is clinging to them too closely. But bear in mind those are the orders he's been given. He has been told, you know, look after them carefully. And I think you can absolutely make the case in terms of military strategy that maintaining the integrity of Britain's only real ally of significance in the Mediterranean at a time when Nelson is responsible for establishing the supremacy of the Royal Navy in the face of French threats, I think that is a reasonable strategic position to take. Now when Keith arrives, you know, he's very disapproving of Nelson's relationship with Emma Hamilton for, you know, I mean, of course, I mean that's, that's his kind of moral position. But I think the much more deep seated reason for the disagreements between the two men is that Keith isn't as convinced as Nelson is that the Italian theatre is important. His focus is much more on Minorca, on Spain, on Gibraltar, and that is strategic disagreement. And the fact that Keith is coming to replace Nelson and that Keith is not good at handling Nelson, you know, he's not afraid to insult him, to be rude to him, to inflict what Nelson sees as snubs only adds to the mix. And I think that Keith's criticism of Nelson for having a relationship with Lady Hamilton and the more general gossip is Failing to deeper seated disagreements between Nelson and his peers and immediate superiors in the Navy about the course basically of strategy.
- [14:40]
Dominic Sambrook
Well, there are a number of different things here. So one of them, amid the general swirl is that there's a backlash more generally against the Hamiltons, and that includes Sir William as well as Emma. So Sir William Hamilton. There is definitely a sense after the failure of the Neapolitan expedition to Rome and then the huge fiasco of the revolution and the recapture of Naples, there is definitely a sense, I think, that Sir William has become much too close to the royal family and that he's slightly lost the plot. So he is replaced as ambassador, effectively, at the beginning of 1800, a new ambassador is sent out to replace him. And when he gets back to England, a big theme will be he doesn't get the pension he expects and he doesn't get the peerage he expects. And there's a sense in which people are like, well, the Hamiltons are useless. I mean, I hear what you're saying, but from Lord Keith's perspective, he would say, I have this subordinate who is behaving like a diva, who does not follow my orders, who is now thinks himself above the chain of command, the code of behavior that governs the Royal Navy, because, yes, he's a great star and all the rest of it, but he is sometimes flagrantly disobeying my orders when I tell him, go here.
- [15:58]
Tom Holland
Nelson has always done that. I mean, that's his modus operandi.
- [16:03]
Dominic Sambrook
That's fine, but that's very annoying if you're his commanding officer.
- [16:06]
Tom Holland
Of course it is. But I think Keith's style of leadership is completely antithetical to the Nelson touch. He doesn't have room for it. And so they're constantly rubbing up against each other.
- [16:17]
Dominic Sambrook
Nelson is also. I mean, Nelson is, is not the. He's not brilliant at his own pr, is he? Because he's begging Keith the whole time to let him go home. So it's not surprising that Keith thinks this guy is not fully committed. Nelson's constantly complaining about his health, about his mental health. He says he's got a pain, I've got a pain in my heart, all of this kind of stuff. And Keith looks at him and. And don't forget, Keith has heard a lot of the rumors. So before Keith even arrived in January 1800, another admiral wrote to him and said, you know, watch out for this infatuation that Nelson has with Emma Hamilton. I think it's very sad that Nelson should have so sadly exposed himself to ridicule and censure. Now you could say, well, you know, this is just sort of moral puritanism and whatnot. And then Keith then arrives in Palermo and says, I found it a scene of fulsome vanity and absurdity. And I know what you'll say, that this is Keith kind of cosplaying a critic in Anthony Cleopatra or something. But that doesn't mean there's not an element of truth in it.
- [17:17]
Tom Holland
No, I don't think he's doing that. I think he's trying to impose his authority, which is obviously what he should be doing because he's the commander in chief. But the problem is that Nelson, you know, Nelson wins victories by disobeying orders. That's also always been what he does. So there's a classic example of this in the early months of 1800 and it relates to the blockade of Malta. So Keith orders Nelson to abandon Palermo and come to Menorca. Nelson predictably ignores this. He sails out and on the 18th of February he wins the single most decisive engagement of the entire blockade of Malta, which is the key strategic objective for Britain. He meets a French relief force headed by a ship, Les Genereaux, which is one of the two ships that had had escaped destruction at the Battle of the Nile. Nelson captures it and he does this by ignoring Keith's orders and trusting to his own instincts, which is what he always does. And I think you can see there exactly the tensions that have shadowed Nelson's entire career. Resentment that his commanding officers don't respect him, his commanding officers don't respect him because he's always prone to going off and doing his own thing. Then he goes and does his own thing and it turns out to be brilliantly. And this is a kind of an abiding theme. So he falls out, for instance, also with Sir John Jervis, his great patron, The Earl of St. Vincent, who likewise thinks he's insufferable.
- [18:40]
Dominic Sambrook
Yeah, but that does not necessarily, that doesn't mean that they're all wrong and Nelson is always right. You know, Lord Keith is trying to put the interests of the, the entire operation, the Royal Navy first. So John Sugden, who's the great Nelson biographer, I remember describing his books as the kind of War and Peace of kind of this gigantic epic. I mean he's pre. He is really critical of Nelson in this point. For all Nelson's self righteousness, he must have known he was disappointing members of his profession, the brothers who had begged him to stay off Malta, as well as his superiors in London. He who had once been the fleet's greatest asset, was now underperforming and becoming a hindrance to his commander in chief, a prima donna turning into a passenger. Nelson's heart was ruling his head. But for the first time in his life, he'd become an impetuous impediment rather than an asset to the service he'd loved. Now, Tom, I totally accept that you can take a contrary view of this.
- [19:35]
Tom Holland
Well, you can quote Sugden to a contrary view because he also says no one fought harder for Malta than Nelson, and that's clearly the case throughout this bell.
- [19:45]
Dominic Sambrook
But often he's disobeyed orders in doing so, which is.
- [19:48]
Tom Holland
There is an example of this shortly after he has seen off the French relief force and Keith explicitly orders him, you know, don't go to Palermo. But Nelson does, pleading ill health. Now, I think that that is probably genuine. Nelson does seem to have been incredibly ill at this point. To quote on this occasion, Andrew Lambert, another great biographer of Nelson, on the 18th of March, while on passage to Palermo, Nelson experienced chest pains that convinced him he was close to death. Now, it may be hypochondria.
- [20:15]
Dominic Sambrook
I mean, that's a massive hypochondriac.
- [20:17]
Tom Holland
But he genuinely seems to have thought he was close to death. And I think he's exhausted. He's ill, people say, suggest he might have a hernia, he might have gout. I mean, I think he is genuinely ill. And thrown into the mix is the fact that Keith has not congratulated him on his victory in capturing Le Geneuro. And more than that, he has given it as a prize to his own lieutenants so that they will claim the prize money. And you can see why this would generate bad blood between the two men.
- [20:44]
Dominic Sambrook
I mean, I think these are. These are complicated waters, shall we say? And the upshot is Keith and Nelson. You know, Keith has arrived, what, at the beginning of 1800, they don't get on at all well. There's constant arguments, Nelson, that lots of officers say, Nelson's dallying with Lady Hamilton, doesn't care. Other people say, no, that's fine, he's great. It's all going well. But Nelson, by about the middle of the year, is constantly saying, I've had enough, I want to go home. Please let me go home. And eventually Keith says, yeah, fine, you know, I'm sick of you. Good riddance to you. And actually, even how the question of getting home, this is sort of an argument about that. So Keith says to Nelson, I'll give you a frigate. You can go home in a frigate. Now, Nelson says, oh, what a frigate. You know, I is a great star. The Hamiltons, these tremendous people, should be going home in splendor. Now, actually, as it turns out, Emma doesn't want to go by sea at all, does she? Partly because she knows that Maria Carolina, her great friend, is planning a trip to Vienna, great Habsburg capital, and she would really like to go on land with Maria Carolina. Now, as we will discover, Emma is also pregnant. So that is another issue. Anyway, Nelson says, fine, you know, we'll go over land, will go via Austria, we'll go via Germany, and then, you know, cross the North Sea to. To England. And I think there's a. Do you not agree that this is.
- [22:16]
Tom Holland
Seen as generally undignified?
- [22:19]
Dominic Sambrook
Undignified, yes, I do. It's not fitting for the naval. The guy who won the Battle of the Nile should come home, you know, land at Portsmouth, all of that stuff. But actually, you know, there is a sense, I think, what Emma and Maria Carolina want. Emma Carolina, get with this.
- [22:37]
Tom Holland
And I think also there's a sense that he's been led into bad habits by foreigners bedecking him with baubles and comical medals and things.
- [22:48]
Dominic Sambrook
He looks like carrots from Gilbert and Sullivan. I think at this point, yeah, and.
- [22:52]
Tom Holland
This is felt to be kind of undignified, and I think this undoubtedly poisons the otherwise kind of complete mood of approbation that would be greeting him. I think there is a kind of undertow of anxiety that he is making himself look ridiculous, that he's letting himself down. And it obscures the fact that actually his term as commander in chief has not remotely been a disaster. So he's actually. He has kept Sicily and in the fight, he's got Naples back, and he's prosecuted the blockade of Malta with extreme efficiency and with such effectiveness that actually, shortly after he's departed. So on the 5th of September, 1800, Malta will surrender. And rather than hand it over to King Ferdinand, the British keep it, much to everyone's surprise. And basically they will keep it for, you know, for a century and more. It will play its part in the Second World War.
- [23:48]
Dominic Sambrook
But actually, the even bigger thing, surely, is that Nelson is returning to England as the victor of the Nile, the winner of the greatest naval victory in Britain's history, the victory that effectively punctured Napoleon's dreams of empire in Egypt. And the tragedy, I think, and this is even for his critics within the Navy, for Lord Keith and all these other people, that, as they see it, the tragedy is that the Victor of the Nile has tarnished his own record and is going back, you know, whether he's tarnished it, whether he really has tarnished it. Tom, sure we can debate, but the sadness is that he's not going back as the victor of the Nile. He's going back as a scandal plagued, you know, controversy haunted figure.
- [24:30]
Tom Holland
From Nelson's point of view there is a positive to traveling over land which is that obviously he will have to go via Austria and other parts of Germany that are allied to Britain, all of whom are very excited by his achievement in defeating the French at the Battle of the Nile. And so yet again it promises opportunities for being praised by foreigners which I think by this point Nelson's very keen on.
- [24:56]
Dominic Sambrook
By the time they get to, well, you know, we don't need to go through every single place they stopped at, but they go through Italy, Tuscany, they end up in Austria and Vienna. He goes to the theater, he has his portrait painted, he meets Joseph Haydn who names a mass after him. He's a big celebrity and everyone's very excited. And they're wearing kind of Nelson fashions and stuff like that, aren't they?
- [25:19]
Tom Holland
And Emma Hamilton fashions as well. So she too is a big star. You know, she. Women in Vienna are copying her look as well. They are being treated as stars and I think both of them absolutely adore it.
- [25:30]
Dominic Sambrook
I mean I worked out how much this trip cost them. This trip cost them £3,000 and if you compare that in income terms that's about 5 million pounds today. That's a very expensive trip and that's money that they don't really have. So there's that issue, second issue. Emma heavily pregnant as you mentioned and people are already gossiping that Nelson may be the father. He is the father. Their child was conceived while they were cruising I think off Malta in the Mediterranean. And I think it's in Vienna you get the sense it's in Vienna that he first notices Nelson is not a man who enjoys being laughed at. And it's clear that it's about now that people do start to laugh at him. There are reports of him at balls, at banquets and things. Emma's chattering away as she always does and he's standing there sort of silent and I think I have a sort of sense of him, you know, glancing over his shoulder, noticing people laughing behind their hands and he doesn't like it.
- [26:32]
Tom Holland
Well, I think also particularly in Vienna he's meeting with very high born British aristocrats who of course are contemptuous of Emma basically For being a barmaid, Nelson has his friend Lord Minto, who's there, who says unbelievably coarse, appalling, vulgar woman.
- [26:49]
Dominic Sambrook
Yes.
- [26:50]
Tom Holland
And while Emma was in Italy, her Lancastrian accent had no cut through with, with the Italians. I mean, it meant nothing to them. But now he's being reintegrated into high society, English high society, all those reserves of snobbery are kind of waiting to come out again.
- [27:08]
Dominic Sambrook
Well, the issue of manners and showiness starts to become a real issue the further north they go. So, for example, when they get to Prague or to Dresden, there are British visitors, British aristocrats or diplomats who then start writing back to London saying, God, they're absolutely ghastly. So here's an example. Lady Hamilton declared she was passionately fond of champagne, took such a portion of it as astonished me Lord Nelson was not behindhand calling more vociferously than usual for songs in his own praise. Now that, to me does actually ring true because Nelson does like a lot of praise.
- [27:43]
Tom Holland
And Lady Hamilton, you feel, is not a woman who's going to stop drinking champagne just because she's pregnant also.
- [27:48]
Dominic Sambrook
Right, exactly. And I think, I mean, even now in England, there is a sense that you shouldn't be the first to call for a song in your own praise. Tom. If you did that at a Rest Is History dinner, I would be Dominic.
- [28:02]
Tom Holland
I would never do that.
- [28:03]
Dominic Sambrook
I mean, the one thing actually this podcast is not known for is self congratulations. People often criticize us for too much humility.
- [28:09]
Tom Holland
I think on this one level, we have behaved better than Nelson. However, we must always bear in mind that he did defeat the French at the Battle of the Nile and he did secure Malta for the Royal Navy.
- [28:19]
Dominic Sambrook
So, yeah, desperate to hammer home this Malta point on you, I can tell.
- [28:22]
Tom Holland
Well, it's so important and it's overlooked. Anyway, they travel through Europe, they get to Germany and they catch a boat back to Yarmouth. It's a packet boat. It's not, you know, a great ship of the Royal Navy. However, when Nelson lands, doesn't matter. He's greeted, you know, the returning hero. Right.
- [28:42]
Dominic Sambrook
Yes. There are huge crowds. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. But at the back of his mind, surely he's got his heavily pregnant mistress and her elderly husband, and that's a slightly odd menage with which to return to.
- [28:52]
Tom Holland
Just to explain, for people who aren't familiar with the geography of East Anglia, Yarmouth is the nearest port to the the vicarage where both Fanny and Nelson's father are waiting for him. Or Are they, Dominic? Because there's kind of a mix up, isn't there?
- [29:06]
Dominic Sambrook
There's a massive mix up because actually Fanny has also got him a country house called Roundwood, which is in Suffolk, which she's been preparing. They never live at it, as it turns out. And there's a great confusion. Are they going to meet there? Are they going to meet in London? Fanny's down in London. Nelson goes to the house. There's nobody there. He's very offended. You can imagine Nelson. He's used to flattery. He's used to being the center of attention. He arrives at the house and there's no one there to greet him. Anyway, Fanny has been waiting all this time and to remind people about Fanny. Fanny is very shy, kind of quiet. If you had to criticize Fanny, which I hate to do, but I will force myself for the good of the podcast. She's perhaps a little bit boring. He married her in the Caribbean. They came home to England. He nursed her when he was injured. She's become a second daughter to his father. And Fanny has become increasingly anxious in recent months. Nelson's letters of A, started to dry up, but B, when they do come, they are very short and they are very cold. And she says to her friends, I'm actually quite worried about these Hamiltons. There's a clear sense of kind of growing dread in Fanny's mind about the influence of the Hamiltons. Now we're not going to degenerate into team Emma and team Fanny, are we, Tom? I. I hope I've always.
- [30:24]
Tom Holland
I mentioned Mansfield park at the start of this episode. Jane Austen's novel. Jane Austen, of course, had a brother who served in the Royal Navy, kept very abreast of Nelsoniana. And I've always wondered whether Fanny Price in Mansfield park, who is the, you know, the slightly mousy, slightly, you know, the poor relation, not showy at all. And she's counterpointed to a much more glamorous woman in the form of Mary Crawford. And I've always wondered if there's a little hint there perhaps of the dynamic between Fanny Nelson's wife and Emma Nelson's mistress.
- [31:00]
Dominic Sambrook
Well, it feels like a very Jane Austen dynamic generally, doesn't it? The, you know, the two women, the one who is kind of quieter and more retiring, the one who is louder and, you know, is a little bit more Emma Woodville or whatever.
- [31:11]
Tom Holland
Yeah, Emma again. Yeah, yeah.
- [31:14]
Dominic Sambrook
Anyway, finally they all meet up, the scene you described at the beginning. So little of this is private because even at that first meeting There are loads of well wishers there. There are great crowds outside. It's actually almost impossible for Fanny Horatio to find a moment to talk together, you know, just the two of them. Cause he's got his father there. Cause the Hamiltons are there, you know, Nelson, when he arrives in London, he's so famous at this point. There's Nelson crockery, there are Nelson hats, there's Nelson earrings, there's Nelson Prince. He can't walk down the street without people mobbing him and of course he doesn't want to because he's wearing his full dress uniform. He's oh, I hate the way I keep being noticed. Exactly. Because he's a big star and because he's Britain's great military asset. He's politically important now in a way that he wasn't before. So he gets to meet the Prime Minister, William Pitt and the guy who's going to become Prime Minister, Henry Addington. My sense of it at this point is Nelson's greeting the crowds and he's greeting politicians but hanging over him the whole time is this hideous dilemma, this issue of the mistress and the wife and the fact that they're all together. I mean that's what's so strange about it, isn't it?
- [32:25]
Tom Holland
Yeah. And the agony of it for Nelson, I mean setting Fanny aside is that he knows his responsibility and his duty. He should clearly, you know, stay true to his wedding vows. But he feels such a passion for Emma and so he's torn in two and it's a nightmare situation for him. It is however, even more I think of a nightmare situation for Fanny.
- [32:49]
Dominic Sambrook
Oh, I mean the fact that it's public. I think that's the thing that they're forced to go to all these dinner parties where. I mean there's dinner parties where she's, she's seen in tears. There's this awful story about going to see a musical at the Drury Lane Theatre, Tom, where we've performed and she faints halfway through and had to be carried out and people said afterwards, oh, the line at which she fainted was an exchange about an injured woman's fury. You know, this sort of idea that. And the sense, I think that Fanny clearly has a very retiring person, that everybody is staring at her and laughing at her and that all the time. Of course Nelson is treating her more and more coldly because he's resentful of.
- [33:31]
Tom Holland
The whole situation and he's not a naturally cruel man. So he then feels bad about it. Because he feels bad about it. He blames Fanny and So it's a kind of vicious cycle.
- [33:39]
Dominic Sambrook
It's a classic pattern.
- [33:40]
Tom Holland
And of course, this is setting up for the time of year where families love to get together and have massive rows, which is Christmas. And Nelson hasn't spent Christmas with, you know, with Fanny, with his father for what, three years now. But 20th of December comes and he tells Fanny, I'm not having Christmas with you. Do you know where he's off to? He's off to Wiltshire and the Salisbury area.
- [34:04]
Dominic Sambrook
It's great to have Wiltshire and Salisbury area back on the show, isn't it? It is.
- [34:08]
Tom Holland
So he goes off to Salisbury with the Hamiltons and he gets given the freedom of the city of Salisbury. So that reflects very well on Salisbury. And then he goes off to a place where I once took five wickets, Fonthill, where William Beckford, who is going to be exposed as the Jeffrey Epstein of the. Of the Regency period, he's a very, very sinister figure who will end up going into exile in Portugal. But at this point, he's used all the money he's made from sugar, so exploiting slaves in the Caribbean to build this enormous folly, Fonthill Abbey. And he. He lays on an absolute extravaganza for Nelson and the Hamiltons. And it's a very, very spectacular Christmas. And it's very, very. Not Fanny.
- [34:51]
Dominic Sambrook
It's very Peter the Great, isn't it? There's a lot of dwarves, there's people with torches, there's sort of strange scenes and sort of Emma does her attitudes.
- [35:00]
Tom Holland
She is eight months pregnant. She does Agrippina bringing the ashes of Germanicus. So tremendous scenes.
- [35:07]
Dominic Sambrook
Now you can imagine Fanny's. Where's Fanny? I mean, she's sort of hanging around with Edmund at age 78, at Christmas, really miserable Christmas, knowing that Nelson is away sort of with the Hamiltons at this party. And I think there's this sort of sense that the end is coming and then the denouement comes. So on the 9th of January, Fanny and Nelson agreed to sell this house called Roundwood that they'd never actually lived in. And a few days later, they're having breakfast with their lawyer. Nelson mentions at breakfast something about dear Lady Hamilton, and it's clear that basically, for the only time in her life, something snapped in Fanny. And she said, you know, it's like the sort of the mouse that roared. She said, I'm sick of hearing of dear Lady Hamilton and I'm resolved you shall give up either her or me. This is the lawyer reporting this. And Nelson stared at her very coldly and he said, take Care Fanny what you say. I love you sincerely, but I cannot forget my obligations to Lady Hamilton or speak of her otherwise than with affection or admiration. And Fanny at that, just gets up and walks out of the room. At that point, they'd been married for 15 years and probably neither of them really knew it, but that was the end of their life together.
- [36:30]
Tom Holland
So incredible kind of emotional storms raging there. But Dominic, out across the continent of Europe, storm clouds are gathering and these are of course, the storm clouds of war. And they are gathering in particular over the freezing waters of the Baltic. So after the break, we will join Nelson as he turns his back on all the emotional complications of his relationship with Fanny and with Emma and sails east towards Denmark and the Battle of Copenhagen. This episode is brought to you by Vanguard. Now, thrillingly, this name, Vanguard, was inspired by HMS Vanguard, the flagship of none other than Admiral Nelson.
- [37:18]
Dominic Sambrook
He pursues the French to Abakir Bay on the shores of Egypt for the Battle of the Nile and save the world from Napoleon. Really so great scenes, so tremendous record.
- [37:28]
Tom Holland
There from Vanguard, a ship that certainly saw no lack of action.
- [37:33]
Dominic Sambrook
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- [37:52]
Tom Holland
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- [38:18]
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- [38:49]
Tom Holland
Hello. Welcome back to the Rest is History. We ended the first half with, of course, the storm clouds of war gathering. And they're gathering over the Baltic and Dominic. People may be slightly puzzled about that because we've been talking a lot about the channel, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean. What on earth is going on in the Baltic that would, that would cause storm clouds to gather.
- [39:09]
Dominic Sambrook
Would you like some political context?
- [39:10]
Tom Holland
I'd like you to. I'd like you to pull the camera back.
- [39:13]
Dominic Sambrook
Oh, very good, very good. Okay. So the French Revolutionary wars have broken out in 1792 and they've been going on forever. This latest phase, which began in 1798, is called the War of the Second Coalition. But despite all Nelson's heroics at the NAR, the Second Coalition has begun to.
- [39:31]
Tom Holland
Break up because the coalition is between France's enemies, including Britain and Russia and Austria and so on.
- [39:37]
Dominic Sambrook
Britain's main partners, the Austrians and the Russians, are both basically about to pull out of the war and sign treaties with the French. So that means that not for the last time, Tom, Britain stands alone. Stand alone for all that's good in this world. So now the seas are massively important, of course, for Britain. And they're even more important if you basically have no land allies, because the sea is all you have. The Royal Navy has been blockading the French coast to try and starve the French of trade and supplies. And in the long run, in the very, very long run, that's how we win the war. Because we control the seas, we suffocate. Napoleon suffocate his economy, and we force him into mad gambles like invading Russia. Sad to say, not all of our European friends have respected this blockade. And a very good example is Denmark. Denmark has been flirting with a policy of armed neutrality, meaning they send warships to help their merchant ships break the blockade. And then in late 1800, while Nelson is in the middle of the sort of Fanny Emma imbroglio, there is a shocking new development. So one of our key Britain's key Second Coalition allies was Tsar Paul I of Russia. He is a very strange and disagreeable man.
- [40:58]
Tom Holland
We like a strange and disagreeable tsar, don't we?
- [41:03]
Dominic Sambrook
Yeah, well, we specialize in them, as does Russia. And he has, I think he's got like, he's sort of got all the worst aspects of Peter the Great and none of the good ones. So he loves massive military parades, he loves flogging people. He's obsessed with. So Peter the Great, people may remember, was obsessed with beards and cutting people's, you know, make stopping them wearing caftans and they had to wear trousers. This guy, he doesn't approve of modern liberal clothing. He in fact bans round hats, trousers and lace up shoes. And he also believes that waistcoats contributed to the outbreak of the French Revolution because he thinks all of these things are kind of liberal. It's liberal coded dress and it speaks of Republican sympathies. And he just doesn't like republicanism, he doesn't like new ideas, all of this stuff.
- [41:51]
Tom Holland
Right. So, which is why, obviously, why he would be fighting against France, because France is a hotbed of waistcoats and ludicrous hats.
- [41:59]
Dominic Sambrook
But there's another side to him. He's obsessed with becoming. I mean, this is your Malta, Tom. He's like you. He's obsessed with becoming the Grand Master of the Knights of St John. So when Britain did capture Malta in September 1800 and kept Malta for themselves, Tsar Paul, I said, what, you know, what's this? You can't have Malta and switch his sides.
- [42:22]
Tom Holland
So you see, I'm right. Malta is key.
- [42:24]
Dominic Sambrook
You see, I think it's sad that we had to fight the Danes and we had to crush. We had to teach the Danes a lesson, and this would not have happened if we hadn't taken Malta. Anyway, basically, Paul switches sides. He opens talks with Bonaparte and Bonaparte.
- [42:37]
Tom Holland
By this point, is First Consul, isn't he? So he's overthrown the Directory. He's clearly basically the dictator now.
- [42:44]
Dominic Sambrook
So in December 1800, Paul signed a deal with the other Baltic powers, that's Denmark, Sweden and Prussia, and they set up a league of armed neutrality. They will break the blockade of the Royal Navy and they will. They will trade with the French. Now, clearly this is a massive threat to Britain's war effort. First of all, it would mean that Russia controls the Baltic, but also it would give the French enough timber, enough hemp, enough iron to restock their navy, build loads of new ships, win back control of the seas, potentially. And of course, if they did that, it's curtains for Britain and game over in the war. So to quote Andrew Lambert's great historian, if Britain accepted, she would abandon her great power status and accept French hegemony over Europe. These issues were fundamental to Britain's very survival. So by December 1800, to the point at which Nelson is going off to William Beckford's slightly sordid party, you know, George III is telling the House of Commons, our honor and independence, our maritime interests, our security, all depend on not letting this happen.
- [43:55]
Tom Holland
And this is upsetting for him, isn't it? Because he's got kind of, you know, he's related to the Danish royal family.
- [44:00]
Dominic Sambrook
He loves the Danes. So Denmark since 1784 has been run not by its king, because he's mad, but by his son, Crown Prince Frederick. And Crown Prince Frederick is George III's nephew. And George likes him. He likes the Danes.
- [44:17]
Tom Holland
Everybody likes the Danes. So Nelson, he, he, he sees them as, as basically the best thing any foreigner can be the brothers of Englishmen.
- [44:25]
Dominic Sambrook
Exactly.
- [44:26]
Tom Holland
High praise.
- [44:26]
Dominic Sambrook
That was the highest praise. So they try to negotiate. But while that's happening, the Admiralty says, look, we're going to have to send a fleet into the Baltic to show that we mean business. And your orders are capture or destroy the Danish fleet first because obviously if we're sailing up the Baltic, Denmark comes first, then you go past Sweden and then finally you get to Russia and you know, the orders are very clear. The Secretary of War, Henry Dundas writes, we must show the Royal Navy is, and I quote, a match for the whole naval force of the the world combined. We have to rule the waves because we're so inconsequential on land that, you know, that's the only way we'll stay in this war. Now this is made for Nelson, isn't it? I mean, this has got his name all over it and he has been itching to get to sea. The weird thing is he begged to be sent back to England, begged and begged and made a nuisance of himself to Admiral Lord Keith. Then he got back to England and said, I can't wait to get back to sea again because of course he's, he's adrift on land, isn't he? He's not at ease and he's got this terrible love triangle.
- [45:26]
Tom Holland
Well, I think also going and having a crack at the Danes, it's simpler than having to arse around with Walter and, you know, queens and all that. It's much more complicated. But I think the fact that Nelson is not appointed to the command, he's only given a role as deputy, does reflect the fact that back in London his reputation has been tarnished. I think otherwise he would have been given command of it.
- [45:49]
Dominic Sambrook
I think it has. Whether he would be capable actually of wielding soul command is an interesting question because he's, I mean, not for the first or the last time. He's in a bit of a terrible state, isn't he? He's had an attack of malarial fever. I always think when Nelson, so much of this physical stuff is psychosomatic to some degree. You know, he went to see his old patron, Sir John Jervis, who's now the Earl of St. Vincent, and Jervis was really shocked by Nelson's appearance. Poor man. He is devoured with vanity, weakness and folly.
- [46:18]
Tom Holland
Well, that's what you want from your. The patron and father figure that you most admire in the Navy.
- [46:24]
Dominic Sambrook
From there, Nelson travels down to the dockyard at Plymouth and there he has news at the end of January, beginning of February, that changes his life because probably on the 29th of January, we can't be sure Emma has finally given birth to a daughter.
- [46:40]
Tom Holland
Do they acknowledge it? They don't.
- [46:42]
Dominic Sambrook
Well, they can't. How can you do they?
- [46:45]
Tom Holland
Are they so subtle that they give no hint as to whose daughter it might have been?
- [46:49]
Dominic Sambrook
They call her Horatio Horatia. Yeah. And he sends Emma all these coded letters. They call themselves Mr. And Mrs. Thompson. And I mean, this is the best thing. Nelson's wrote to her and he said, I think, you know, it would be really nice if you. When you do the birth certificates, the name of the parents should be Joham and Maratha Etnob. Etnob.
- [47:11]
Tom Holland
Bronte.
- [47:11]
Dominic Sambrook
This is a quote. If you read the surname backwards and take the letters of the other names, it gives the names of Horatio and Emma Bronte. This is him showing off about his dukedom. And that's classic Nelson. It's the sort of. He thinks he's being really subtle, but he obviously is just. It's laughable. But he's also boasting.
- [47:30]
Tom Holland
Yeah, he wants to draw attention to it.
- [47:32]
Dominic Sambrook
Yeah. So, for the time being, this little girl is given to a woman called Mrs. Gibson, and Mrs. Gibson basically acts as her guardian, doesn't she?
- [47:41]
Tom Holland
And obviously this massively intensifies the bond between Nelson and Emma, because Fanny hadn't been able to give him a child and Nelson loves children, so he'd be very besotted with Horatio completely.
- [47:53]
Dominic Sambrook
And actually, I think it's the fact that he's had the child and he can't see her contributes to his misery, because in these, these are some of the lowest weeks of his life. He's stuck in this new ship, the St. George in Torbay. The weather at the beginning of 1801 is absolutely terrible. It's kind of howling gales, driving rain, there's snowstorms and stuff. He's in this cabin on his own, he's really low. The newspapers are full of kind of gossip about him. There are cartoons that basically show Emma.
- [48:24]
Tom Holland
Drinking gin, massively pregnant. So there's a famous one of Emma as Dido, the Queen of Carthage, who gets abandoned by Aeneas, who sails off. And it's grotesquely unfair and of course is very much drawing attention to the fact that she's pregnant. And so everybody knows what's going on.
- [48:46]
Dominic Sambrook
She's very large in these cartoons and Sir William Hamilton often pops up in them, doesn't he? Looking very beaky and weedy in the background.
- [48:53]
Tom Holland
Wizened.
- [48:54]
Dominic Sambrook
Yeah.
- [48:54]
Tom Holland
Very, very pervy.
- [48:56]
Dominic Sambrook
Now the other thing about Nelson that is, actually I do find this both sad and comical is he's absolutely tormented by jealousy. So a terrible development. A few days after Horatia's birth, Emma writes to him and says, I'm going to have dinner with the Prince of Wales, the future George iv. And Nelson, this is the worst news.
- [49:18]
Tom Holland
He'S ever heard because the Prince Regent's a massive lech, isn't it?
- [49:21]
Dominic Sambrook
Yeah, he's what he's. He really is a terrible man, the Prince Regent. And Nelson writes back, he says, I know his aim is to have you for a mistress. The thought so agitates me that I cannot write, I'm in tears, I cannot bear it.
- [49:34]
Tom Holland
And there is so much like this, isn't there? He just goes on and on and on like this.
- [49:37]
Dominic Sambrook
This podcast could go on for hours. They're comical, actually. Do not let him touch you, nor sit next to you. If he comes, get up. God, strike him blind if he looks at you. And then. This is so Nelsonian. They're then lurch from this into mad self pity. Oh, God, that I was dead. Oh, God, why do I live?
- [49:54]
Tom Holland
But the brilliant thing is, is that he's having to do the same with Emma because Emma's massively jealous of him. So I think he goes to Portsmouth and he's had to swear to Emma that he will spend no time with other women. And of course he finds that he, he does. And so he writes back and, and, and confesses. So he describes one woman as dressed old ewe, lamb fashion, so mutton dressed as lamb. Another is looks like a cook made, another likes a drop. Another is 55, deaf and pitted with smallpox.
- [50:20]
Dominic Sambrook
Oh, such gallantry.
- [50:21]
Tom Holland
Yeah, exactly. And, and kind of mutual jealousy again is, seems to be kind of part of the rocket fuel of the relationship.
- [50:28]
Dominic Sambrook
Yeah, I think so, I think so. This is sort of a possessiveness and a paranoia combined. Now, meanwhile, what's happened to Fanny? Well, Fanny has not given up hope entirely. That's the sad thing. So she's heard from her son Josiah. Listeners may remember saving Nelson's life and the attack in Tenerife when he lost his arm. Anyway, she's heard from Josiah that Nelson's eye infection has come back. And Fanny writes and she says, I'd like to come and I would, I'll be your affectionate nurse and look after you. And Nelson replies, you mean you said Nelson behaves quite cruelly? I think this is very cruel, actually from Nelson. He replies to her with an extraordinarily savage letter at the end of February, he says, I'm going to pay you an allowance of £400 a quarter, and that is it. And I'm going to cut you off from this point onwards. I only wish people would never mention my name to you. I want neither nursing nor attention. Had you come here, I should not have gone on shore. Nor would you have come afloat. You know, even if you'd come, I wouldn't even see you. I don't. I don't want to think about you anymore. I just want you out of my life.
- [51:32]
Tom Holland
So you talked about Nelson being cruel. Emma also, by this point, is behaving abominably to Fanny, kind of turning Nelson's family against her, calling her names, kind of gossiping about her behind her back. And I think both of them have kind of been driven mad by their mutual passion, but also by the social pressure that it has put both of them under. And I think this is the kind of the lowest point in their mutual story. They behave so badly to her.
- [52:04]
Dominic Sambrook
I completely agree with you, Tom. This is, up to this point. Emma Hamilton. Deep down, I'm going to confess, and I hope the listeners will not judge me for this, I find her quite annoying. But this is the one point where I think she's genuinely vicious. Fanny is a beaten woman.
- [52:20]
Tom Holland
Well, so Nelson. Nelson has this awful phrase. It is very easy to find a stick if you are inclined to beat your dog.
- [52:27]
Dominic Sambrook
Yeah, I mean, that's hard to defend. That's very hard to defend, I think. Now, I think in Nelson's case. I'm not saying this makes him better than Emma, by the way, but I think in Nelson's case, this is clearly driven, do you not think, by guilt to some degree? He hates feeling bad about himself. You know, he's been brought up by a vicar in a vicarage. He's been told how to behave and he knows he's letting his father and his moral code down. There's a slight sense of viciousness and anger to the way he treats Fanny because he feels that she has driven him to behave badly and he doesn't like it.
- [52:59]
Tom Holland
But what's interesting is he doesn't blame Emma for this. I mean, he could easily have done that, but actually it seems to have forced them into an even greater kind of codependency. Although it does not in any way inhibit his capacity to feel jealous, as we all see.
- [53:16]
Dominic Sambrook
Yeah, exactly. Now, I think one other aspect, actually, and we could get bogged down in this sort of. One thing that is worth people remembering is Emma and Nelson can move on from this. They can still have the relationship. And the sad thing for Fanny is she can't ever move on and she never, ever does because an abandoned wife can't take on a new partner. So she's effectively condemned to live as a kind of widow, as I think John Sugden says, an object of pity and innuendo for the remainder of her days. And that is. That is a really sad story.
- [53:45]
Tom Holland
I mean, I suppose I'd say the one. The one advantage she has over Emma is that we talked about Nelson making a financial settlement on her. She will get his pension in due course. When he dies, she's the one who will receive his prize money and so forth. And this, as we will see, for Emma, is going to be a catastrophe because she does lack. I mean, Emma gets Nelson, but she doesn't get the financial stability that Nelson gives to Fanny. And that's quite a Jane Austen perspective on things.
- [54:17]
Dominic Sambrook
Yeah, it is. All right, that's the end of that. A very sad story. Let's get back to the action. 5 March, after Nelson has written his final sort of letter of dismissal to Fanny, he goes off to Yarmouth, which is on the Norfolk coast on the east of England. And there, Admiral Hyde Parker's fleet is waiting. Nelson cannot wait to get into action, to leave all this emotional drama behind. But in a sort of weird mirror image of what's been going on, Admiral Parker has an interesting love life of his own. He is 61 years old. He's a very kind of cautious, pedantic, meticulous admiral. But he's just married a new bride and her age is variously given at 24. Remember, he's 61, or by some sources as 18. There's a bit of a gap. Now, Admiral Hyde Parker loves. He's delighted, he's having a tremendous time, and he's in no hurry to go sailing off to the Baltic when he's got this teenage bride. So while Nelson is chafing, Admiral Hyde Parker is organizing balls and parties and all this kind of thing, and so they don't set off for another week.
- [55:28]
Tom Holland
But, Dominic, the thing is that even when they do set off, and you'd think that Nelson's focus now would be all about the campaign to come, he's still obsessing about Emma and he's still obsessing about. About the Prince of Wales and kind of writing letters to her all the time. And I always think when I read about this campaign and you read all the letters that he's Sending to Emma. It's unbelievable that he has the focus and capacity to achieve what he achieves on this campaign. I mean, it's astonishing.
- [55:57]
Dominic Sambrook
Copenhagen is an amazing story, which we'll come to. The incredible thing is that basically the build up to it, he's writing a letter saying, sir William Hamilton's pimping you out. What are you doing? How are you associating with a set of whores, bawds and unprincipled liars? All of this kind of thing. He writes about his dreams, doesn't he? It says, there's a dream in which I hit you over the head with a stick and then threw a tub of boiling hot water over you because of the Prince. Yeah. That's a strange letter to get from your lover.
- [56:24]
Tom Holland
I think Emma would roll with it.
- [56:26]
Dominic Sambrook
You reckon? Well, she clearly does.
- [56:28]
Tom Holland
Well, it's the kind of, you know, the kind of. The drama of it all, the melodrama.
- [56:32]
Dominic Sambrook
Now, meanwhile, as they sail northeast through the North Sea, the pace of events is quickening. On 14 March, the Admiralty sends them their final instructions. We want to force the straits between Denmark and Sweden, annihilate the Danish fleet and the dockyards at Copenhagen. And if this isn't enough to intimidate the other Baltic powers, we want you to head on towards the Russian naval base at Kronstadt. And hurry, hurry, you know, time is of the essence. So they sail on through this kind of driving rain and snowstorms, and on the 19th of March, they reach the northern tip of Jutland, which is called the Scour. And here they hear news that Britain's negotiating team has been expelled from Denmark. So there's no doubt now it is war. So Admiral Parker sends a message home. He says, we will head around the tip of Jutland right away and I will put the orders into exit execution. So around they go. And three days later, by the 22nd of March, they're approaching the town of Helsingur, better known as Elsinore, which is in the shadow of this great castle. One of the best gift shops I've ever been to in a castle. It's.
- [57:45]
Tom Holland
Yeah, it's a brilliant castle and a great gift shop. And of course, this is famous in England as the setting for Shakespeare's play Hamlet. And the salient thing about Hamlet, Dominic, is that he delays. And is there anyone in this story who delays much to the impatience of Nelson?
- [58:02]
Dominic Sambrook
That's a very nice Shakespearean segue. I applaud that. I applaud that. That's top quality podcasting. Because right here, Admiral Parker stops. He hesitates. Now the wind is with them. So why is he stopped? The answer is he's received terrifying new intelligence about the Danish defenses. Copenhagen is already going to be a very tough nut to crack. The water is very shallow and to get in, an attacking fleet to get into the harbour will have to go around this great shoal or sandbank, called the Middle Ground. But Parker hears that the harbour entrance is guarded by these huge citadel batteries. There's two enormous forts that are built on wooden piles above the sea. They've got 100 guns each. And the Danes have lined the inner channel because they know the British are coming with warships and hulks and floating sort of gun platforms, which means that basically, as you sail into the harbour, there's a wall of guns pointing right at you.
- [59:03]
Tom Holland
I mean, to sail into that would be madness. It would effectively be suicide. What lunatic would conceive of doing that?
- [59:10]
Dominic Sambrook
Exactly. Who indeed? Parker thinks no would just stop. And Nelson can't believe it. And for two days, he smoulders in his cabin aboard the St. George, his ship.
- [59:21]
Tom Holland
And he's still writing letters to Emma.
- [59:22]
Dominic Sambrook
Yeah, exactly. He's thinking about the Prince of Wales and thinking about throwing boiling water over people's heads and stuff. And then he writes Parker this extraordinary letter. He says, don't worry about the defences. You know, time is of the essence. It's now or never. We have to strike at the Danes. Not a moment should be lost. This is a quote. In attacking the enemy, they will every day and every hour be stronger. And then he says to Parker, the honour of England is in your hands. On your decision depends whether our country shall be degraded in the eyes of Europe or whether she shall rear her head higher than ever. Never did our country depend so much on the success of any fleet as on this. And he sends the letter across to Parker's flagship and he waits and waits for the reply. And finally it comes. And Parker says, very well, we will attack, but you, Horatio Nelson, will lead that assault personally.
- [60:21]
Tom Holland
Dominic, we're not gonna stop now, are we?
- [60:23]
Dominic Sambrook
We are, Tom. That's the nature of podcasting.
- [60:25]
Tom Holland
Unbelievable. Britain's survival is at stake. The Danish guns are bristling. Nelson's preparing to go into the strait. Oh, such excitement. And if you are a clubber member of the Rest Is History, then of course you can hear that episode right now, as well as the next four episodes in this series. And if you are not a club member, but you would like to become one, then you can go to therestishistory.com and sign up there. Unbelievable excitement. The battle of Copenhagen is ready to begin. We will see you next time.
- [60:59]
Dominic Sambrook
Goodbye. Bye bye.
- [61:10]
Alastair Campbell
Alastair Campbell here from the Rest is politics now. We've just released a series on one of the most controversial and consequential people of the past 50 years, Rupert Murdoch.
- [61:21]
Rupert Murdoch Commentator
I think you can argue that he is the most consequential figure of the second half of the 20th century. He holds power longer than anyone else in our time and its meaningful power, its phenomenal power.
- [61:36]
Alastair Campbell
Power without responsibility. The prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages. This is where he becomes not just a newspaper owner, he becomes a major newsmaker.
- [61:45]
Rupert Murdoch Commentator
Fuck Dacre publish. There is always a premium on bringing him gossip.
- [61:51]
Tom Holland
I don't know what you mean by downmarket and upmarket. That is so English class ridden snobbery. When you talk like how you get.
- [61:58]
Rupert Murdoch Commentator
It doesn't make any difference. Actually, to be perfectly honest, whether it's true or not doesn't make much difference.
- [62:04]
Alastair Campbell
There is a massive, massive scandal brewing. This was industrial illegal activity. And that I think is what really cuts through to the public and thinks you people are really, really bad.
- [62:16]
Tom Holland
I would just like to say one sentence. This is the most humble day of my life.
- [62:22]
Rupert Murdoch Commentator
There is no Donald Trump without Fox News. His dream was always to elect a president of the United States. The bitter irony is that that turned out to be Donald Trump, a man he detests. He is conquering the world. There is nothing less than this methodical step by step progress to take over everything.
- [62:48]
Alastair Campbell
To hear more, just search. The rest is politics. Wherever you get your podcasts.