Vulgar History - Regency Era It Girl Emma Hamilton (part one)

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Vulgar History, Feminist Women's History comedy podcast. My name is Anne Foster

00:00:14.520 and we are in our Regency era. We're talking about stuff that happened in mostly in England

00:00:20.040 and surrounding areas in the early 1800s. The Regency era being, we're using a broader term

00:00:25.680 for it, but it's kind of like the late 1700s to the early 1800s. It's like pre-Queen Victoria.

00:00:30.140 It's that time period where Jane Austen was writing her books. It's ostensibly when Bridgerton

00:00:35.080 takes place. And we will have some Bridgerton crossover in this episode. I'm in the sense

00:00:39.820 of Queen Charlotte will be here. Today, we're talking about Emma Hamilton, who is... I'm 0.97

00:00:45.240 going to introduce my guest, Amanda Matta. Welcome. Thank you. You've been a guest on... I don't even

00:00:50.580 know how many times in this podcast. I noticed you're writing Vulgar History merch, and I

00:00:53.980 appreciate it yes i am my favorite merch t-shirt um i think this is my third or fourth time so i'm

00:01:00.520 getting close to earning a jacket i know you're getting exactly exactly you're so i love having

00:01:07.040 you on obviously just because i love to have a chat with you and i love to have you on for like

00:01:12.320 episodes that have artistic things because you have this art history background although i will

00:01:17.740 say for people who don't know amanda matta you're a royal commentator um soon to be published author

00:01:22.860 you talk about the the current british royal family and i think there's also some we're gonna

00:01:28.000 get into some comparisons of this story oh boy we will anyway just all you're bringing everything to

00:01:34.280 the table for this story there's layers i was trying to describe emma hamilton and i'm like

00:01:38.340 how do you even i will say that she's uh she's a well-known figure from british history she was

00:01:46.760 extremely famous in her time she was kind of the original it girl how many times can we discuss

00:01:52.520 the original it girl for different eras on this show she's i think every era has an it girl and

00:01:58.400 we just get to discuss them and that's what i like to bring you on for like it's giving me

00:02:02.020 you did the episode with me about madame du barry and she's giving me a bit madame du barry like

00:02:07.300 there's a bit of sort of like a rags to riches yeah really a pretty person ends up getting some 0.95

00:02:12.500 opportunities that maybe a less pretty person might not have and she pretty privilege she's not 1.00

00:02:17.800 equipped to know what to do with it anyway what a person but first can we so emma hamilton like 0.99

00:02:25.320 she's she's so pretty and there's lots of evidence of this i believe she is the person

00:02:31.560 at least in her life and i think still who has the most portraits painted of her during her life

00:02:36.880 i don't think anyone is coming for that record no i don't think so i think it's like she has

00:02:42.500 more images of her than like Queen Victoria, who famously was the queen when photography

00:02:48.780 became a thing. So if you can't beat like Emma Hamilton as Queen Victoria, I don't know who

00:02:54.860 could come for her record. She might've been the most depicted woman until Princess Diana,

00:02:58.980 who knows? Yeah, I think, well, and even Queen Victoria had other stuff she was doing. Emma 0.59

00:03:03.380 Hamilton was never not posing for portraits. Like she was constantly posing. And actually,

00:03:08.400 it's funny, you're wearing the Masarinet's t-shirt, Folger History Art, get your own Folger

00:03:12.240 history.com slash store. It's great. But, um, that's from Hortense Mancini and her sisters

00:03:16.500 who were kind of the girls, they were the girls of that era. Like, and it's a similar thing where

00:03:21.140 we're going to get to this listeners, but just so you know, like Emma Hamilton, there's so many

00:03:26.060 portraits painted of her because the public wanted them. Like every, everyone had a print of her.

00:03:30.820 Like she was, I don't know, like growing up for me, like in the nineties, you'd like cut out

00:03:35.760 pictures from, from your teen magazine or your whatever, you know, you have pictures of like

00:03:40.440 Cindy Crawford and like, whoever, like Amber Valletta, like you would just be like, wow,

00:03:43.880 this is the most beautiful woman. Like, let's just have a picture of her. Who would, have you 0.80

00:03:48.920 been thinking about this? Who would you describe Emma Hamilton as looking like? Of course. In terms

00:03:52.640 of modern stuff. So I don't know so much about like, cause it's so hard to tell with portraits

00:03:57.280 who she looks like, but I was thinking about who could play her in a movie now, because we mentioned

00:04:03.220 offline, we have to watch now the Vivian Lee movie. Vivian Lee famously got cast as many women 1.00

00:04:09.140 described like described very differently to I think how she actually appeared but Emma Hamilton 0.90

00:04:14.800 I was thinking for a biopic today I would cast someone like Amy Lou Wood from like White Lotus

00:04:21.140 or Amia Goth like somebody it's less about the looks to me but more about being able to slip

00:04:28.260 into different personas which we will also discuss and like have that quote-unquote natural beauty

00:04:33.720 but like with an edge and I think also with some sort of like interesting quirky thing like this 0.64

00:04:39.640 is where she stood out and she I think Mia Goth and Amy Lua are both great because they could

00:04:45.300 both be they're like oh my gosh you're such a great smart hero like they could really do that

00:04:49.480 breathy thing that I think really endeared Emma Hamilton to a lot of people she could just be 0.99

00:04:54.740 like oh wow you're so great like she could turn that on specifically men specifically for men 1.00

00:05:00.040 Yep. Entirely. The person who, thank you for those two suggestions. Cause I just kept thinking 0.79

00:05:05.540 when I saw pictures of her, and this is partially because of her aura and how she was sexualized 0.91

00:05:09.840 from a very young age. I was just like, Oh, she's a young Brooke Shields. She looks so much 0.80

00:05:13.720 so much like a young Brooke Shields. I see it. Yep. Part of it is like the story. Her story is

00:05:19.360 kind of similar to a young Brooke Shields. So that's, but I was like, well, who I was Googling.

00:05:23.100 I'm like, who looks like Brooke Shields now? Cause I was like, I need to say an actor that

00:05:26.040 people know. Relevant tie-in for SEO purposes. Addison Rae came up and I'm like, yeah. Okay.

00:05:35.220 Or, um, there, Oh, there's one now that I'm thinking, hang on. There's another Emma Chamberlain,

00:05:40.560 um, is like another modern influencer who I think has the same kind, like the eyes 1.00

00:05:45.380 suck you in. Yeah. Well, I'm thinking part of it, like Emma Hamilton. So like,

00:05:51.460 if you want to know what she looks like, just like Google Emma Hamilton, there are

00:05:54.220 one gazillion paintings of her and she's got yes for a person from where she's from like the late

00:06:00.080 1700s early 1800s she looks really contemporary and I was trying to think about what that is and

00:06:05.640 part of it is she was always painted with her like hair she's not this is the era of like

00:06:10.000 just getting out of the Marie Antoinette sort of era like she's not wearing white powder and

00:06:13.860 updo she's not wearing like the really obvious you know rouge she looks really like quote natural

00:06:19.260 like she just has brown hair it's like down um her face is like you know no makeup makeup like 0.97

00:06:24.920 so she looks more contemporary just because of how she's styled that was like part of the appeal too 0.84

00:06:30.060 to again portray the quote-unquote natural beauty and like think about marie antoinette tried to do

00:06:36.420 it and it got spun into she's wearing fuck dresses but here the story gets flipped almost where 0.63

00:06:43.520 obviously we'll get into her background and her biography but emma hamilton like the natural 1.00

00:06:48.840 beautiness is baked in from the start of when the public gets to know her. So it takes a bit of a

00:06:54.020 different trajectory for her. Exactly. She's not going from like one era to another and not going

00:06:59.360 from like up to like, no, I'm natural. It's like, this is how she's always been portrayed. And it's

00:07:04.000 sort of like, I love how many people are going to talk about who I've talked about on the podcast

00:07:07.900 before. Like Elizabeth Vigela Brun is just like, I have to paint her. Elizabeth Vigela Brun loved

00:07:12.480 a natural beauty. She loved someone raped in Grecian robes. Like this is what Emma is doing. 0.99

00:07:18.500 And if you think about like the Marie Antoinette of it all, like the stark contrast of just like someone who's just kind of wearing like a sheer, you know, Grecian wrap and her hair is dead compared to that.

00:07:32.420 Like it's really this shift.

00:07:33.720 Like Emma was right there kind of leading the way, like making this trend.

00:07:38.180 Yeah, definitely.

00:07:38.780 And there will be some reinvention of her like throughout her story, which is so fascinating. 0.54

00:07:44.540 But she is primarily known to the audience like, yeah, for her beauty and her naturalness.

00:07:52.680 So I'm excited to explore where that connects to other people in the vulgar history canon today.

00:07:59.160 This is like, this is, you know, we're, we're still in the Regency era.

00:08:02.840 There's like several more episodes left, but we're well into it, heading towards the finale of it.

00:08:07.820 And I feel like Emma Hamilton, I didn't do this on purpose.

00:08:10.300 I didn't know how many people she finished up with.

00:08:12.260 But I'm like, I'm glad I'm doing it.

00:08:12.680 She ties everyone together.

00:08:14.220 She does.

00:08:15.000 If this was a finale, it would make sense because she's like wrapping everybody up.

00:08:17.940 I'm just like, everyone is in this story.

00:08:19.560 She was out and about in the world.

00:08:22.840 So I will just say, wait, no, first you explain what was your source for this?

00:08:27.400 Because we have accidentally, but serendipitously coming with different information.

00:08:33.120 Yeah.

00:08:33.480 And reads the biographies.

00:08:34.600 I look at museum websites, typically English heritage was a good one for Emma because they

00:08:39.500 have a lot of the paintings on display that she posed for, um, mostly internet sources for me,

00:08:45.840 just based on, um, where I'm at in my professional life right now. I did not have time to sit down

00:08:51.740 and read a book to be so honest with you, Anne. No, but it's good because you're getting like

00:08:56.140 that aspect I think is really important. And I think you're going to get probably some more

00:09:00.500 up-to-date information what i read is um the book england's mistress the infamous life of emma

00:09:06.280 hamilton by kate williams this is a biography from 2006 so like i'm sure between then and now

00:09:12.840 a lot more portraits have been discovered jewelry and things this is by kate williams who is like

00:09:17.160 iconic british historian she's out there she's on social media she's got a new book coming out

00:09:22.620 actually called regina that i think she may be coming in this podcast yes i saw it's about all

00:09:28.460 different queens from around the world anyway so kate williams shout out to kate williams and it

00:09:33.320 was 2006 is i feel like that's an era isn't that when the sofia coppola marie antonette movie came

00:09:41.340 out i think it's around then and i think this is kind of like that it was a wave of kind of like

00:09:45.940 feminist biographies or like yeah biographies this is around when the georgiana um evanshire

00:09:53.720 book came out as well so it's kind of like let's look at these women who are kind of have been sort

00:09:58.300 of dismissed. It's like, well, she was just kind of whatever, but like, no, let's look at her 0.53

00:10:02.100 letters. Let's look at her diary. So like taking these women seriously for the first time.

00:10:05.640 Yes. I would say so. It's, it's like the first time they get detached from like, say you have

00:10:10.940 a bio, I have a biography from like the eighties, Josephine and Napoleon. And then, you know, 10

00:10:15.680 years later, you might've gotten just Josephine for the first time, that kind of thing. Like

00:10:19.540 it's the first time I would say women were being considered on their own. And then that gives way

00:10:24.800 to the later era that I would say we're kind of still in of, let me look again at this woman

00:10:31.400 and, and take out some of the spin that we've just accepted as fact. And so yeah, a pivotal time.

00:10:39.240 So I think that's where it's good. Like I've got this 2006 biography, you've got some more

00:10:42.240 up-to-date stuff. And honestly, listeners like buckle up. This is, it's, I was telling Amanda

00:10:48.720 before we started recording, like this is a nonstop life. Like there was never, there's

00:10:55.360 in almost even in Georgina, like there was a Madame du Berry. There's a part where it's like,

00:11:00.360 and then she, you know, she got married. And then for the next 10 years, we don't really know what

00:11:04.020 she did. And then this, but for Emma, it's like, there's not a period of 10 years ever where it's

00:11:09.680 just like, and everything was fine. Everything was nonstop for this person, starting from

00:11:15.160 when she was born. How much do you know about her parents and her family?

00:11:19.300 How can we set up her backstory? I know a little bit. So she was born 1765. Her dad was a blacksmith

00:11:27.020 who died when she was a full baby, two months old. So that's never, never really a great start 0.99

00:11:33.000 for a woman in history. If you're just being raised by a single mother, her mother, Mary Kidd, 0.93

00:11:38.740 and her grandmother, Sarah Kidd,

00:11:41.020 who is in most of this story,

00:11:43.040 the grandmother,

00:11:44.160 which is great to see.

00:11:45.880 So they are raising her,

00:11:47.440 but Emma receives

00:11:49.060 like basically no formal education

00:11:51.560 when she's young.

00:11:53.160 And she's, this is like,

00:11:54.340 we've had,

00:11:55.100 you wouldn't have heard this yet

00:11:55.840 because the episode is coming out

00:11:57.020 before we're recording this.

00:11:58.440 But the last episode I did

00:11:59.720 was about a woman called Mary Bateman, 0.92

00:12:01.340 who is kind of a con artist slash witch.

00:12:04.240 And Emma's beginnings 0.55

00:12:05.040 are really similar to that,

00:12:06.540 where it's just kind of like,

00:12:07.360 you're a girl,

00:12:08.380 you're in a you're poor like well and even mary bateman had two parents like emma hambleton's got

00:12:15.300 like her mom and her grandma and then kate williams sort of she didn't really get to the bottom of it

00:12:19.800 but it seems like something the dad might have been murdered by the mother um or something like

00:12:28.740 for some reason the dad died in kind of like suspicious circumstances and the mother just

00:12:33.320 like fled town and then for the rest of their life they're like don't talk about him don't tell

00:12:37.560 anyone about him um got it got it got it yeah because I was wondering I was wondering like

00:12:44.660 what because the mother kind of zigzags in and out of her life throughout her story and the

00:12:48.940 grandmother too and like the mom leaves to go to London 1777 so Emma would have been 12 years old

00:12:56.140 and she's left with her grandma they have to struggle to make ends meet and that kind of

00:13:00.100 propels Emma to get a job at like age 12 or 13 so I was curious but I'm glad there's an answer

00:13:07.240 like they fled the town where they were. And then later, later, later in their life,

00:13:13.260 like the mother's siblings, like Emma's uncle is like blackmailing Emma. Like I will tell the

00:13:19.700 truth about your father if you don't give me money. So like something went on with the father.

00:13:25.340 And it's, it's murky as most things are with women in history. Is that what I'm correct? 0.99

00:13:31.160 Okay, cool. And also Emma herself, we know stuff about her early life, partially from what she

00:13:36.500 told people and partially from what people like kate williams have pieced together because emma

00:13:40.200 she goes even before age like 17 she goes through various sort of lives and just some of it she

00:13:48.500 couldn't keep hidden and some of it she did want to keep hidden so this early part yeah so she's

00:13:53.020 like young but also it's not uncommon for like a 12 year old to be put into a life of service like

00:13:58.100 that's what happens yeah when you're poor and you're a girl um and so she becomes a housemate

00:14:04.500 and she hates it she is bad at it and but she does make a friend whose name is i forget it's

00:14:12.660 like sarah something wait she makes a friend who's a housemate at the same time who also hates it

00:14:18.680 i have it down here because later on iconic they have this um she gets her friend to kind of jane

00:14:26.360 powell is the name of her friend so they were both maids they both hated it and jane powell was like

00:14:31.000 I want to be an actress.

00:14:32.300 I want to be on the stage.

00:14:33.500 And she manifests that

00:14:34.800 and she becomes like

00:14:36.000 the second most famous actress

00:14:37.060 in England eventually.

00:14:38.340 And Emma is like,

00:14:39.580 yeah, I want that too.

00:14:41.600 I want to be famous too.

00:14:42.540 So they're both just kind of

00:14:43.420 these like 12 year old girls

00:14:44.640 who are just like,

00:14:45.320 we're better than this.

00:14:46.400 We don't want to do it.

00:14:47.040 We're not going to, 1.00

00:14:47.940 fuck this. 1.00

00:14:49.180 That could be like a great YA novel, 1.00

00:14:51.680 like a coming of age novel.

00:14:52.860 I would read that.

00:14:54.280 Yeah.

00:14:55.580 Emma and Jane, love it.

00:14:57.180 I was thinking about that too,

00:14:58.200 especially because they

00:14:59.140 intersect again later as adults.

00:15:00.920 when they both like made successes of themselves.

00:15:03.140 I was like, this would be good, like limited series

00:15:04.880 where you like watch the two live

00:15:06.600 and they like come back together. 1.00

00:15:08.200 So she's a maid, she hates it. 0.94

00:15:10.720 A couple of details that I got from the Kate Williams book

00:15:12.900 just about being a maid.

00:15:14.260 This connects back to last week's episode 0.99

00:15:16.040 with Mary Bateman, who's also a maid. 1.00

00:15:17.960 Well, and Mary Bateman was fired for stealing. 0.74

00:15:21.340 Emma was fired for just being bad at it. 1.00

00:15:24.420 But families would hire young girls 1.00

00:15:26.620 because you didn't have to pay them 0.99

00:15:27.780 because that was how things worked.

00:15:30.520 so you just pay quote unquote pay them with like room and board but you just kind of get these

00:15:36.120 young girls to work for you and you knew that you're going to cycle through like they're going

00:15:38.980 to leave because they're going to either get married or pregnant or they're going to run off

00:15:43.060 sex work or something and so the fact that these two girls were there for brief time is not that 0.98

00:15:48.100 strange but both of them i love this kind of hollywood dream yeah just like destined for

00:15:53.680 greater things and both of them were but how much do you know about what what happened to emma after

00:15:58.920 she left well so i know she worked for a time in the house of a composer named thomas linley

00:16:05.240 again around she's when she's like 13 and then from there she like also moves to london kind

00:16:12.220 of following her mother's footsteps where thomas linley her former boss when she was a maid and

00:16:17.800 hated it um he had like bought shares in the royal theater in drury lane so she kind of gets her first

00:16:27.140 foot in the door with the theater through that connection is what I found. So the English

00:16:33.460 Heritage website says that she may have served as a go-between for Mrs. Lindley conveying messages

00:16:38.860 to and from the actresses at the theater. Then she started working as a maid for actresses, 0.99

00:16:44.480 which again, you're so close to the spotlight. I just, the signs were all there.

00:16:50.680 Like all about Eve vibes, you know, it's just like this girl who's like watching. She's like,

00:16:55.920 I will do this one day, 0.58

00:16:57.080 but the actress who she becomes the maid to is Mary Robinson, 0.56

00:17:00.920 who was in the production of a winter's tale.

00:17:03.940 And she playing the character of Perdita.

00:17:05.720 And it was so iconic that people just started calling her Perdita for the

00:17:08.640 rest of her life.

00:17:09.420 That's just who she is.

00:17:11.300 And she was the mistress of the future George,

00:17:14.960 the fourth AKA Prinney.

00:17:17.320 So this is Prinney is in this story much more than I would have heard.

00:17:22.840 Yeah.

00:17:23.240 I noticed that he's all over this story,

00:17:25.640 but first I'm like, Oh, Mary Robinson was like a really cool person. Actually. She, um, yes,

00:17:30.020 she was his mistress. And then she later became a writer and she did lots of cool stuff. So this

00:17:34.420 is a cool person. And so this is seeing a woman like with a similar background to her who becomes

00:17:41.340 a mistress of the Prince of Wales. Like she's seeing like, okay, this is, this is a way that

00:17:45.660 one can ascent. Like you can get into this, like, cause Emma Hamilton, like she wants to be a star.

00:17:50.900 She wants to be famous. She wants to be an actress. And part of that is she wants to just 0.98

00:17:54.020 like be in the echelon she wants to be in upper society she wants to be in that world and she

00:17:59.080 sees through mary robinson a way you can do that is a way to do it yeah yeah definitely and the

00:18:05.320 theater scene at this time it would have been very i'm thinking of like moulin rouge even though

00:18:08.960 that's a little later like very bohemian a little bit more of the demimonde like that that murky

00:18:14.860 underworld kind of vibe than the the beau monde the upper echelon of society like would have kept

00:18:21.800 up appearances in public. So I just, I did see a notice. I'm curious if you have any

00:18:28.440 other information on it, but English Heritage says that she abruptly left her employment with

00:18:34.500 the theater because she was possibly pregnant. And she would have been around, what, 15, 16 at

00:18:41.360 this time? That did not come up in the biography. So they just like said that, as with so many

00:18:47.640 things. She abruptly left and what Kate Williams hypothesizes based on what's going on is it just

00:18:52.640 seems like a general cost cutting measure. Like the theater just didn't have money to have a maid

00:18:57.240 for every actress anymore sort of thing. So yeah, fair enough. She certainly does become pregnant 0.97

00:19:03.600 later and we know about it and it affects her greatly. So I, I don't know. Yeah. Sometimes

00:19:10.540 you'll just see something like that. They slip in possibly because she was pregnant and it's just

00:19:14.240 like, well, no, no, no. Go back. Who told you that? Why did they think that? I want to know more,

00:19:19.500 but yeah. She left and anyway, so, but she did leave. And then this is like, the timing of this 1.00

00:19:28.400 is, is interesting to me. So it's like December when she's fired, which is like, when you're a

00:19:34.940 poor person in London in 1700, the worst time. Yeah. Like it's cold. Um, things are not great.

00:19:42.240 And so she turns to, um, sex work. She's what at this point, 13 or something.

00:19:48.020 I think she's 16.

00:19:50.000 Yeah. So she's still very, very, very young. And so she turns to sex work,

00:19:54.440 which is sort of like, and Kate Williams talks about this.

00:19:56.560 And also if you read Hallie Rubenhold's book,

00:19:58.380 the Covent Garden Ladies, like it talks about, oh, anyway, so she,

00:20:02.960 but she's not in a house. She's not, you know, at this point,

00:20:06.580 she's just kind of like taverns would kind of have like their go-to sex 0.92

00:20:10.360 workers and so it's probably something like that but by january she's so beautiful like she does

00:20:16.140 this for one whole month before she is uh snapped up um and because she's so beautiful and then is

00:20:24.220 this where she she joins quote the nunnery miss mrs kelly's house yes so mrs kelly she was

00:20:30.400 described as a procurer and the abbess of a brothel um so after she's kind of in between 1.00

00:20:38.980 a couple different forms of sex work she might have also spent time as a courtesan like where 1.00

00:20:44.280 you're specifically linked to a patron um but she definitely lives with mrs kelly at her

00:20:51.360 establishment for a time while she's 16 and it sounds like she's i mean i'm sure there's a lot

00:20:57.980 of blurry areas evident but it seems like she's she was sort of like sing and dance for the men

00:21:03.200 before the men went upstairs

00:21:04.700 with one of the like cortisones. 0.94

00:21:07.040 So she's kind of like a junior sex worker, 1.00

00:21:09.660 sort of like a great restaurant. 1.00

00:21:14.400 Yeah.

00:21:14.620 Like a multi-level marketing scheme.

00:21:16.100 You work your way up the pyramid.

00:21:18.360 Yeah, I don't know.

00:21:19.420 It's, it is murky.

00:21:20.500 And she later references it in a letter

00:21:22.540 to George Romney.

00:21:24.840 She says to him,

00:21:25.980 you have seen and discoursed with me

00:21:27.420 in my poor days.

00:21:28.360 You have known me in my poverty and prosperity.

00:21:31.680 Oh, my dear friend,

00:21:32.360 for a time i own through distress my virtue was vanquished but my sense of virtue was not

00:21:39.780 overcome so definitely i think definitely like she was a sex worker full stop yeah but she claims

00:21:47.020 you know no i always had this sense like i was destined again for greater things my sense of

00:21:52.580 virtue was not vanquished even though like my actual quote-unquote virtue was so she was um

00:22:00.380 At some point in here, she gets a job for, we have to talk about this, the Temple of Health.

00:22:06.900 That's not the full title, Anne. 0.91

00:22:08.820 The full title is the Temple of Health and Hymen, which this is an establishment, loosely, I'm calling it an establishment, run by a Scottish quack doctor.

00:22:20.840 His name is James Grand.

00:22:22.400 Basically, he's a self-proclaimed doctor.

00:22:24.220 And he has this, this establishment, which is not a brothel, but he advertises it as like a place where you can come encounter the goddess of health. He's placing advertisements in papers, like showing scantily.

00:22:44.900 electricity yeah that's part of it there's like a novelty aspect he's advertising skimpily dressed

00:22:51.720 female attendants who assist in things like the display of the celestial meteors and the sacred

00:22:59.560 fire over which she watches and whose application and the cure of diseases she daily has the honor

00:23:05.880 of directing and he like also he gives lectures on sex and like fertility and charges couples

00:23:13.680 50 pounds to spend a night in the great celestial state bed and the bed of which

00:23:20.200 like that would guarantee conception perfect babies because of it on this electricity

00:23:27.100 electricity was in the bed did you ever play like the sims 2 sims 3 and there was like a vibrate

00:23:33.860 there was there was like a furniture item there was like a vibrating bed with a headboard shaped

00:23:38.860 like a heart and that's what i'm reminded of vibrating bed this is really giving me yeah sort

00:23:43.560 of like a motel you know a lot of motel yeah no and it literally had like mirrors on the top of 0.94

00:23:50.220 the canopy like it was but people would come here to like have sex in this bed because you know

00:23:56.240 fertility there's lots of people having fertility issues and he would guarantee conception so you'd 1.00

00:24:00.700 get on this bed this like electric bed and the goddesses would be like dancing around you and 0.77

00:24:04.900 like this is like emma is was hired as one of these goddesses um they're wearing sort of like 1.00

00:24:09.560 Greek dresses. So this is like foundational and what she ends, the art form that she ends up 1.00

00:24:14.160 creating and the modeling that she does has a lot, it was a lot to this, I think. And so they

00:24:18.740 kind of dance around the bed and they're like, I'm imagining there's incense to cover up some

00:24:24.660 funky smells. Like it's probably very smoky in there. I don't know. So she was one of the

00:24:30.020 goddesses. I think this is before Mrs. Kelly's. I think she was like a street walking sex worker

00:24:35.360 for like, and then she was scooped up by the health. No, by the health. And then she went 1.00

00:24:41.880 to Mrs. Kelly's, I think, because leaving Mrs. Kelly's is a whole thing. So she is a teenage

00:24:46.740 goddess. And then people like Prinney goes there to have sex with his mistress. Of course he does. 1.00

00:24:53.120 Of course he does. Everyone is going there. So this is like, she's recognizable. So like for

00:24:57.980 the rest of her life, like people know, Oh, and her name actually, we should say was Amy Lyon.

00:25:02.600 That was her name.

00:25:03.860 Oh, yeah, we didn't mention that.

00:25:05.220 She was born Amy Lyon. 0.82

00:25:07.240 Her mom was Mary Kidd.

00:25:08.900 Her dad was Henry Lyon.

00:25:10.880 So she's not even called Emma Hamilton yet.

00:25:12.600 That's just like the name she's most well known by.

00:25:15.900 I believe she's named Emily when she goes to London.

00:25:18.360 So then she's Emily Lyon.

00:25:19.700 So people remember her as Miss Lyon 0.94

00:25:21.840 because like these goddesses were like quasi famous.

00:25:25.960 If you went there, you'd see them.

00:25:27.200 And she was so pretty, like you would remember her.

00:25:30.380 so it's like in friends there's the girl that works at the coffee store like that all the guys

00:25:35.580 know and ross eventually hooks up with while he and rachel are on a break that's kind of the vibe

00:25:40.440 i'm getting yeah like the goddesses are there like she was scouted from literally the street 0.96

00:25:44.860 because they wanted for this house of health and hymen they wanted like healthy looking um really 0.95

00:25:50.360 pretty girls and that's her if you look at her portraits like she's always very um you know 0.99

00:25:55.240 rosy cheek rosy yeah she's not gone she's also she's tall she's described as being tall and

00:26:02.220 leggy like a young brook shields um so she's raking the house of health and hymen kind of 0.99

00:26:07.780 making a go of it and then she i think she gets scooped up from there okay okay and then she's

00:26:13.620 at mrs kelly's and then the way that you get kind of out of it's if you watch the show harlots um

00:26:20.480 great show if you've read the book slash beauties which i interviewed the author about

00:26:25.240 You know, that people who like the women and girls who work at a place like this, like they're in debt, like every, every dress they have, every meal they have is being put down on a tab. Like you could, it's so hard to leave there because the people, they own you really. So the only way you can leave a house, like a place like this is by, if one of the men really likes you and they like pay off your debt and like buy you out.

00:26:49.040 That's kind of what she needs to do.

00:26:50.600 Also the plot of Barbie princess and the pauper. Now that I'm kind of thinking about it.

00:26:55.020 is it a little bit it's a little bit the plot of pretty women as well and a little bit so like a

00:27:02.160 Richard Gere type does show up um and he's like not gonna buy her out of it but he's like can I

00:27:07.220 rent her for the summer for my crazy summer long bachelor party that is gonna be the month and so

00:27:15.900 she is chosen for this I think again just because she's so pretty but through all of the sequence

00:27:21.640 of events like from being in the theater and then the house of health and hymen and the health and

00:27:27.880 hymen like she's really she's such a young person and but she like 16 yep she learns how to appeal

00:27:35.780 to men by being interested in them and being a good conversationalist and being willing to

00:27:41.560 to talk about anything like she's a really her people skills are so good like she can talk to

00:27:46.980 anybody and she's like genuinely interested like she she figures out how to stand out in a place

00:27:53.660 where everybody's beautiful yeah and and when she's rented by this guy whose name might be a

00:27:59.000 contender for the most british name i've ever heard uh sir harry featherston how featherston

00:28:05.800 huh i don't know got a lot of syllables yeah um so while she's there like she's not just 0.99

00:28:13.140 there because she's a pretty face and knows how to dance, although she does dance nude on his 1.00

00:28:17.940 dining room table. She's also like the hostess. So she's like the MC in a way. Country houses 0.99

00:28:27.080 would typically have a lady of the house running everything. That's kind of the role she also 1.00

00:28:30.960 steps into, which is it would be a full-time undertaking to make sure you're pretty and

00:28:38.340 like your form is good while you're dancing but also you're talking to everybody but also you're

00:28:43.880 overseeing and making sure everyone at the party is having a good time like and she's 16 she's a

00:28:49.780 child she's 16 and she like came up from like the streets like so she she's such a quick learner

00:28:56.300 in everything and so she clearly takes to this task although i do want to say this whole situation

00:29:02.100 of her being there for this summer long bachelor party and she's 16 i'm just like it's giving

00:29:06.500 epstein island to me oh a little bit yeah yeah just again pretty woman yeah just she's so young 0.98

00:29:14.320 i hope there were other other girls or women there like i hope she wasn't the only one i think she

00:29:19.900 was i think that this is why she was so bored because he like the bros would all go out every

00:29:27.360 day like hunting yeah box hunting and drinking yep yeah they go and leaving her behind and so

00:29:33.500 she was kind of like, she wasn't like the household stuff. Like she couldn't really hang

00:29:37.180 out with the servants. Like that wasn't really her level. And so the one guy who's at this party

00:29:42.820 who kind of isn't into hunting is Charles Greville, who, um, so they just start hanging

00:29:50.920 out with each other, the honorable Charles Francis Greville. Um, and so like, he's just,

00:29:56.240 he's like our Benedict Bridgerton kind of guy. He's like a second son of an Earl. So he's, he's,

00:30:03.500 like in this upper echelon of society but like also doesn't really have anything to do

00:30:08.480 his his brother is um the second earl and like so charles becomes like an mp

00:30:16.340 but i don't think he has a lot to do in that job and he's kind of like benedict bridgerton he's not

00:30:23.780 into kind of the trappings of society like he's at this summer long bachelor party and everyone

00:30:30.440 goes out hunting every day and he's like that's not for me i'd rather sit around here and talk

00:30:33.780 about books and emma's like yeah okay i can talk to anyone about anything so he he falls for her

00:30:40.020 because she's um got these amazing people skills she's so pretty and then at by the end of the

00:30:46.680 summer uh she leaves with him like and becomes his mistress yeah so he takes her to a small

00:30:56.300 house on edgware road which is in paddington green london at this time it's like a little village

00:31:02.200 right outside of london part of london it's like yeah yeah but today today it very much is so

00:31:08.400 we kind of glossed over the fact that she was also the fact that she was

00:31:12.300 she was pregnant she becomes by featherston

00:31:17.380 Featherton. Wait, Featherston Howell. I don't really know.

00:31:23.200 Featherston. Someone British is going to be like, it's Featherton somehow, even though there's like 1.00

00:31:30.600 four extra syllables. So she does become, she is 16 and pregnant and she becomes pregnant by this 0.65

00:31:39.200 guy and he's just like, not into it. And he's just like, not my problem. Sorry, bye. And she's just

00:31:45.380 kind of like oh my god what do i do like you know she there's there's not lots of options one of the 0.99

00:31:51.100 options is an abortion which she chooses not to she wants to have this child and so she writes to

00:31:57.180 charles greville who kind of fell in love with her over the summer and she's like oh my god what am i

00:32:01.360 gonna do and he's like come be with me and he's like be my mistress on the condition that you

00:32:07.600 send this child to foster care and never have anything to do with her which like what else like

00:32:13.520 she agrees to yeah what else can you do daughter she calls her daughter emma listeners know after

00:32:19.520 herself i love a daughter named after mother moment so this little girl emma goes off to

00:32:25.000 be raised by i forget what the family but anyway like an okay family i believe it was her great

00:32:30.880 grandmother so maybe emma's emma hamilton's grandmother comes back into the picture here

00:32:35.860 i think that's what it is there's a lot of family members but um not not feather featherston haw

00:32:42.820 never has anything to do with any of this,

00:32:44.580 but Charles Greville pays for the care of little Emma.

00:32:48.020 Like he sends like an allowance or whatever.

00:32:51.180 So he will pay for her,

00:32:53.100 but he doesn't want her to be with them.

00:32:56.360 Yeah.

00:32:57.080 And it seems like Emma was allowed

00:32:59.320 to see her daughter sometimes,

00:33:01.400 but like there were spells where

00:33:03.780 I think people around both of them decided like,

00:33:06.600 no, you're not going to have anything to do

00:33:08.240 with your mom or your baby.

00:33:10.180 and like they eventually kind of get established

00:33:13.820 in different places.

00:33:15.680 Yeah, well, and this is Charles Greville.

00:33:17.380 So his whole thing is he loves her

00:33:21.140 and part of what he loves is that she's like young

00:33:24.600 and he wants to like mold her

00:33:27.220 to be this kind of perfect.

00:33:29.140 Shades of, oh gosh, the Emma Stone movie,

00:33:33.880 Poor Things, did you see that one?

00:33:35.600 Yes, very much that.

00:33:37.000 Kind of shades of that, yeah.

00:33:38.440 Yeah. So he wants to, um, he wants to make her into this kind of like perfect. So they're living

00:33:44.460 in Paddington, which is like not in London. And this is intentional because in London,

00:33:48.300 all of Charles Garville's friends know her as the goddess of the hearth and home.

00:33:52.840 So he wants Amy Lyon. Yeah. Yeah. So he's like, so this is where I think she becomes Emma

00:33:56.700 and he's like, don't have anything to do with your mother. Don't have anything to do with

00:34:00.540 your daughter. No one can know who you were before. I'm just going to say, this is my

00:34:04.520 mistress she's a very shy person from paddington her name is emma and you're never going to meet

00:34:10.140 her and she's like okay okay that's fine and he he gets her to like singing lessons like music

00:34:17.900 lessons like italian french like he's training her it's like my fair lady it's it's exactly like

00:34:24.680 my fair lady he wants her to become not who she is but she's such a fast learner and she's keen

00:34:29.620 and she becomes fluent in Italian and French.

00:34:32.160 She has a beautiful singing voice.

00:34:33.620 Like she learns dancing.

00:34:35.100 Like the skills that he foists upon her,

00:34:39.540 she like throws herself into it,

00:34:41.560 into learning these things.

00:34:42.540 She learns how to enunciate more elegantly.

00:34:46.140 He tells her she should never show ingratitude or caprice.

00:34:50.920 He dresses her in modest outfits and subdued colors.

00:34:53.740 And like you said,

00:34:54.720 like kind of keeps her away from the society scene.

00:34:56.740 again it's like a more restrictive version of my fair lady but he also invites her mother to come

00:35:04.360 live with them as a housekeeper and a chaperone which i think think is interesting but also like

00:35:10.200 but pretend it's not your mother right your mother could be the housekeeper but like don't

00:35:14.760 let anyone know that's your mother so yeah so after a while of this like she's she knows how

00:35:21.500 to enunciate and speak Italian or whatever. So he starts to invite like friends to meet her and

00:35:26.440 kind of lets her, not lets her, but she slips back into that role of hostess for parties that

00:35:33.600 Greville is throwing for his friends. And one of his friends is artist, George Romney, who,

00:35:39.860 to whom Emma becomes lifelong muse. He, cause she's so beautiful. Um, but as we know from

00:35:47.580 America's Next Top Model. It takes more than just being beautiful to be a good model. And what she

00:35:54.080 has, what she has that other models don't is I think because of where she came from. Like if 0.99

00:35:58.800 you're painting a portrait of a society, Mrs. Georgina or somebody, like they're going to stand,

00:36:03.060 they're going to pose, they're going to be very composed. But Emma, like she was in the theater

00:36:06.380 for a while. She was the goddess of hearth and home. Like she can pose and she like gets like

00:36:12.540 emotional like she can act like she's moldable almost she can really she's the Coco Rocha

00:36:19.200 she's the Zendaya of modeling of this time and everyone's just like oh my gosh like she's like

00:36:24.860 she can pose and move and like emote in a way that other people just don't think to do and this

00:36:31.300 makes her such an incredible person to paint yeah because like you mentioned Georgina somebody like

00:36:36.440 that who is the subject of a portrait like they would not need to pose and move around unless

00:36:41.800 they were being painted as like goddess Athena or whatever. And that's like a specific type of

00:36:46.640 painting. But then you also have this, so you have like sitters, subjects of portraits, and then you

00:36:51.640 have models and muses who like the pictures that they are in are less about like, you wouldn't

00:36:58.140 call it a portrait of Emma Hamilton. You would call it Circe. And like the woman in the costume

00:37:04.880 as Cersei is Emma Hamilton and we know that now but the point of the artwork wasn't who the woman

00:37:13.940 was yeah and so these portraits of her like it's a lot of and like tying to the hearth goddess of

00:37:19.340 hearth and home of it all yeah yeah like it's a lot of her is like various every ancient greek

00:37:23.640 woman it's like here she is as Clytemnestra here she is as Medea and then just all these

00:37:29.300 classical figures and she george romney becomes i will say obsessed yeah like literally obsessed

00:37:37.820 with painting her and he's this is part of why there's more portraits of her than anybody else

00:37:41.840 because he's point painting like i don't even know 30 portraits of her a month he's just like

00:37:45.980 oh my gosh um and this is where greville one of the reasons why this is happening is charles

00:37:50.680 greville was like oh well what if like if you paint her and then like we can make money like

00:37:55.520 this is a way like, cause she'll be paid to be the model. But he didn't realize that like,

00:38:00.520 these are going to be paintings of, like you said, it's like, it's not a painting of Emma

00:38:03.320 Hamilton is so-and-so. She's got my Emma Hart at this point, by the way. Um, but because the,

00:38:10.960 there's so many of these paintings and because they're so interesting because the poses she's

00:38:16.420 sometimes she looks right at the viewer, which is unusual, or she's, you know, like a sexy pose

00:38:22.040 or something it's just like whoa like she becomes famous in a way that anyone expected she becomes

00:38:28.820 famous new because she's in so many paintings and they're all such interesting paintings and

00:38:33.740 she used to be so then she is a person she's a famous person because of being a model and now

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00:41:41.360 Like how models, you know, in the 90s

00:41:43.040 become elevated to supermodel.

00:41:44.420 I don't know what the classification actually is,

00:41:46.080 but I think of like a supermodel

00:41:47.500 is somebody who has an identity

00:41:48.900 and like a model is somebody who has to like

00:41:52.280 go to casting and seek out opportunities for herself.

00:41:55.620 Yeah, exactly.

00:41:56.800 Like this is something where it's like,

00:41:58.260 we want Cindy Crawford for her campaign.

00:42:01.240 Not just like, we want somebody to wear these clothes.

00:42:03.640 It's like, no, we need it.

00:42:04.500 So she, and this is where we were saying

00:42:06.520 like the original it girl, like no one.

00:42:08.860 So this is in the wake of like,

00:42:10.300 Marie Antoinette is in France still being the queen. 0.99

00:42:13.620 None of the shit has gone down there yet. 0.96

00:42:15.680 Yeah, this is like 1780-ish. 0.97

00:42:18.480 So Marie Antoinette has been like fashion plate.

00:42:21.460 Like people are obsessed with her outfits,

00:42:23.200 but there hasn't been a figure like that really in England.

00:42:26.760 Georgina is kind of that.

00:42:28.260 but so this like this is the the first time that somebody can become a celebrity in this way well

00:42:35.940 i mean the british royal family at this point is like queen charlotte and she's not she's not

00:42:39.320 well and like romney is sketching her both clothed and nude and keeping her likeness to put into

00:42:47.800 other contexts and like you couldn't do that with a wife in society or a royal like that's just that

00:42:54.320 would cause a scandal for them like there's that painting of queen victoria which was actually the

00:42:58.200 first episode I did of my podcast, Art of History, where like her hair is down and her lips are

00:43:03.760 parted. And that's enough that for people to like identify this as a private image just for her

00:43:10.260 husband. Like there's different standards, very sexy. And it's just like a bust of her,

00:43:17.020 like she's in a nightgown with her hair down. No. And so Emma is just like every,

00:43:22.760 every portrait like she's she's wearing these kind of diaphnate dresses and or nude you know

00:43:27.860 sprawled on like a leopard print rug or whatever and so she she becomes a celebrity and this is an

00:43:35.060 era too where like actresses were for the first time becoming sort of celebrities as well so

00:43:40.280 she's just emerging and just the amount of images of her like and people are making prints of them

00:43:48.220 like it's she becomes everyone's house is like a picture she's just like which is so interesting

00:43:53.440 because you're saying like the the purpose of these paintings historically had just been like

00:43:57.940 oh here's a you know this this is I'm showing the story of whatever and it's supposed to be

00:44:03.120 a painting about like oh that's the story of whatever but now it's like that's Emma as her

00:44:07.740 that's Emma so yeah it becomes a little circular yeah so this like George Romney

00:44:13.280 Emma Hart relationship like it ascends both of them like he becomes a really famous yes

00:44:18.640 she becomes incredibly famous and Charles Greville does not love this for his little

00:44:23.040 he doesn't like it no and I will note like it I noted in my in my research like

00:44:29.500 Greville's plan I think was more akin to like just a high-class version of pimping out a young

00:44:36.240 woman like she would have been 17 18 years old and he was planning to take a cut of sales of

00:44:40.960 every portrait she appeared in. But what this turned into, like you said, it propelled her

00:44:45.780 into celebrity. It also helped her to connect with other artists, sculptors, writers, and

00:44:53.780 wealthy patrons of the arts. So I think she started hanging out with Romney and he would

00:45:00.820 host gatherings or invite people over to his artistic studio. He lived on Cavendish Square,

00:45:07.180 So like more close to the nucleus of London society.

00:45:10.900 So people would come to his studio for a chance of meeting Emma,

00:45:15.000 but also like Emma got to meet those people.

00:45:18.140 So it boosted her in that way to her network was growing.

00:45:21.920 On somebody who came by there was Prinny, the Prince of Wales.

00:45:27.540 You know, if something's going on, he's going to be there in this era

00:45:31.640 because he's, that's what he's up to.

00:45:33.620 A new pretty muse in society?

00:45:36.340 I must meet her.

00:45:38.400 He owned a couple of the Emma portraits.

00:45:40.800 Like people love to get these Emma portraits.

00:45:43.920 And eventually, Charles Greville gets tired of her.

00:45:50.200 And he handles that in such a bad way.

00:45:54.360 Yeah, I think there's two things going on here. 0.72

00:45:55.820 Number one, he needs a rich wife

00:45:57.420 because he has blown through all of his finances. 1.00

00:46:00.300 But also that classic thing where the woman

00:46:03.240 that you thought originally 0.77

00:46:05.380 like you were taking under your wing

00:46:06.920 and now she's like eclipsing you in society.

00:46:09.980 I think that might be going on here

00:46:11.760 or that's just my personal bias.

00:46:13.580 I don't know.

00:46:14.360 No, it's absolutely that.

00:46:15.680 It's that thing like you see

00:46:16.680 in some of his Hollywood relationships

00:46:18.120 when the woman becomes more famous than the man.

00:46:20.920 Also, I think part of it might be a bit,

00:46:22.660 he like took in Emma and he's like,

00:46:24.120 I'm going to,

00:46:24.800 and she did everything he asked.

00:46:26.960 Like she dressed modestly

00:46:28.100 and she took French lessons

00:46:29.480 and she learned how to sing.

00:46:30.820 And eventually I think he's like,

00:46:32.080 he liked who she was before he didn't actually want this like little trad wife but she like 0.93

00:46:37.840 became that for him and then he's like oh I don't want you anymore because you're not interesting

00:46:41.200 like I think that's part of it as well yeah maybe wow sexual politics 1.00

00:46:47.040 and she's what at this point like 18 like she's I think 18 yeah yeah well maybe a little older 1.00

00:46:54.520 She was born in 1765.

00:46:57.760 It's now 1783.

00:46:58.960 Yeah, 18.

00:46:59.840 So this is the point we know Greville has his sights set on a society lady,

00:47:07.920 an heiress named Henrietta Middleton, who he wants to marry.

00:47:12.260 And so like Emma becomes a problem at this point.

00:47:15.060 He doesn't like all of a sudden being known as her lover.

00:47:19.580 This like connection is now common knowledge

00:47:22.800 because she is so famous due to being Romney's muse.

00:47:26.380 Didn't think that one through, Greville, did we?

00:47:29.940 So any prospective wife after a while

00:47:33.620 wouldn't accept him as a suitor

00:47:35.200 if this connection kept going with Emma.

00:47:37.700 So he comes up with a crazy plan

00:47:40.080 to kind of get her out of the way

00:47:41.820 so he can pursue this other 18-year-old

00:47:44.940 who happens to have money. 0.98

00:47:46.740 And his plan, part of it is just like he's a coward.

00:47:49.800 and part of it is like he doesn't like an emotional scene so he tells okay so he sends

00:47:57.500 emma he decides to send her to naples where his uncle lives and yes to go his uncle is the

00:48:04.780 sorry his uncle is the british envoy to naples so he's like a diplomat um he's also 55 years old

00:48:12.820 i think is important to note here and emma's 18 but so what charles grovel tells his uncle is like

00:48:19.460 hey i'm gonna sexually traffic my teenage mistress to you to be your mistress but what he tells emma

00:48:27.620 is like hey i'm just can you just go for the summer to naples to hang out with my uncle i 0.98

00:48:33.120 just have some business to do and then you'll come back i'm totally not dumping you yeah and she's

00:48:38.120 and this is the only way that she will go because she's like devoted to him like she's a very

00:48:41.960 passionate and also needy person. And she loves Greville. So like she would never go to Naples

00:48:49.960 if she, so she thinks she's just going for the summer. She doesn't pack her winter clothes.

00:48:53.400 Like she and her mom, like as her companion, they go to Naples, but she thinks that she's

00:48:58.740 there for a holiday. The uncle thinks that she knows that she's there to be his mistress.

00:49:04.340 Yes. Cause that's part of Greville's plan. Like he tells his uncle, no, like she'll make a great

00:49:10.180 mistress, look at all her positive qualities. And once I am married, I will come and get her 0.98

00:49:15.860 back. So it's like a temporary thing. And the uncle goes along with it, not only because Emma

00:49:21.380 is so charming, but because he was supporting Greville as a quote unquote poor relation. So

00:49:26.980 he's motivated because I assume supporting Emma is less expensive than supporting your adult

00:49:34.540 nephew the whole thing and it's still happening all that emma knows is like she's going to naples

00:49:40.720 for the summer isn't that nice she doesn't again dumped she doesn't know that she's being set up 0.89

00:49:46.180 that this guy this might have been why i thought of amy lou wood like who gets dragged to thailand 0.99

00:49:51.020 in season three of white lotus by walton goggins and then hijinks in the zoo yeah so she she ends

00:49:58.680 up going to naples with her mom and she's writing letters back to gravel being like you know i miss

00:50:04.200 you and whatever like your uncle keeps coming on to me but don't worry i'll never give in and the 0.97

00:50:09.260 uncle is like why why isn't she having sex with me and she why does he keep trying to have sex with 0.99

00:50:14.860 me because it's like they didn't she wasn't told what was going yes correct and it's such a horrible 0.95

00:50:21.100 situation it's not a great situation but she is a hostess for the uncle so the uncle's a widow he

00:50:26.460 his wife died in 1782 he's also an expert volcanologist so he's a refined they're near

00:50:35.300 vesuvius yes kind of and he like collects art antiquities and studies volcanoes so emma like

00:50:43.880 emma can fit into this world no problem it's just she doesn't quite understand

00:50:47.260 that there's another component to this plan that she has been in the dark about

00:50:52.520 so it she was there for about six months before um she finally accepts that like she has been

00:50:59.680 dumped and then she is expected to be the mistress and to sir william's credit the uncle

00:51:04.940 once he realizes that she doesn't realize he he doesn't force himself on her he's just like oh

00:51:11.180 oh you don't know so they're just kind of like friends and their mom's there like i don't know

00:51:18.300 her mom um i think recently before they traveled to naples the mom had had a stroke too which might

00:51:24.340 be part of why she's allowed to go along so they get there in 1786 and so emma is at this point 21

00:51:33.000 years old which is a little better but it does take her about six months to catch on

00:51:37.960 and gravel's not coming back to get her she is in the meantime like she's using all her skills

00:51:44.380 like hostessing and she shows up and everyone's just like oh my god is emma emma hart the famous

00:51:49.080 model so she's posing for painters there um at some point she's in naples for a while but like

00:51:54.080 every like elizabeth vijay lebrun comes to town and she like she paints her every everyone is just

00:52:00.860 like oh my god like to have a someone who's so good at modeling seems like coming to your small

00:52:06.020 town also naples i don't know yeah everyone's just so excited so like um and sir william because

00:52:12.540 sees this English envoy, like he's got a good relationship. So it's King Ferdinand and Queen

00:52:17.140 Maria Carolina, the sister of Marie Antoinette, who are the monarchs at this point. And they

00:52:25.060 really like him. And so King Ferdinand is known for just, you know, seducing every woman. And he

00:52:32.740 tries to seduce Emma and she says no. And that endears her to the queen because the queen is

00:52:36.740 like, Oh, this is maybe a cool person. Cause the thing with Emma is she's monogamous to who she's 1.00

00:52:44.180 with. Like, yes, she's only ever in love with one man. And she's like, this is her way. Like

00:52:50.760 once she like falls in love with Sir William, like that's it for her. Like she's not sleeping

00:52:55.580 around. And so she, she turns down the King and this makes the queen think like, Oh, she's kind 0.97

00:53:00.020 of a chill. Okay. Person. And they become friends. Yeah. And so she is using those hostess skills.

00:53:05.720 she learned her classical languages are now coming in handy once she kind of realizes that 0.98

00:53:10.360 Greville is not coming back to get her she apparently like fires off a succession of like

00:53:17.340 very strongly worded letters which yes any woman today I think understands like you just got to get

00:53:23.200 it off your chest and then you can move on like she wallows for a bit she's furious and she goes

00:53:28.860 through the stages of grief but she kind of accepts this is her new position and okay you're in Naples

00:53:35.400 like it's it could be worse you know could be london in december and you're living on the

00:53:40.940 streets yeah no i was just gonna say like when she and her friend jane were like being housemaids

00:53:45.840 dreaming of a better life like this is kind of what she was thinking of so eventually like it

00:53:50.840 seems like she's you know she's the mistress of sir william um and they they get along like he's

00:53:57.360 he's into art he's like like greville he's not trying to change her he's just like he's kind of

00:54:03.680 this nerd and she gets interested in his nerd stuff and eventually um she they decide they

00:54:11.920 want to get married um so part of it is he's friends with the the king but because she's the

00:54:19.400 mistress there's certain rooms that she's not allowed in but if she was she would be allowed 0.98

00:54:24.180 in those rooms and he decides like you know what fuck this like he's whatever 50 something years 0.97

00:54:30.000 old and he's just like i want to marry this young woman but because he's a british um diplomat he 0.98

00:54:36.220 has to get the permission of the king who at this point king george the third husband of queen

00:54:40.500 charlotte from bridgerton um so they go back to england to get permission and her return everyone's

00:54:48.220 like oh my god emma hart is back in town she's so beautiful romany paints her he's just like

00:54:54.620 frantically he's like am i going to be able to paint her again he paints like you know 45 more

00:54:58.500 pictures of her and like yeah he's just like pose for me i have to i have to seize the moment yeah

00:55:04.480 yeah so they get and they actually get permission from the king to get married yes so they get

00:55:10.360 married and this is she becomes lady hamilton lady hamilton so this is where her name kind of takes

00:55:16.780 its final form emma hamilton or emma lady hamilton in 1791 she marries sir william he is 60 years old

00:55:25.000 and she is 26 years old.

00:55:27.420 And I do want to just say,

00:55:28.980 actually, this is the first time it occurred to me,

00:55:30.980 but when I first started researching her,

00:55:32.960 I just kept seeing her name, Emma Hamilton.

00:55:34.840 And my brain kept trying to put it

00:55:36.880 in the Hamilton, the musical.

00:55:38.980 Like, Emma Hamilton, her name is Emma Hamilton.

00:55:43.400 So no relation, but.

00:55:45.400 No, no relation.

00:55:47.000 That's in everyone's head now, Emma Hamilton.

00:55:50.420 So now that actually I said before

00:55:52.860 that she became a confidant of the queen,

00:55:54.400 She didn't until now, because before she wasn't allowed in the room with the queen.

00:55:58.560 But now that she's Lady Hamilton, she can be in the room with the queen and they become really close.

00:56:03.860 And that's Queen Maria Carolina back in Naples.

00:56:06.360 Queen Charlotte did not.

00:56:08.920 Yeah, Queen Charlotte was not as into this, even though her husband gave permission for the marriage.

00:56:15.220 Lady Hamilton was not received at court in England.

00:56:20.340 Yes, important clarification. 1.00

00:56:21.600 Queen Charlotte, a bitch, historically. 1.00

00:56:24.400 on this podcast, never does anything nice to people who I like. So Queen Charlotte is just 1.00

00:56:30.460 like, I don't think so. This like MMM. Even though like Sir William, he's inducted into 0.99

00:56:36.960 the Privy Council during this visit where he and Emma get married. Like he is at the top of his

00:56:42.340 career. He is getting pulled closer into the Royal Circle, but they're like, even though your wife

00:56:47.620 is now a lady like we're still gonna be snobs about it and his family um also doesn't approve

00:56:54.500 of the match like there's some letters that go back and forth where emma is like trying to get

00:56:58.520 sir william's family to approve of her and i'm just like imagining it's like hugh hefner marrying

00:57:04.240 a 25 year old and the relatives on the other side are just like appalled at this yeah so i appreciate

00:57:13.000 that george the third gave him permission to get married like cool of him but emma is not so she's

00:57:19.020 not accepted into like the upper upper echelons of society and even though she's pals with prinny

00:57:25.560 and all of his perfect brothers who like to hang out at artist studios so they go to england they

00:57:30.140 get permission they hang out there a bit they go back to naples and there she is given more respect

00:57:34.940 and she's able to yes yeah so she's she goes back into her house to sing duties like before but now 0.54

00:57:41.500 she's a wife. And do we want to talk about her attitudes at this point? Because I think this is

00:57:46.660 where she starts to develop them. Actually, I think I want to talk about her time in France

00:57:51.500 because they, I believe this is how she wins over the queen. So they go to England and then I believe

00:57:58.520 they go to Paris and she's like, I want to meet Marie Antoinette. And this is like 1791. It's like,

00:58:04.140 girl what like you want to meet marie antoinette choices like okay so they go to paris and this

00:58:11.620 is at the point where marie antoinette and her family are in the tuileries palace so like

00:58:15.380 house arrest but not in prison things are not going great yeah yeah but she is able to as the

00:58:21.940 wife of the english diplomat meet marie antoinette and then marie antoinette gives her a letter to

00:58:27.200 give to her sister maria carolina and emma is so moved by meeting marie antoinette she thought she

00:58:32.080 was so like, it was, it left such an impression on her. So when they go back to Naples, she's like,

00:58:36.660 Hey, Maria Carolina, remember me, the woman who wouldn't fuck your husband. I have a letter from 0.99

00:58:41.120 your beloved sister. You're so worried about. And this is where Maria Carolina is like, okay,

00:58:44.800 bestie, like tell me everything. What's Maria Antoinette up to? So this is this, this letter 1.00

00:58:50.260 from Maria Antoinette really kind of is how she's able to get in with her. So I important thing that

00:58:57.100 she did there and so Maria Carolina is very we'll talk about this in a bit but like all the French

00:59:03.980 stuff is happening Maria Carolina and this is her sister she's understandably like really worried

00:59:08.260 really concerned about what's going to happen to Marie Antoinette so yeah this is where Emma

00:59:12.480 enters her kind of like political liaison era yeah I mean so I did see Kate Williams argue I

00:59:20.980 think I saw this on her blog like she says like yes the usefulness aspect she later becomes

00:59:27.020 a link between Britain and Naples when other military stuff kicks off. But also like

00:59:33.260 Emma is so, we've talked about this before, she's so natural and unaffected that like Maria Carolina 0.90

00:59:40.440 probably genuinely liked having her around and liked the fact that Emma was not jaded and like

00:59:46.660 it was excited to be in the presence of royalty and the upper classes. Like, so she like came

00:59:54.920 into this role as kind of a pawn for the men in her life but she also like grows into her role 1.00

01:00:01.880 for her own merits which I love about her like yeah she might have been put in this position 1.00

01:00:07.480 for her you know usefulness her beauty but then she like actually makes something of it 1.00

01:00:13.960 that's the thing too like she's not just there she's not madame du Barry just being like blink

01:00:18.380 blink what's going on like she's aware of what's but I think sort of like to build on what you

01:00:23.520 said, like, I think part of what Maria Carolina likes about her, and probably what Maria Antoinette

01:00:27.280 also liked about her, is there's no artifice with Emma. Like, she's not, like, the two-based

01:00:32.320 courtiers. She's just, like, what you see is what you get. Like, she's just so upfront and honest

01:00:37.080 and, like, natural. Like, you know where you stand with her. Like, you know you can trust her. Like,

01:00:42.420 she's not duplicitous in any way. And I think that's so rare for Maria Carolina to encounter

01:00:49.060 anyone who's like this yeah she actually at some point while she and emma are friends she starts

01:00:54.600 signing her letters the queen does to emma as charlotte which she would only do with like

01:00:59.580 her closest friends and her family so they they were besties yeah so it's kind of like i think

01:01:05.760 um sir william kind of encouraged emma to befriend maria carolina and she did but she genuinely did

01:01:12.120 like it's not genuinely yeah they're actually friends yeah um just before we go any further

01:01:18.920 We left Greville.

01:01:20.540 I don't think he's at any point

01:01:21.720 going to come back into this story.

01:01:23.500 But remember, he pawned her off to his uncles 0.98

01:01:25.860 so that he could marry an heiress.

01:01:27.440 Yeah, they never actually get married.

01:01:28.860 So Emma's the one that makes out better

01:01:31.860 in this situation.

01:01:33.440 Yeah, Greville never gets the money

01:01:34.840 that he would have gotten.

01:01:35.740 He can't close the deal, no.

01:01:37.560 No, like Emma,

01:01:38.800 he does not have those people skills that she has. 0.77

01:01:41.560 So she's got this political stuff

01:01:43.900 that's going to like, 0.98

01:01:44.620 that threat is going to continue throughout.

01:01:47.400 But so she's like thriving in Naples,

01:01:50.860 in Neapolitan society. 0.67

01:01:52.540 And this is where she debuts an art form

01:01:55.760 that combines her modeling

01:01:59.120 with what she did at the House of Health and Hymen

01:02:02.680 with just natural skills.

01:02:05.460 And can you describe the attitudes?

01:02:09.240 The attitudes.

01:02:10.800 Yeah.

01:02:11.540 So it is...

01:02:14.120 It's okay.

01:02:15.580 There's this thing...

01:02:16.740 in art, like today we would probably call it performance art, but at this time it was known

01:02:21.480 as a tableau vivant or like a living scene. So you would have people like artists' models,

01:02:29.460 but they weren't being painted. They were posing before a live audience, but this also wasn't

01:02:36.100 acting. Like they were just kind of standing like a living sculpture kind of thing. Like you might

01:02:41.160 see on the boardwalk a person painted gold and like standing so still um so she would she would

01:02:47.520 put on costumes and basically portray famous works of art sculptures she would combine like

01:02:57.360 classical poses with her very modern like sense of style and what was sexy um so it became this 0.76

01:03:06.560 like cross between, there was some like dance incorporated, her good posture was a big part

01:03:12.920 of it. And it was also a little bit of acting and people loved it. It was basically just come 0.99

01:03:17.140 look at this fancy, sexy lady. And I'm like, I'm minimizing it here, but it became a sensation. 0.99

01:03:24.400 And part of it, it's like people did stuff sort of like this, but what she brought to it is I

01:03:29.680 think similar to what she did in her modeling is like when she would go from one pose into another

01:03:34.600 very fluidly what other people historically would have done is they would do a pose and like stop

01:03:38.840 rearrange themselves do another pose but she would like go from one pose into another thing and

01:03:43.140 everyone's like she just went from one pose into another like what just happened and she's wearing

01:03:50.720 these like the same way that she's dressed in the paintings these sort of like grecian draping yeah 0.88

01:03:55.080 sort of gowns loose fitting like tunics she had a lot of veils which helped with her allure um she 0.99

01:04:03.500 also I noticed in some sources like she would turn it into a game sometimes like the audience 0.98

01:04:10.840 would guess yeah kind of like the audience would guess the name of the character that she was

01:04:16.600 portraying or like the classical figure or what scene she was supposed to be part of I and she

01:04:21.620 would do this like at dinner like she would just kind of like and now the attitudes and people

01:04:27.320 came from all over to watch her do this it became like such because she's this famous person she's

01:04:32.420 doing this like really interesting thing i love that one of the the people in her repertoire and

01:04:37.900 this figure that's connected with her for later for other reasons is cleopatra she started acting 0.85

01:04:42.940 at some doing some cleopatra stuff but even just the way that she's wearing these draping

01:04:46.340 garments like she would her mother was like a good seamstress and so she would have the things

01:04:51.900 tailored so they would hang in a certain way when she holds her arm a certain way like it was really

01:04:55.940 like the art design of it all like she was really she thought of every detail and it was such a

01:05:01.680 sensation people sort of like made pamphlets sort of trying to explain what the attitudes are

01:05:08.040 just kind of like you gotta see it you just gotta go see it gotta come to naples you gotta see the

01:05:14.340 attitudes like naples hottest club is emma hambleton's attitudes honestly merch idea so

01:05:22.600 this is where so she's in naples like she's honestly thriving um i will mention though too

01:05:28.120 like she has not had any children by Sir William

01:05:30.740 and it seems pretty apparent he is infertile.

01:05:34.480 Sure. 0.91

01:05:35.020 We know she is fertile. 0.54

01:05:37.520 Yeah. 0.99

01:05:38.300 And I will say her daughter is still bopping around out there

01:05:41.280 and Greville, the first chance he took,

01:05:43.760 he's like, great, my uncle took over my mistress.

01:05:46.320 Now you are responsible for the upkeep of baby Emma,

01:05:49.480 who I guess isn't a baby anymore.

01:05:50.980 So he's like financially taking care of her,

01:05:53.720 but makes it clear he has like little to no interest

01:05:56.400 in ever getting to know Emma's daughter.

01:05:59.300 And also this is another thing that was, 0.73

01:06:02.240 like everything was shitty

01:06:03.340 about the way that Greville just like

01:06:04.620 sent her to Naples without telling her

01:06:06.360 he was dumping her 0.93

01:06:07.060 and getting her to be the mistress of his uncle.

01:06:10.300 But had she known she was moving to Naples,

01:06:12.640 she would have said goodbye to her daughter,

01:06:15.080 but she thought just for the summer.

01:06:16.440 So she didn't.

01:06:17.180 So this is like,

01:06:17.800 she's being kept from her daughter

01:06:18.840 and this is like affecting her. 0.98

01:06:21.280 That's kind of shitty. 0.99

01:06:21.840 Someone who like wants more children. 0.98

01:06:23.420 Although it is interesting, 1.00

01:06:24.380 um, in her life of sex work. Um, and then her marriage, she had the one daughter like early

01:06:32.900 on in her life when she was 17. And, but since then, like, she's not, she clearly figured out

01:06:40.640 some contraceptive things because maybe a lot of situations come up where she could have become

01:06:45.780 pregnant, but she didn't. So like, she's, but now she's married. It would be really beneficial 0.99

01:06:50.200 if she had a son especially because to inherit the money from this guy but he yeah fair enough 0.93

01:06:55.920 that is not happening but she's having a nice time in naples that would have also that would 0.96

01:07:01.220 have also helped to like legitimize her among these aristocratic circles that like still didn't

01:07:06.600 quite see them as one of them or see her as one of them um there was a note that she like 0.87

01:07:12.280 still had some mannerisms that were kind of unacris unaristocratic and she was a heavy drinker

01:07:19.740 Um, so at one point there was a dinner in Naples, the Duke de Bourbon remarked that she drank port in such a way that it must've been a habit of hers, um, because she did not become drunk after finishing two or three bottles.

01:07:36.480 Uh, so that could have had something to do with maybe why she wasn't having children at this time.

01:07:40.580 that could also, and also I would say like other people we've talked about like Georgina, um, Emma

01:07:46.640 has a lot of trauma in her life and the way that she's dealing with it, you know, like if you have

01:07:54.160 trauma in your life, like you're in a fight or flight. And then when your life kind of calms down,

01:07:57.820 that is often when it catches up with you because this could be where she's just like,

01:08:02.000 oh my gosh, like I went through all this stuff, like as a teenager, like daughter's been taken

01:08:06.540 are great now things are great now but i should i should be happy why am i not yeah yeah i could

01:08:13.260 see that definitely everything catching up with her now we're about i feel like this is going to

01:08:18.500 be a good listeners this is a two-parter because this woman's life is unrelenting but we're about

01:08:23.800 to move into she's married and there's naples is about to have some real political um military

01:08:32.680 crisis. So I will say like, I think to just to sort of like cliffhanger and this part. So

01:08:37.520 sure. Some shit's going down in Naples, which we're going to explain a bit more next time, 0.99

01:08:44.200 but basically such that some British troops arrive and leading those British troops is a 0.98

01:08:49.040 man named Admiral Horatio Nelson, who comes to town and Emma's job is to kind of like charm

01:08:56.220 offensive, like make him like convince him that England will support Naples in these battles that

01:09:02.160 they're getting into which we'll explain next time um and admiral horatio nelson is just like

01:09:06.980 little tiny guy he's like lost an arm at this point uh so emma had met him earlier no this

01:09:14.420 is when she first meets him so she first meets him he still has both of his arms so she meets

01:09:18.980 him he still has both of his arms and both of his eyes okay okay okay next time but so i just wanted

01:09:24.780 to like tantalizingly say like she meets him he comes to town and she's just like she's still the

01:09:29.780 wife of the British envoy. So like, that's her role. Yeah. And so she, um, she meets him and

01:09:37.080 just kind of like, I just wanted to dangle that there because what some people might've heard of

01:09:42.640 Emma Hamilton in the context of her relationship with Lord Nelson. So like, she meets him,

01:09:47.520 they like, hi, bye. Like, he's kind of like, wow, she's so beautiful. And he's intriguing. Yeah.

01:09:52.360 Yeah. And it's kind of like, they don't see each other for a couple of years, but

01:09:55.320 it's like Marie Antoinette and Count

01:09:57.540 Furson you know they meet each other when he

01:09:59.580 is going to go fight in the revolution

01:10:01.400 question mark for

01:10:03.500 France and then

01:10:05.400 that was weird that was

01:10:07.500 a cute guy yeah and then a couple years later

01:10:09.420 he pops back up exactly so we've got

01:10:11.380 a meet cute of Emma Hamilton and Lord

01:10:13.420 Nelson and at this point

01:10:14.860 like she's this extremely

01:10:17.520 famous she's

01:10:19.440 still famous like she's in Naples she's

01:10:21.380 married to Sir William but she's doing the attitude she's still

01:10:23.420 like it girl everyone still has their like emma hamilton posters yeah romney has painted his last

01:10:29.980 portrait of hit her so he's kind of depressed he's like oh she's off doing other things now

01:10:35.160 and some contemporaries do write about her that she is becoming quite plump and has quote unquote

01:10:41.780 lost her figure as the wife of a british diplomat in naples but she's still like beautiful even if 1.00

01:10:48.880 Like she does kind of let her unaristocratic side 0.99

01:10:52.800 out from time to time.

01:10:53.800 Like she's kind of loud. 1.00

01:10:54.880 She has a quick temper.

01:10:57.020 Anyone who meets her is still like really taken

01:11:00.940 with how charming and beautiful she is.

01:11:02.360 She's so charming.

01:11:03.020 Actually, I want to just mention,

01:11:04.320 I forgot to say earlier,

01:11:05.360 when they were in England getting the permission

01:11:09.240 to get married, she met Georgina.

01:11:13.460 She went to Bath at one point

01:11:15.560 And she met Georgina was there with her sister and Bess Foster, of course.

01:11:23.340 So like the whole, so she met them and they were all charmed by her, by Mrs. Hamilton.

01:11:28.740 Although Bess Foster said that she found Emma, quote, vulgar.

01:11:33.800 So you're one to talk, Bess.

01:11:35.280 OK, I mean, I mean, like, really, Bess? 0.92

01:11:40.560 Like, girl, you're in a throuple. 0.99

01:11:41.900 how many illegitimate children are you putting around with your best friend's husband best

01:11:47.040 foster like okay okay okay but so i just wanted to mention this is like one of many many people

01:11:53.760 um elizabeth v j le brun painted her anything of other vulgar history um oh i don't know if it

01:11:59.780 would be a vulgar history tie-in but the author goethe came to see the attitudes and he wrote

01:12:04.480 about her he specifically wrote about the veils he said the veils and scarves and shawls that's

01:12:09.620 like nothing you've ever seen before.

01:12:11.380 So like what she was doing is just like,

01:12:13.760 if only there was, there's cameras.

01:12:16.500 And then Jermaine, Madame de Stael,

01:12:19.800 she also encounters her.

01:12:21.760 And I think she, she wrote novels

01:12:23.980 and one of her novels has a character

01:12:25.480 who does the attitudes, basically.

01:12:28.080 She just like, everyone is just like,

01:12:30.840 this is a thing, this is happening.

01:12:32.660 I need to include this.

01:12:33.880 And everyone's talking about it.

01:12:34.940 But this is not as far as she will find herself rising.

01:12:38.140 Like there's still more to come, which is crazy. 0.96

01:12:41.080 I've done episodes like on women who their, 0.95

01:12:44.420 their trajectory kind of stopped here. 1.00

01:12:45.920 Think of like Madame X who kind of had this rise and fall as a society 1.00

01:12:50.680 beauty, but like, no, 1.00

01:12:51.700 Emma Hamilton is going to be around for a little longer. 0.58

01:12:55.140 She's just getting started.

01:12:56.000 She's like 21 and like just getting started.

01:12:59.800 20. Yeah. 26, something like that.

01:13:01.580 Yeah. So she, this is a great cliffhanger for next time.

01:13:06.040 So we're going to pause for now, come back next week and you'll hear the Emma Hamilton, Lord Nelson of it all, which gets even more convoluted and even weirder, even more cameos, printy all up in her business still.

01:13:21.640 There's a reverse revolution. I'll just dangle that. A reverse revolution.

01:13:26.620 So there's some real Maria Carolina stuff. There's some spy hijinks. I'm just really, really built. It's like if people are like, oh, what could possibly happen next? It's like, you don't even know. 0.99

01:13:36.040 I was reading this biography, the Kate Williams biography, which I do recommend.

01:13:40.040 And I was just like, Oh, how much, honestly, I borrowed it from the library as an ebook.

01:13:44.180 And it was like, this ebook is due in two hours. And I'm like, well, I'm sure that I'm almost at

01:13:48.380 the end of this book. And it's just like, Nope, I'm not. I was just like, like I read it.

01:13:53.640 I need to renew. 0.97

01:13:54.880 It was like, how much more can happen in this woman's life? So much. So that's why this is 0.81

01:14:00.380 a two part episode. So we're going to pause for now. Um, Amanda, for people who want to follow

01:14:05.120 you online. Um, what, what can you plug for them? Well, I actually have a new podcast, um, that I

01:14:12.900 can plug. It is a debut, uh, Royal history podcast or Royal news podcast with a news company. It's

01:14:18.860 called rain check. And that should be out now when you're listening. Yes. Okay. Like a, like a pun.

01:14:27.900 Absolutely. So you can find me on there as well as my show with Meredith constant off with their

01:14:32.620 headlines where we look at Royal news and media, um, and on social media everywhere as

01:14:38.380 matter of fact, M A T T A underscore of underscore fact. Oh, and sub stack. I have a sub stack

01:14:44.180 newsletter as well, which is a great time. Yeah. So, and I love how your, your content

01:14:48.400 combines the like historical stuff with the what's going on now. It's because anytime something

01:14:53.580 happens with the Royal family and people like, Oh my gosh, this is unprecedented. You're like,

01:14:56.800 It's not. Nope. We've been here before. Whether it's somebody being banned from a coronation,

01:15:04.540 as you know, and that's happened before these ideas of rival courts, fathers and sons feud,

01:15:10.840 like, no, none of it's new. None of it is new. Exactly. It's just like, oh, this is unprecedented.

01:15:15.120 It's like, it's not. So yes, everybody keep up with Amanda and all those places. And you can

01:15:21.460 keep up with me. Well, here, this podcast, you're listening to Vulgar History. And you can also

01:15:25.760 read my book rebel over the regency the scandalous saga of carolina brunswick britain's queen without

01:15:29.840 a crown who is going to make an appearance in the next part of this podcast because emma hamilton

01:15:35.460 like had dealings with literally everybody but it's the same time period um and so you can get

01:15:40.700 my book rebel the regency it's available as a book an ebook um a print book you can get it now

01:15:45.420 basically everywhere you are you can get it now it's in north america it's in europe it's in

01:15:50.560 australia it's in japan um lots of play all in english language i should mention it has not been

01:15:56.720 translated but if you're listening to this presumably you speak english that's my book

01:16:00.920 and then you can keep up with me on social media at vulgar history pod and yeah i mean tune in next

01:16:08.100 week for truly if you don't know this story get ready for the second because this is like it's

01:16:15.420 not it's not her life is not calming down thank you so much amanda to all listeners keep your 0.98

01:16:19.860 pants on and your tits out vulgar history is researched scripted and hosted by ann foster 0.98

01:16:27.500 editor is christina lumagi theme music is by the severin duo regency era artwork by karen 0.97

01:16:33.480 moynihan social media videos by magdalena denson transcripts of this podcast are available at

01:16:38.900 vulgarhistory.com by avilene malik you can get early ad-free episodes of vulgar history by

01:16:44.220 becoming a paid member of our Patreon at patreon.com slash annfosterwriter. Vulgar History

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Vulgar History - April 08, 2026

Regency Era It Girl Emma Hamilton (part one)

Episode Stats

Transcript