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The course of true love never did run smooth

Brakespeare painting of Emma Hamilton in Romney’s studio

I am sorry to put a dampener on Valentine’s Day romance but numerous items in our collections seem to chime with Shakespeare’s bleak comment above from ‘Romeo and Juliet’.  Two more of his tragedies featured star-crossed lovers - Anthony and Cleopatra and Troilus and Cressida.  Above is a painting of an imaginary scene depicting Romney’s studio with Horatio Nelson and Emma Hamilton, whose scandalous love affair fascinated Georgian Britain and the world beyond.  Although they did live as man and wife for several years, and have a child, Nelson never divorced his wife.  After his death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, the British government steadfastly refused to recognize Emma, or give her a pension, and she ended up dying in penury in France (the nation which had ultimately killed him, but also propelled him to everlasting fame!).  Their love affair had lasted seven years, much of which he spent at sea. 

A silver Queen’s Own Cameron Highlander presented to Lieut. A. A. Fowler on the occasion of his marriage

Tragically the fortunes of war cut the marriage  of Captain Alan Arthur Fowler to a mere two years.  He was educated at Harrow School and Sandhurst Military Academy and served in South Africa, China and India.  He married Alice Bayley in 1912 but was killed in 1914 with his subaltern and several men by a single minenwerfer bomb.  He is commemorated on the Ypres Memorial.

Captain Tynte Ford Hammill was an exceptional navigator which won him the Beaufort Testimonial Prize for the year of 1871, when he took his Lieutenant’s exams.  1885 was a momentous year for him as he was promoted captain and married Mary Schomberg.  Other promotions followed, but in 1894, just 11 days after taking command of HMS Camperdown, he died.

These charming portraits show Robert Prideaux and his wife Mary Ann.  A cache of letters from 1813 tell of him having a “disease of the bone” that he hopes to be able to cure by making use of warm salt baths, but that there appears no possibility of his “serving on a sea going ship again”.  In the end he died aged 36 in 1818.  As he will have had no earnings for 5 years, and despite leaving his worldly goods to his widow, she would have been destitute unless she had private means or a family to support her. 

Destitution was not the fate of Ann Bardwell on the death of her husband Edward Bardwell in 1821.  She took over their cabinet-making business and within 20 years was successful enough to tender to supply hundreds of mahogany chairs and matching tables.  Her nephew F J Mercer took over the business on her retirement. 

The coat of arms on this seat are presented on a lozenge and this signifies, in heraldic terms, that the arms blazoned upon it are those of a widow – and a 21 year old at that, Anne’s husband John Prideaux having died in 1739.  As she was pregnant at the time, Anne was allowed to continue to live in her marital home, Tehidy Park in Cornwall.

As we have seen above, wealth and status were no guarantee of happiness.  It took Prince Henry of Battenberg over a year to persuade Queen Victoria to allow him to marry her youngest child ‘Baby’, Princess Beatrice.  Even then it was on the condition that they both lived with Her Majesty and were constantly at her beck and call!  Within 10 years Henry had died of malaria in Africa.  Beatrice dedicated the rest of her life to her mother as her private secretary and designated literary executor.

Early death did not end the 47 year marriage between Princess Alexandra of Denmark and Edward, Prince of Wales, later Edward VII.  However, it was hardly a bed of roses either, as he kept a constant string of glamorous mistresses including Lillie Langtry, Lady Randolph Churchill, Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, Sarah Bernhardt, Lady Susan Vane-Tempest and Alice Keppel.  

But let’s end on a happier story.  This table belonged to Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly.  Of noble birth, but impoverished, Hermione had to earn her living. As secretary to Lord Wakehurst she travelled to Australia and met Daniel Knox, 6th Earl of Ranfurly, aide-de-camp to the Australian Governor-General.  The day she returned to England, she found Ranfurly seated on the sofa in her London flat, reading the Sporting Life; the two immediately became engaged, and were married on 17 January 1939.  There followed an action packed 49 years.

Within the year war was declared and Ranfurly was in Palestine. Wives were forbidden to accompany their husbands but Hermione ignored the rules and wangled her way to join him via Egypt.  She was promptly forcibly repatriated but jumped ship in South Africa (the ship was sunk before it reached London) and flew back to his side by persuading a travel agent that she was an undercover spy!  He was reported missing at Tobruk but reappeared as an Italian prisoner of war  - and escaped after three years.  She had remained abroad in Cairo, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Algiers amassing a stellar cast of contacts including Anthony Eden, Lady Diana Cooper, Antoine de Saint Exupéry, Noël Coward, Freya Stark, General Patton and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.  After the war, Lord Ranfurly was appointed Governor of the Bahamas and they founded a children’s home and the Ranfurly Library Service which expanded to become Book Aid International. 

Monthly Blog 

A Fine Genre Painting by William Arthur Breakspeare Depicting the Fictional Meeting of Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton in the Studio of the Painter George Romney

The painting depicts Lady Hamilton sitting to Romney for her portrait, the proceedings interrupted by the arrival of Lord Nelson. The meeting would never have happened but the subject gripped the public imagination, particularly in the late Victorian period after a successful play was written which hinged around this very scenario. The play, titled variously The Enchantress or Nelson’s Enchantress by Risden Howe was based on an earlier Neapolitan play which, in typical 19th century moralising fashion, depicted Nelson and Emma Hamilton as the “bad” characters in the play. The play opened in London in 1897 and then toured the country....
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