England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [110]
Many of Emma's new friends became her admirers. She escorted the Earl of Bristol, who was "very fond of me," to Maria Carolina, with whom "we spent four hours in an enchantment." Lady Holland observed that Bristol was "a great admirer of Lady Hamilton, and conjured Sir William to allow him to call her Emma." She was surprised by Bristol's interest in such a commoner, although she thought that his attraction to her "beauty and her wonderful attitudes is not singular." Bristol sneered at Sir William as a shriveled "piece of walking verd-antique," a cruel joke that he could not keep up with his handsome wife, but Sir William trusted Emma and encouraged her close friendships with powerful men.3 For him, they were perfectly innocent, a natural extension of her warm, outgoing personality.
Emma always set out to make people fall in love with her. She was tactile and loved to flatter. In private, she could not stop gushing about Maria Carolina as "the Queen whom I adore" and claimed "nor can I live without her," and to the queen's face she was even more excitably emotional. She declared her a "mother, friend & everything," her "talents are superior to every woman in the world," "she is the first woman in the world." The queen addressed her intimately. As she wrote to her when Sir William fell ill, "I would fain keep you company, my friendship might comfort you."
The Hamiltons spent their third wedding anniversary with Maria Carolina in Quisiana, a smaller seaside palace that Ferdinand used as a base for fishing trips, and Sir William told her, as she wrote to Greville, he "loved me better than ever & had never for one moment repented." She continued with her music and rode out regularly with the queen, who supplied her with horses, an equerry, and her own servant. If not entertaining at home, her evenings were occupied by crowded balls and concerts at court. Although she was busy, she was also trying to fill her time, trying to stave off unhappiness. After four years of marriage, Emma was realizing that the palazzo would never be full of children. "He is the best husband and friend," she later wrote. "I wish I could say father also; but I should have been too happy if I had the blessing of having children, so must be content." As Emma could persuade Sir William to nearly anything, we have to presume that the hints in the English gossip columns were correct: he was sterile (male infertility was discussed as impotence) and could not impregnate even a healthy young partner.
Her childlessness was doubly painful for Emma because she had a better chance of bringing her daughter to Naples if she could have babies with her husband. She turned to Greville for help, begging him, "Do send me a plan how I could situate little Emma, poor thing." Little Emma knew that her stepfather was a great aristocrat and ambassador, and she was desperate to live with her mother. Although Greville had instructed her guardians to tell her that she should expect nothing "beyond the quiet & retired life," he was hopeful that his uncle might change his mind. He told Sir William that since her health was too delicate to put her into service, he should bring her to live in the Palazzo Sessa, as Mrs. Cadogan's niece, or give her a dowry and marry her to a "good sort of man," like a clergyman. Sir William refused to bring her to the palazzo and was adamant he would not expose himself by making inquiries in England