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By Root 1489 0

Nelsons to accompany them, and left her mother in charge of Merton. On June 21, four carriages loaded with servants, maids, secretaries, and endless changes of outfit rolled out of London and westward to Wales. Oxford awarded Nelson the freedom of the city, and he and Sir William received the honorary degrees of doctor of civil law. Shops along the way did a roaring trade in Nelsonia, and the whole population of Gloucester came out to wave Nelson portraits, hats, and ribbons at them. At Ross on Wye, on the way into south Wales, the party took a boat garlanded with laurel for the seventy-mile journey to Monmouth, escorted by hundreds of little boats, while thousands of fans cheered from the banks of the river. The mayor of Monmouth received them on the banks while cannons sounded a salute from a nearby hill. After traveling up through mid-Wales, they reached Milford Haven by nightfall, where a cattle show, a rowing match, and a fair had all been laid on in their honor. Nelson and Emma basked in the adoring attention.

Sir William checked on his estates, and the party set off home through south Wales. Pembroke, Swansea, Cardiff, and Newport welcomed them with receptions, fireworks, and colossal banquets—where Emma nearly always sang, often her versions of "God Save the King" and "Rule Britannia" in Nelson's honor. Hysterical crowds unhitched the party's horses and dragged the carriage through the streets. The local newspapers breathlessly reported even the smallest details about "Lord Nelson's tourists." As they progressed home through Hereford, Leominster, Lud-low, Worcester, and Birmingham, press packs from the London papers followed behind, eager to keep their readers up to date with the extravagant tour. The Morning Post reported that Nelson received a branch of an apple tree from the city of Hereford and "his Lordship, with all the gallantry of Paris, presented the apple to Lady Hamilton, thereby acknowledging her Ladyship a perfect VENUS."3 Emma was showing the country that she was the wife of Nelson's heart and the woman who shared his fame.

In Worcester, Nelson treated himself to a dessert service decorated with his coat of arms; in Birmingham's jewelry workshops, they gathered dozens of rings, necklaces, and bracelets; and they bought trunks of toys for Horatia at Theophilus Richards's toy warehouse. At Coventry, gushed the Coventry Mercury, "every heart overflowed with gratitude."4 After visiting Towcester, Dunstable, St. Albans, Watford, and Brentford, they arrived at Merton Place on September 5. Their tour had cost nearly £500, around a year's pay for Nelson at his current rate, and they had spent even more on souvenirs. It had been worth every bruise and every penny. "Oh, how our Hero has been received!" Emma exulted to Kitty Matcham.5 As the Morning Post reported, "It is a singular fact that more eclat attends Lord Nelson in his provincial rambles than attends the King."6

The tour ensured that Emma's fashions were copied across England and Wales. The Lady's Magazine declared early in the following year, "Such has been the progress of good taste among our leading belles of fashion, that all the heavy appendages of dress, which used to encumber rather than adorn, have been judiciously relinquished for decorations more delicate and appropriate."7 The most fashionable dress was "á la Lady Hamilton," an empire-line style made from "white satin, gauze and muslin." Voguish women now wore their hair cut close around the ears, with no hat.

In cartoons depicting Nelson rescuing Britannia, the beleaguered country now looked very like Emma: a statuesque woman with long dark hair in a white dress, often throwing a dramatic pose. Novels, now quite forgotten, featured heroines that exploited Emma's fame. Mary Charl-ton's The Wife and the Mistress (1802) excused the love triangle. Horatio Nelson became Horace Nevare, a romantic hero superior to trivial amusements, who follows the truth of his heart and courts virtuous Laura without caring that her parentage is obscure. Charlton also added a character named Mrs. Hamilton who