England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [3]
Emma's mother had traveled from Hawarden, a small village just outside Chester across the Dee. She was in Ness for a holiday of sorts. William Kidd, Mary's elder brother, had moved to Ness and was working as a miner. Banns were published for his marriage to Mary Foulkes, a Chester girl, in January 1763, and their first son, Samuel, was born in the spring of 1764 and christened on April 15. In the eighteenth century, every available female relative was roped in to help with a new baby, and so Mary traveled to Ness around the time of Samuel's birth to be an unpaid nursemaid, cleaner, and cook to her brother and a sister-in-law she hardly knew. On the ferry across the Dee between Flint, near Hawarden, and Parkgate, and then the walk to her brother's home, Mary was excited, buoyant with holiday spirit. Ness was the first place she had seen other than her deadend hometown, and she was determined to make the most of it. Having escaped her other siblings, dreary cottage, and angry, resentful mother, she was intent on enjoying herself
Mary was slim, lively, and fond of fun, and men competed for her attention. She was the new belle of the village (although there was hardly much competition). Frantic to escape Hawarden and the iron grip of her mother, Mary flung herself at Henry Lyon, the blacksmith at the mine. Emma later implied that her father was from Lancashire; he was possibly from Skelmersdale or Ormskirk, where his surname is common in the parish registers. In order to have reached the position of a blacksmith, he would have to have been in his late twenties, and so was probably born around 1737. Judging from Emma's stature and appearance, Henry was tall, broad, handsome, and dark. To impoverished Mary, he would have appeared impossibly wealthy and independent. Henry's courtship was swift, perhaps rough. By May 27, perhaps less than two months after Mary's arrival, the banns were published for their wedding.
Emma's parents were married on June 11, 1764, in Great Neston church. As the wedding was held on a Monday, it is unlikely that any relative, even William Kidd or his wife, attended. Like many workingmen, Henry was illiterate and signed the register with an X; Mary also signed with a cross. Henry probably had to return to the smithy soon after the ceremony. Even though working-class weddings were low-key affairs, Mary's seems hurried. Most women were married in their late twenties— the average age was twenty-six—after their fiances had set aside sufficient money to set up a home. Mary, however, was unusually young. Pregnancy may have made marriage a necessity.
First babies were often conceived outside of wedlock; indeed, many communities encouraged it to preclude the disaster of marriage to an infertile wife. As there is no birth certificate, we must assume that Emma claimed her birthday on the day her mother told her to do so. Henry and Mary were not religious, and there is no reason why Emma should have been any different from most of the first children born in Ness. Emma's fondness for celebrating a birthday on April 26 and stressing 1765 as the year of her birth suggests she was concerned to emphasize her legitimacy. Only Mary and her brother William knew the actual date of Emma's birth, but the possibility that Mary's pregnancy had forced the marriage might explain the couple's unhappiness. Mary came to Ness looking for a life more exciting than the one she had left behind, only to find herself trapped in poverty and despair in a part of England far harsher than Hawarden.
Mary's new home was a miner's cottage near the road to