England's Mistress_ The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams [71]
Emma marveled at Sir William's "pack of servants." Benefiting from the low wages caused by massive unemployment, he employed around fifty men, as well as a large band of musicians to entertain him. Since men did the domestic work, the only females would probably have been Emma's and Mrs. Darner's maids. Senior staff lived out or had their own rooms, and the rest slept in the corridor or on the floor in the kitchens. They were fully occupied in cleaning the house and ornaments, tending to the visitors, assisting at the regular parties, and caring for the four or five carriages and fleets of fine horses. Like most eighteenth-century men, Sir William kept his servants busy buying new carriages, trading old ones, repainting, and trying to improve speed and suspension.
Sir William shared his government's disparaging attitude toward the politics of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Bickerings with Rome were, he complained, "the only occurrences in this remote corner of the World."3 His letters to the foreign secretary in London described the life of a medieval courtier rather than a modern diplomat: he listed the sniffles of the princesses, glamorous parties, and the exact number of boars killed by the king and court.4 He hardly ever needed to write in code. Sir William was bored, but he was grateful for the opportunity to develop his interests. Instead of competing with other envoys at dreary trade talks, he studied the volcano, hunted with Ferdinand, flattered Maria Carolina and her ever-growing band of belligerent children, and became the world's best tourist guide. Hoping to make an easy million, he collected cheap antique vases and cleaned them up in the hope that there would soon be a demand (the market for statues and paintings was so inflated that they could no longer be bought and resold for a profit). After a few years in Naples, he was a man of culture, the acknowledged English expert on both classical vases and Vesuvius.
From spring 1786, Sir William had a new hobby: Emma. Devoted to his beautiful new distraction, he put off writing to the government, and his letters to the foreign office dwindled from around May. English visitors chivvied to see the gorgeous lady herself. The Duke of Gloucester, younger son of the king, arrived and straightaway desired to meet the envoy's "little friend."
Feeling guilty that he had plotted with Greville, Sir William showered Emma with gifts. He gave her a beautiful horse, treated her to fine dinners, took her to plays and operas, and to her amazement and delight ordered her a new painted carriage and a staff of liveried footmen and a coachman to match. He also bought her a whole new wardrobe. Gleefully stuffing her sober Edgware Row outfits at the back of the closet, she delighted in his present of a white satin gown (costing twenty-five guineas) and muslin dresses with "the sleeves tyed in fowlds with ribban & trimmed with lace." On top of this, she received a luxurious camel shawl and some of Catherine's jewelry and ornaments. Sir William had realized that if he wanted to please Emma and perhaps win her heart, he would have to court her with kindness and presents.
In July, Emma wrote to Greville, eager to share the excitement of her summer holiday. They had visited Pompeii and Posillipo and planned to sail to the islands of Ischia and Capri. She has been bathing daily and her "irruptions" were gone, leaving her, as she claims, "remarkably fair." Sir William had invited every artist and sculptor in Naples (apart from Mrs. Damer) to portray her. One, possibly Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, was painting her in "a Bacchante setting, in a turbin, a turkish dress," and she was modeling for another in a blue silk gown and a black feathered hat. The young Swiss-German Angelica Kauffman, and two others planned to paint her, and the cameo maker Marchmont would soon carve her head into a stone that could be set into a ring. Sir William already had five portraits, and he had