HORATIO NELSON
1758 - 1805

Horatio Nelson, officially the Viscount Nelson of the Nile and Burnham Thorpe, was a British naval hero, a brilliant tactician, and the one who spoiled Napoleon Bonaparte's plan to conquer Britain.

The French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars were the wars that made Nelson famous.


THE FAMILY OF HORATIO NELSON
Horatio's father was the Reverend Edmund Nelson. His mother was Catherine Nelson, née Suckling. Catherine's grandmother was Sir Robert Walpole’s sister.

His parents were not only responsible for naming him Horatio (after his godfather, the second Baron Walpole) they also had eleven children all in all. Horatio was child number six.

In 1787, Nelson married widow Frances Nisbet (also called Fanny Nisbett) née Woolward. He found her and her five-year-old son Josiah, on the island of Nevis and they followed him home to Norfolk.

In 1801, Frances and Horatio separated. In 1830, Josiah died and in 1831 Frances did the same.

In addition, Horatio Nelson had two daughters by Emma Hamilton, one of them was Horatia.

CAPTAIN HORATIO NELSON IN 1781, AGED TWENTY-TWO
Gutenberg Project
 

WHO WAS EMMA HAMILTON?
While married to Frances, Nelson had a heavy duty affair with cute face Lady Emma Hamilton, who was in turn married to Sir William Hamilton.
 
At the time, William was British ambassador to the kingdom of Naples. It so happened that Horatio was sent to collect reinforcements at Naples. We now know that he collected more than that.

Some say that thanks to Emma's influence, Horatio obtained permission from Naples for a refueling stop at Sicily when he was on his way to fight the French. In other words, Emma Hamilton helped Horatio Nelson win the Battle of the Nile in 1798. In any event, she afterwards helped him celebrate his victory, of course.

After the separation from Frances, Nelson and the Hamiltons settled at Merton Place, a posh 160 acre estate near London.

Why didn't William give the chick the boot, go back to Jamaica where his father used to be governor, and enjoy a drink with an umbrella? We will never know. Horatio being a national hero might have had something to do with it. Instead, William died in 1803 with both, Emma and Horatio, sitting at his bedside.

But back to Nelson...

WHAT WAS HORATIO NELSON'S BRILLIANCE?
Horatio Nelson disregarded the traditional naval tactics of his time and encouraged his men to put their individual thinking caps on. He was a strategic genius and an inspiration for his men.

Occasionally, Nelson felt pretty comfortable to disregard orders, a conduct unacceptable in the Royal Navy. Nelson's former experience in the merchant navy, who despised the Royal Navy, might have been the inspiration in those cases.

HORATIO NELSON'S MAIN SUCCESSES IN BATTLE
- The Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797
- The Battle of the Nile in 1798
- The Battle of Copenhagen in 1801
- The Battle of Trafalgar in 1805


NELSON'S BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
1758 Birth at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, England
1768 Grammar school
1770 Joins Royal Navy
1771 Sails to Jamaica and Tobago
1773 Sails to Spitzbergen, East Indies
1775 Contracts malaria
1776 Promoted Fourth Lieutenant
1777 Promoted Lieutenant
1779 Promoted Captain
1780 Siege of the fort of San Juan
1782 Falls in love with 16-year-old Mary Simpson in Quebec
1783 Returns home from fighting in the American Revolution
1784 Asks Elizabeth Andrews to marry him, but she declines
1788 The beginning of five years of unemployment
1793 Commander of the Agamemnon
1794 Liaison with Adelaide Correglia
1796 Promoted Commodore
1797 Knighted because of the Battle of St. Vincent
1798 Made Baron because of the Battle of the Nile
1799 Helps King Ferdinand I to recapture Naples and shatter the Parthenopean Republic the French had set up in Naples; in turn Ferdinand makes him Duke of Bronte, which is a town in eastern Sicily that features pistachio nuts and Nelson's cozy new little weekend retreat Castello di Maniace
1801 Promoted Vice Admiral; Viscount
1802 Promoted Commander-in-chief
1802 Treaty of Amiens
1805 Death at sea, off Cape Trafalgar, Spain


LIFE AND LIMB
The good man went in pieces. In 1794, Horatio lost his right eyesight almost completely at the siege of Calvi, Corsica. Attacking Tenerife in 1797, Horatio lost his right arm. The Battle of the Nile in 1798 brought with it a severe head wound. In 1804, Horatio Nelson had enough and asked the Admiralty for leave because of ill-health.


DEATH AND FUNERAL
During the course of the Battle of Trafalgar, a sharpshooter positioned himself atop the mast of the French ship Redoutable. The sniper's musket ball passed through Nelson's left shoulder, his lung, and lodged in his spine. Nelson was carried below deck and spoke his last words, “Thank God, I have done my duty.”

Thus he spoke and thus he died at 4.30 pm that afternoon and, attention lovers of the booze, was put in a cask filled with brandy to preserve the body. The cask was brought to Gibraltar where the brandy was replaced by spirits of wine and we will not, I repeat will not, venture to contemplate the final whereabouts of the first fill.

Nelson's body finally made it home to England on December 4, 1805, where the good man William Beatty performed the autopsy and extracted the fatal musket ball.

What to do with the body now? Back in the booze. This time a lead coffin served as receptacle. After two weeks someone came up with a better idea. They made a coffin from the mainmast of the French ship L'Orient, which Nelson had managed to blow up during the Battle of the Nile, and they put him in there. Resourceful is the Englishman, if you only make him mad enough.

Now they went into the Russian doll thing. They put this wooden coffin into another lead coffin, and the lead coffin again into another one of wood. This load went to Greenwich Hospital where people were given the opportunity to pay their last respects, and approx. 100,000 people showed up to do so.

But the journey wasn't over. Nelson-in-the-box (boxes) was brought to the Admiralty in Whitehall. A funeral had been arranged for January 9, 1806 at St. Paul's Cathedral and the admiral's ego would've enjoyed every bit of the show. In fact, not never in British history did a common man receive a state funeral.

An incredibly huge crowd plus at least 30,000 troops lined the streets to watch the procession that went from Whitehall to St Paul's Cathedral. The procession itself included more than 10,000 people. A five-hour-long service was held and the intensity was more than some folks could handle. People went bananas and ripped off pieces of the flag that was put on Nelson's coffin to take home as souvenirs and sell them on eBay.

After order had been re-established Horatio Nelson's coffin(s) was (were) put into a marble sarcophagus originally intended for Cardinal Wolsely in St Paul’s Cathedral’s crypt. We don't even wanna know who screwed up there.

HORATIO NELSON'S IMPACT ON HISTORY
Nelson's victory at the Battle of the Nile put an end to Napoleon's dream of conquering the East. Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar saved the British Isles from invasion and secured British supremacy at sea.

The Times reported, "We do not know whether we should mourn or rejoice. The country has gained the most splendid and decisive Victory that has ever graced the naval annals of England; but it has been dearly purchased. The great and gallant NELSON is no more."

Subsequently monuments, streets, inns, everybody, everything, and their dog was named in honor of Horatio Nelson.

HORATIO NELSON QUOTED
"A fleet of British ships of war are the best negotiators in Europe."


HORATIO NELSON TRIVIA
Horatio had a very close relationship with his captains. He called them "my band of brothers."

The name of the ship's surgeon who amputated Nelson's arm aboard the ship HMS Theseus was Thomas Eshelby.

The vessel on which Nelson died was the HMS Victory, which you are welcome to visit today in Portsmouth, England.

In 1830, the courtyard of the Great Mews stabling in London was officially named Trafalgar Square. In 1843, the fountains came. In 1867, the bronze lions came. Things developed plentifully and heck, you can even book the Square today. Loads of things are going on at Trafalgar Square these days - here's the webcam.

Read online and for free The Life of Nelson by Capt A.T. Maha.