QI The Book of the Dead

seductive live show of scantily clad goddesses, who danced suggestively around the bed. One of them was young Emma Lyons, whose striking, straight-nosed classical profile was to make her a star.
    Despite all the publicity, Graham proved to be a poor businessman. After running out of money he became a born-again Christian, convinced that human health (and God) were best served by fasting and ‘earth bathing’. He delivered public sermons in Charing Cross, buried up to his neck in a vat of soil. Emma moved on to Madame Kelly’s, the most prestigious whorehouse in St James’s, where her erotic dancing bewitched the MP for Portsmouth and notorious brothel-frequenter, Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh. Sir Harry bought her freedom and installed her as his mistress in a cottage near his huge country estate, Uppark in Sussex. Still only fifteen, Emma worked as a maid during the day and danced naked on the table for his friends in the evening. It was one of these friends, the Hon. Charles Greville, MP for Warwick, who stepped in after the oafish andintolerant Featherstonehaugh threw her out when, to her horror, she found she was with child. Greville was mesmerised by Emma and offered to take her on as his permanent mistress, as long as she refused to see other men. Pregnant and destitute, she leapt at the chance. She moved into his London house in Paddington as ‘Emma Hart’ and was joined by her mother, who now called herself ‘Mrs Cadogan’. The baby – a girl, also called Emma –was hurriedly fostered and her existence kept a secret.
    This domestic arrangement worked well for a while, but Greville couldn’t help showing off Emma’s beauty to others. A connoisseur of painting and sculpture, he arranged for her to pose as an artist’s model. Her loveliness and poise so enchanted his friend, the rising portrait painter George Romney, that he became obsessed, producing over sixty paintings of her in various poses until her image was famous all over Britain. She is still, in fact, the most painted Englishwoman of all time. But Emma was not only pretty: she was spirited, bright and altogether delightful. Greville’s plans to keep her as his private mistress were swept away by the arrival of a social sensation, whose exquisite good looks were matched by a direct and witty sensuality. Emma Hart was soon lusted over by gentlemen from London to Leeds.
    This was a disaster for Greville. He was not a wealthy man – he had started hiring Emma out as a model for pocket money – and he needed to find a wife with a substantial dowry. That wasn’t going to happen with Emma hogging the limelight on every social occasion. She had become particularly matey with Greville’s uncle, Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador to Naples, whom she called ‘Pliny’ because of his passion for antiquities, and he called her the ‘fair tea-maker of Edgware Row’ in return. Grevillehatched a plan to transfer his mistress to his uncle in return for his wiping out a considerable debt. Telling Emma she was to visit Sir William for a holiday, he packed her off to Naples and several months later wrote making it clear he didn’t want her back. She was devastated, writing hima stream of angry and imploring letters until, once more, she succumbed to pragmatism. Life in Naples, after all, was civilised and glamorous and she was feted for her beauty wherever she went. Sir William was sweet-natured and devoted; his household was renowned for its lavish hospitality and aristocratic good taste. She soon became his mistress and then in 1791, much to the surprise of his friends, his wife.
    ‘Am I Emma Hamilton? It seems nearly impossible!’ The pauper-turned-prostitute, who still spoke with a pronounced northern accent, was now the wife of an ambassador. Hamilton, thirty-four years her senior, was delighted. ‘It has often been remarked that a reformed rake makes a good husband. Why not vice versa?’ Emma became both a favourite of Queen Maria Carolina of Naples (the sister of Marie Antoinette), and a fixture in the highest echelons of Neapolitan society. She had reached the very top of the social ladder, mixing with royalty and many of the great artists and thinkers of the day. This stirred Emma’s ambition: she wasn’t content merely to fulfil her role as hostess and dutiful wife. She was a performer at heart and wanted to create something new, something only she could do. She succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. Calling on her experience