Bride of Glory: The Emma Hamilton Trilogy - Book One: June 1780 to March 1786

Emma quitted the candle-lit recess in which she had posed, to perch on the arm of Greville's chair. Dressed in a sleeveless calico chemise, with her hair rippling down her back, she was distractingly beautiful as she smiled tenderly upon her lover. Bride of Glory is an extraordinarily vivid account of the Welsh country girl Emy Lyon, who would go on to become Lady Emma Hamilton and the avowed lover of Admiral Horatio Nelson during the Napoleonic Wars. Volume I describes her early years as a servant in London, her impetuous involvement in the religious riots of 1780, her first romance with the adventuresome Captain Payne, and her turn as the favorite model of the artist George Romney. For a time, Emy’s rare beauty and exquisite singing voice make her the talk of London and the star attraction at the Temple of Health, an 18th century clinic frequented by noblemen in pursuit of legitimate heirs. But Emy, sharing squalid lodgings with a gravedigger’s family, nearly dies of typhus contracted from “corpse water.” Recovered and determined to better her lot, Emy becomes the mistress of Sir Harry Featherstonaugh, until an ambiguous pregnancy sends her, unwed, destitute, and alone, back to Wales. Practicality does not preclude passion. While enduring the dissipated debauches of Sir Harry, sixteen year old Emy meets the first great love of her life, the high-minded but impecunious Sir Charles Greville. It is to Sir Greville she appeals to save her from shame, and no man born could resist Emma. From London ghettos to English estates, in bedrooms, in concert halls, in conversations with her practical mother, in passionate letters to the man she loves, here is a historically accurate portrayal of young Emma, before she becomes infamous as “That Hamilton Woman.”