Free England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton by Kate Williams

to Sir Harry's costs, for on many days she would have been expected to change her outfit four times a day: a breakfast gown, a riding habit, a tea dress, and an evening dress. An employee of Sir Harry's but able to command the servants like any visiting lady, Emma's position in the household was ambiguous. Sir Harry probably hired her a lady's maid, but his servants would have had ways of making their resentment known toward the impostor by "forgetting" to bring up her water or lay her fire.
    Emma spent over a year at Uppark. Every day followed a similar pattern. Sir Harry and his friends rose at around eight, two or three hours after their servants, and breakfasted together from nine. As they ate, servants polished saddles and bits, brushed, fed, and exercised the horses. Soon after breakfast, the party of perhaps up to thirty men, now changed into riding habits, accompanied by servants, grooms, and their horses, set out over the estate with packs of hunting dogs in search of some of the eight hundred deer that roamed free. Occasionally they charged off to other estates. At around noon, servants arrived bearing crockery and a fortifying meal of meat and wine. The housekeeper and her maids had to stay alert: if the hunting proved poor or if it rained heavily, Sir Harry and his friends would return to the house expecting a hearty lunch. Emma grew up associating the country with dirt, squalor, and poverty, but for Sir Harry it was a place of pure pleasure, created to fit his needs.
    Emma had never ridden before, but fear irritated Sir Harry and she made a determined effort to learn. She soon became an expert equestrienne, riding sidesaddle as all women did in the eighteenth century. When the hunt set off, she followed behind on a smaller lady's mount (to hunt required specific male servants, and they would not work for a woman). Accompanying the hunt conferred high status; Sir Harry would allow his steward to dine with him on occasion but never to hunt. Emma delighted in wearing a fashionable riding habit and was eager to go out with the men because this made it clear to everyone that she was a guest and not a servant.
    When she did not accompany the hunting parties, Emma remained at Uppark to stroll through the grounds and prepare herself for the evening's work. Her maid could brush and air her dresses, but she had to supervise the grudging laundresses as they washed her stockings, shifts, and dancing costumes. Then she had to put on her makeup in preparation for the long,boozy dinner to come. By early evening, Uppark's graceful dining room was a riot of drunken men, rowdily using the chamber pots, which were out on display, and shouting for more wine. Stuffed with fine venison and beef, they gambled eagerly at cards and watched Sir Harry's beautiful mistress dance and sing. In the candlelight, their eyes glinted with pleasure— and desire. Emma smiled gaily, but she was far less delighted to have them catch at her dress than she seemed. She was going through the motions, well aware that her job was to keep up the pretense that the guests were attending a wild society soiree, rather than a mundane gathering of hunting-obsessed men. Her life at Upparkwas one long theatrical performance.
    She was lucky to be out of London. In early June 1780, a protest about giving Catholics the vote blew up into the biggest riot the capital had ever seen. King's Bench prison was burned down, the distilleries at Holborn burst into flames, and escaping gin turned the water supply alcoholic. For four nights, the London sky blazed as houses were torched. Four hundred fifty people died and swaths of the city lay in ruins. Sir Harry and his MP friends stayed well away and kept on hunting.
    Surrounded by other people's possessions and portraits of the Fether-stonhaugh family and their horses, Emma grew lonely. She had food, handsome rooms, clothes, a good allowance, and endless compliments, but she felt neglected by Sir Harry. He and his friends feted