Friday, October 24, 2014

Lord Nelson...and that time he lost his marbles

So for anyone who knows anything about British naval history....
they know who Horatio Nelson is.
He is an icon, a masterful leader and he won one of the most amazing battles in naval history, Trafalgar (well he died a few hours in, but it is what he is famous for).

Well...
After the Nile and before Copenhagen... Nelson had this, well.. let us just be honest... midlife crisis (really end of life crisis since he was going to get destroyed a few years later).

He abandoned his really sweet seeming wife Fanny and had a very open and very scandalous affair with this woman named Emma Hamilton who had an oblivious or just not caring older husband.
By the end of this...she had Nelson's kid... Horatia (I cannot make this up)

scannnndallllll
Some of the crazier things...

He left his wife and tried to cut her out of his will
An openly pregnant Hamilton would rhomp about drinking champagne and singing while not hiding the fact that she was having Nelson's love baby
He wrote letters to her about how she was his real wife and they would be together forever

and he got caught up in this really complicated political intrigue with Naples and the Queen (Marie Antionette's sister by the way)...and at one point got a letter from a commanding officer that kindly reminded him what country he worked for.

He did not start acting semi-alright until he got back on a ship and went to fight again.

Here is my issue.... he got a pretty nasty gash in the head from shrapnel during the Nile Battle....is that why he went nuts or was he just a crazy man.  He had an affair before with a woman, but it was never this over the top and this guy lived on boats most of his life so I can see him not having the understanding how to behave...if he was not known for his ability to get men to follow him due in part to his social skills with his fleet.

Something to think about...did the injury in the battle of the Nile really knock Nelson stupid for a while? 

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