MMMMMMMM

 

DOCTOR BERNARD FINCH SERVED ELEVEN ? YEARS : LET OUT IN 1971

It's TRUE! I THINK HE GOT OFF EASY CONSIDERING....  WHAT DO YOU THINK? LEAVE A COMMENT!

image from Open Clipart Library

NEW YORK TIMES : 1971 RELEASE OF DR. BERNARD FINCH

 Aug. 18, 1971

Excerpt:  SACRAMENTO, Calif., Aug. 17 (AP) — Dr. R. 13ernard Finch was ordered released on pa role today, from a life term In the slaying of his wife. Approached about jobs in Missouri, Nebraska and Maryland. The Missouri offer was from a small rural community that wanted him to operate a small hospital and clinic.

His sweetheart at the time of the slaying Carole Tregoff, was paroled in 1969 from the same sentence.

The eight-member California Adult Authority granted the once-wealthy Finch parole in his second bid for freedom since he entered prison 10 years after three sensational trials.  he will be released December 5.

Excerpt: Henry Kerr, chairman of the Adult Authority Board, said that Finch had been approached about jobs in Missouri, Nebraska, and Maryland. The Missouri offer was from a small rural community that wanted him to operate a small hospital and clinic.

Finch's medical license was revoked in California. It can be reinstated by another state, Mr. Kerr said...

CAROL TREGOFF FREED AT AGE 32 IN MAY 1969

Center for Biographical Studies and Research, : CAROL TREGOFF FREE

Excerpt:  This week, however, she won approval, and after 10 years inside the California Institution for Women she walked to freedom Thursday—a silent woman hoping for a new' life. She will be on parole for the rest of her years. Still attractive at age 32, her hair was now' its natural brown shade, and although she put on weight when she first came to prison, she w r as more slender now than when she began her sentence. Miss Tregoff and Finch w'ere finally convicted in 1961 of murder and conspiracy after three sensational trials. The first two ended in hung juries, mostly because of the tactics of defense attorney Grant T. Cooper, the veteran criminal lawyer who later defended Sirhan R. Sirhan. Iverne R. Carter, superintendent of the prison, said Miss Tregoff will live in the Los Angeles area but had asked that her whereabouts not be revealed. “She has to get her bearings in the community,” Mrs. Carter said. “She will do nothing to call attention to herself.”

Missy here!  I guess she played her cards right, so to speak, by being a model prisoner.  Carol was very young and probably more than a little crazy when she conspired to kill her lover's wife along with him, and she feared she'd be an old woman before she got out, but she did get out, in less than ten years served. 

I was unable to find an obituary for Carole Tregoff, or any further information about her.  It is said that she lived under an alias but went back to West Covina. Well, I suspect a lot of people in that area knew of Carole and where she was, and maybe they understood, or forgave, or simply ignored her. I do wonder if she ever loved again - in a healthy way - or if she lived her life as a recluse.  However I did find one hint of Carole's life in a article published in 2017 by the author Joan Didion. It's wonderfully written as only Joan Didion could and in it she says that Carole was a nursing assistant in a prison hospital.

Here's the link : RIVITER MAGAZINE - JOAN DIDION - SOME DREAMERS OF THE GOLDEN

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COFFEE?

 

CAROLE TREGOFF TRIED TO HIRE A HIT MAN TO KILL DR. BERNARD FINCH'S WIFE BARBARA : TESTIMONY AT TRIAL

Excerpts Page 164-165-166-167 :  James Cody, sometimes known as Jack or John Cody, had been sentenced to an additional year of confinement after walking off the prison farm in Minnesota. In exchange for his testimony, he was granted immunity for any crimes connected with the death of Barbara Jean Finch... My notes in parenthesis. There is no doubt from this testimony at trial that Carole was a full participant in planning the murder of her rival, Mrs. Bernard Finch - Barbara.

... Cody: "She wanted me to kill Mrs. Finch."

... Cody: "I told her Dona (an intermediary) had explained everything and that I thought I should get $2000 for doing the job. She said she thought $1000 was more reasonable, and we dickered around, you know, back and forth for a little while. Anyway, with the expense money I told her I would need - to buy a weapon and a car - we finally agreed on $1400. She was going to give me $300 up front and the rest when the job was done."...

Cody: She drew out some maps on napkins. One was a map of the Finch house and the other was a map of how to get to an apartment in Hollywood that Mrs. Finch had. Carole told me, 'If Mrs. Finch is not at the West Covina residence, she would be at the Hollywood apartment.'  It was named the Hollywood Hills Motel or Hotel, or something.  Anyway, I had the address and a map of how to get there."

Cody: "She told me it should look like a robbery, and that I should take the woman's rings and jewelry. I told her I would do it in my own way. Then we decided to do it on the following weekend, the Fourth of July weekend. Carole said that Dr. Finch goes to a tennis tournament in San Diego every Fourth of July, and that he would have a good alibi.

***

My notes: Cody said that he knew he was not going to do it right away but agreed to do it for the money he needed.  He cooperatively flew to Phoenix on a plane with the plan to take a bus to LA from there and do the murder. The travel was to hide his location when the murder occurred.

Cody: "She said "I've made up my mind Jack. If you don't do it, Dr. Finch will, and if he doesn't,  I will.

Cody: "Then she gave me $330 that she had in an envelope.

My notes page 168 -169 - 170

That night Cody and Carole met again and he told her that he had done the job with a shotgun at the Hollywood apartment. She handed him the rest of the money.  As gasps were heard around the courtroom, Cody mentioned that after this Carole was happy. However, she soon questioned whether or not the man had actually murdered Barbara. He claimed Barbara's body was in the trunk of the car. When the truth - that Barbara was indeed alive - was presented to Cody, he claimed he must have killed the wrong woman, maybe a girlfriend of Barbara's. He agreed to go back and do the job right. Then Mr. Finch gave Cody more money for another gun and expenses. This implicated the doctor in full knowledge of the plan to murder. Cody claimed he admitted he had not followed through on the plan. In yet another meeting an angry Finch asked Cody again to do the deed but also said he would do it himself. Cody accepted more money again.

CODY WAS A LIAR, so how much truth could be in this testimony?

In the end both Carole Tregoff and Bernard Finch were convicted of murder. Carole would claim that she soon knew she was no longer in love with the man.

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CAROLE'S TESTIMONY VARIED : SHE SAID IT WASN'T A "CHEAP RELATIONSHIP" and WOULDN'T ADMIT THEY HAD SEX and TRIED TO HIRE KILLERS BUT...

Subtitled  Chronical of the Finch-Tregoff Case, a Based on Fact Dramatization by James L. Jones, MD.

Bernard Finch and Carole Tregoff were to be tried separately and both were charged with murder in the first degree.

Pages 68 and 69 and 70 :

On July 29th 1959, after giving testimony in which she tried to avoid answering if she'd had sex with Bernard, Carole was arrested in the courtroom. She was not handcuffed but lead to the back of an unmarked car, charged within an hour with first degree murder.

Page 71 : "We are confident that the tow of them planned this thing together. We think they planned to tie up Mrs. Finch, inject her with a lethal dose of Seconal, and run her car over a cliff. 

Notes: Seconal among others, is barbiturate drug used for insomnia, i.e. a sleeping pill. A newer will in which Barbara Jean finch left Dr. Finch the bulk of the estate was found. (Note: She had never filed it so it was invalid.)

Meanwhile Bernard continued to say that the problem was that the Swedish nanny and Carole had simply not been in the same place - the garage - at the same time and that what they did not know was what happened between him and his wife in that garage. It was suggested that Barbara had a gun aimed at her husband at the time.

The headlines had made her a star of sorts and some people attended the trial just to see what she looked like. She claimed to have been forced to testify to incriminate herself and that she was no longer in love with Bernard. The press and the neighborhood women were sympathetic to Carole as they thought she had fallen in love and then used by Bernard.

But then two nineteen year old prostitutes in Vegas came forward to say that they knew someone who had been paid by Carole and Bernard to kill Barbara.

Excerpt page 91: (What the young prostitutes said.) "Turns out the doctor's girlfriend has been looking for somebody to 'take care of' the doctor's wife. ... She glanced at her friend quickly, then back to Powell. "We both heard Ritchie talking with a friend of his from when he worked at the Sahara.  Didn't we?"  She looked at her companion, nodding her into speaking.

"It's true," the other added, after a pause....

The girls, who wanted out of their pimp's control and to go home knew they had a deal .

Notes from pages 92 - 96 :

Forty eight days after her arrest, Carole was allowed out of jail on bail of $25,000.  A Nevada state university student told Las Vegas police he had arranged with Carole Tregoff Pappa and Dr. R, Bernard Finch, early in 1959, to hire two men to kill Mrs. Barbara Jean Finch.  There was a nationwide bulletin out for Richie Keachie and James Patrick Cody. Donald Sanford Williams also said that she had asked him if he knew any gangsters, he was an old eighbor.  Williams had introduced her to Keachie but Keachie didn't want the job.  Then Cody was asked... She offered or paid $1000,000... Cody requested immunity in exchange for his testimony.  Three men said she did.

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DONE

 

PLANNED MURDER : MYSTERY ATTACHE CASE MURDER KIT EXPLAINED AWAY?

Incriminating evidence of a plan to murder was explained away. The plan to murder wife Barbara Finch occurred because the paid hitman took the money and didn't commit the murder. When it was discovered that Barbara was still alive, the would-be hitman, who later testified against Bernard Finch and his Mistress Carole Tregoff. first lied that he must have murdered the wrong woman, and then that he needed more money to pull it off. Carole Tregoff reportedly warned the man that if he didn't do the evil deed, Doctor Bernard Finch would do it himself...  And so, evidence of a plan, which was also cleverly "explained away" by Carole and Bernie was what was contained in a brown leather attaché case...

Excerpt page 59: (Note that seconal was a popular sleeping pill and could be used to overdose a person.)

Brown leather attaché case....

two pieces of rope, each two feet in length, an eight inch kitchen knife, a plastic sheet about two feet on a side, a half empty box of .38 caliber ammunition, an elastic bandage role, small bottle of seconal tablets, two sets of surgeon's gloves, a vial of injectable seconal, a syringe and needle, a flashlight, a brown shaving kit bag...

My notes from pages 65-66: 

Carole claimed that the flashlight was so she could see where she was walking and that the sleeping pills were for her. She said that he had asked her if she needed anything for her apartment and she said a can opener, trying to explain a hammer, screwdriver, and knife.  The rope was explained as something to tie bumpers of a boat he kept at Lido Shores. The gloves because he was blowing them and playing with them like balloons with the family dog.

She said that she had seen Barbara with a gun in her hand.

Missy here : When I read this, I thought that Dr. Finch and  his Mistress Carole had tried to think of everything, including explanations, in advance of being questioned. To me this planned murder was as cold blooded as murders could get. 

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COOKING

 

DR. BERNARD FINCH : A MAN DRIVEN BY LUST AND MONEY TURNED MURDERER

Excerpt pages 52 and 53

(The divorce attorney for Barbara Jean Finch, the murdered wife of Doctor Finch, Joseph T, Forno of Los Angeles, gave telephone interviews to several newspapers.)

***

"Dr Finch threated a number of times to take Mrs. Finch to the desert and kill her," he was quoted.  When asked about the status of the divorce action, he noted that the Finches had been scheduled to appear in conciliation court the next day to discuss their differences. "Dr. Finch had expressed a desire to reconcile with his wife. The divorce action was postponed. In the meantime, we asked for all of the community property and estimated it was worth $500,000 to $1,000.000." (Note that in 2025 dollars that is about five to eleven million dollars.)

"No fault divorce" was not to come for many years. A wife who could prove "fault," especially adultery, had a very good chance of getting virtually all of the community property.

Forno served  a restraining order on Dr. Finch. "We filed an order to show cause after he violently assaulted his wife on June 25 of this year, trying to force her into his automobile. Dr. Finch had threated his wife with a gun in the past also. She was in constant fear for her life.  This was preceded by an attempt on May 16 to strangle her at her home in West Covina." Forno continued. It was after this first assault Mrs. Finch decided to file for divorce."

Mrs. Finch had filed divorce papers, and at a June 11 hearing before Superior Court Judge Roger A. Pfaff, had requested and been granted $1,650 a month in alimony and child support. She was also given complete control of Dr. Finch's revenues from the clinic. All the revenues were deposited into her personal checking account.  Barbara Jean paid the clinic's bills with her personal checks. She also signed her husband's salary checks.

.... Interestingly, the most recent (malpractice) suit had been filed by James T. Pappa, former husband of Carole Tregoff Pappa.  Mr. Pappa filed his suit the Tuesday before the murder, claiming Cinch had negligently repaired a knee abnormality.

In my opinion, erratic driving, possibly alcoholism, unnecessary surgeries just to make money, and malpractice suits against him proved that the doctor was not necessarily rational or trustworthy and may have been driven by lust and money. However, California has been a community property state since no-fault divorce and by today's standards the Doctor's wife getting everything including future profits from his clinic would probably be considered extreme, unless perhaps he was considered incompetent.

How did 22 year old Carole Tregoff get involved in this?  Was it love?  I think OBSESSION!

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THE FOURTH

 

CAROLE TREGOFF : MISTRESS OF SOCIETY SURGEON BERNARD FINCH and CO-CONSPIRATOR IN THE MURDER OF HIS WIFE BARBARA FINCH

The book is old and the last copy available at a major city library. I'll be using "A Murder in West Covina," as well as numerous news stories to reveal this story of love gone wrong. The murder made headlines for three years back in the day and attracted Hollywood actors claiming they were doing research for future roles.

Of course we know that not all "love triangles," which is how the murder was typified in the press at the time, end in murder or scandal. (Some people choose to be in a triad.) Because it's clear that wife Barbara Jean Finch was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of her husband the doctor, before he murdered her, it's difficult for me to think of this as a "love triangle."

As a side, I first learned about this murder when I was reading around the journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, who was featured here in April 2023, titled "Pulitzer-Prize Nominated Reporter Dorothy Kilgallen* and Pop Singer Johnnie Ray : A Flaunted Unconventional Romance In The 1950's Before She Died." Kilgallen, married with children, a popular panelist on a television game show named What's My Line, first made her name as a rare woman journalist back in the 1950's and 1960's and she was very good at that too. (Her own death was suspicious and in recent years there has been an attempt to reopen the case.) In 1960 Kilgallen covered this trial.

CAROLE ANN TREGOFF

(1937 - ?) 

After being freed from prison, in May 1969, Carole lived under an assumed name.

I was unable to find an obituary for her. 

Image from Newspapers.com

clipped by jamesdhug

Our Mistress of the Month for July 2025 here at Mistress Manifesto, is Carole Tregoff, who modeled briefly and became the Mistress of a "society surgeon" Doctor Raymond Bernard "Bernie" Finch, who murdered his wife, Barbara Jean Finch.  Finch was arrested and charged with First Degree murder. Carole was arrested and charged the same. How innocent was she?

The murder occurred on July 18, 1959 when Carole was 22 old. Barbara had been shot dead, once in the back. Carol hid in the bushes and later drove all the way to Vegas alone, perhaps in a state of shock. (Bernard was 41 and his wife, Barbara, was 36.)

Bernard and Barbara had been married six years and both had been married before. Barbara had brought one child into the marriage she'd had with her first husband, Lyle Daugherty, and had another child with the doctor. A young woman from Sweden served as the children's nanny and was important to the testimony in the case.

In an interesting twist, in 1951 there had been accusations of a "wife swap." Bernard's high school sweetheart, Frances Simpson and he had married. Next door lived Lyle Daughterly and his wife - Barbara Jean.  It was Doctor Bernard Finch who delivered Barbara, who he would eventually marry, by caesarian, of the daughter who he'd become step-father to. Eventually Frances married Lyle. The two had said they only got involved after divorces but there was publicity that turned it into a sordid "wife swapping" ordeal. 

Carole Tregoff had also been married before and was known in Vegas as Mrs. James Pappa. Oddly, in some news articles she is identified as the doctor's "assistant." The day after the murder, detectives found the red haired, light skinned beauty, living in Vegas and working at The Sands hotel and casino as a waitress. Yes really! So Vegas was home for her, not West Covina; this is not an easy commute by driving. Asked where the doctor was, she said he was at her apartment. Soon after, he was arrested. Carole lied to protect Bernard - and herself. She claimed that he had been with her in Vegas for a long weekend and gave a rather detailed account of their doings.

Carole was asked if Bernard supported her financially (i.e. if she was his Mistress) to which she answered that he had given her money but never supported her. She said that she and Bernard had intended to divorce their spouses and remarry to each other. The two had been living together in Vegas, then called "shacking up." 

In subsequent testimony, Carole's stories didn't match. She claimed that she had moved to Vegas to avoid being called into the divorce action between Bernard and Barbara that May.

It turned out she hired a hitman to murder Barbara. He took the money.  He didn't do the deed.

Soon the trial would make headlines.

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* Re Dorothy Kilgallen : in 1960 she went to cover the trial of society surgeon Bernard Finch, accused of shooting his wife Barbara once in the back while his co-conspirator and mistress, Carole Tregoff cowered in a clump of bougainvillea. " The crime was s slapdash do-it- yourself job done after a hoodlum named Cody took payment for the hit from the lovers, lost his nerve, blew the money in Vegas and then lied to Finch about having done the murder.

You may be interested in :  

April 2023

PULITZER-PRIZE NOMINATED REPORTER DOROTHY KILGALLEN and  POP SINGER JOHNNIE RAY : A FLAUNTED UNCONVENTIONAL ROMANCE IN THE 1950's BEFORE SHE DIED

February 2017

EVELYN NESBIT : TEENAGE MISTRESS OF ARCHITECT STANFORD WHITE  and  WIFE OF HARRY K. THAW - MURDER SCANDAL

 

LADY EMMA HAMILTON, SIR WILLIAM, HORATIO NELSON, and NELSON'S WIFE: THE HUSBAND ACCEPTED, NELSON FLAUNTED, NELSON'S WIFE MADE A BRAVE FACE BUT WEPT

1800-1801 Like most women she was afraid of dying in childbirth.

Lady Emma Hamilton, married to a much older man, became pregnant while having an affair with married Battle of the Nile war hero Horatio Nelson. Both celebrities and considered two of the sexiest people alive at the time, they traveled hundreds of miles in an entourage that included her husband, Sir William Hamilton and her mother, called "Mrs. Cadogan," and were feted by the rich and influential as they visited the fashionable places. However, retirement in London was the destination. Emma had lived in Naples for thirteen years and her husband was at the end of his career as a diplomat. Frequently toasted and reviled in the gossip media of the time, the fashionista and influencer could not avoid the fact that her pregnancy was known and no one thought her elderly husband could be the father.

Excerpt pages 254-255 : Every time they opened a newspaper, Sir William's family, friends, and ex-colleagues were shocked to see him represented as a cuckolded, bam-boozled, out-of-touch antiquarian. They were even more scandalized by his sanguine acceptance of the situation. Sir William ignored their complaints, perhaps because he thought them too concerned about whether he would leave his money to Emma.... William's motives in forgiving the affair were complex. He owned Nelson more than $2000 for expenses by complaining in front of her lover that she gambled too much and would make herself a pauper. He was also genuinely fond of Nelson; furthermore, he knew their friendship gave him social consequence.

Society commentators found Emma's behavior bewildering, although they hardly blinked when a man kept both mistress and wife (such as the setup at Devonshire House, where the duke lived with both his wife and Bess Foster, her friend and his mistress.*) Sir William excused his wife because he loved her, valued her companionship, and welcomed not having to be her sole support.  And, as he knew, his only alternative was being alone.

As her pregnancy advanced, Emma was often ill, even vomiting in front of Fanny, Nelson's wife. Nelson had taken to being unkind to Fanny, who was humiliated. Emma endured the censure of her royal and aristocratic friends who could not be associated with scandal, whatever their more liberal leanings or affection for her were. Her husband continued to travel with them. Emma arrived in London eight months pregnant. Nelson honorably decided to separate from his wife and gave Fanny half his income, which was very good of him since men were not required to give a wife they left anything.

Born in 1765, Emma was in her mid thirties when she gave birth on January 28,1801, with a doctor, midwife, and nurse to deliver her.  She had another girl and named her Horatia.  Nelson and his wife had been childless and he was a first time father at forty-three. She had not hidden this pregnancy as she had to do with her first.  Again the cartoonists and commentators had their fun.

Missy here: Emma's story continues with the Prince of Wales but within the limits of this blog and focus on her rise to becoming Lady Hamilton, I can only highly recommend you obtain and read a copy of Kate William's wonderfully written and researched book that has been the primary reference for this month's posts. Thank you for persisting with me as we learned more about her amazing rise out of dire poverty in the late 1700's.

Amy Lyon, aka Mrs. Emma Hart, and Lady Emma Hamilton, died in 1815 at age 49.

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*The relationship is portrayed in the film The Duchess. According to Wikipedia, "The Duchess: is a 2008 historical drama film directed by Saul Dibb, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jeffery Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jenson, based on the 1998 book Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman, about the late 18th century aristocrat Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire.

THE LADY EMMA HAMILTON YELLOW SHRUB ROSE

 

Image from Pixabay - artist Stux

The Lady Hamilton shrub rose is described by one website that sells the rose, David Austin Roses, like this:  Dark red buds with dashes of orange, open to chalice-shaped blooms of rich tangerine orange, with yellow-orange on the outside of the petals. They are held against very dark, bronzy green, polished leaves that slowly become dark green with age.  The flowers have a strong, delicious, fruity fragrance with hints of pear, grape, and citrus fruits....

There are three women who have been subjects here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO who have roses named after them.  

Do you know who the other two are?

Missy

SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON ALLOWS HIS WIFE LADY EMMA HAMILTON AN AFFAIR WITH HORATIO NELSON, DUKE OF BRONTE : ANOTHER PREGNANCY AND SCANDAL

1798 - 1800ish

For now Emma, as Sir William Hamilton's wife, was a society woman, a celebrated hostess, and had the friendship of Queens, even if her position as a Lady was not equal. She was a fashion influencer at the time too and a celebrity. When Horatio Nelson, "The Hero of the Nile" needed to recover his health after battle, Emma had him stay with her and her husband in Naples and gave him a lavish fortieth birthday party where eight hundred Neopolitan dignitaries and other important, including English, guests attended and another thousand came for the dancing. 

Revolutions were occurring in Europe - not just the French - and shifting power was a threat to all the royals and aristocrats. Sir William was philosophical and invited Nelson to live with them, a great show of friendship meant to end the rumors. In fact, Sir William could not deny that his wife and Nelson were growing close and that he and his wife had taken to separate apartments and had become friends. 

When the French invaded Naples, once again Nelson prevailed and was credited with saving the city and restoring peace, for which Queen Maria Carolina was especially thankful to Sir William, Horatio Nelson, and Lady Emma Hamilton.  Nelson was created Duke of Bronte as his reward and Sir William, increasingly I'll, sought to end his Diplomatic service and return to England. Insiders knew that age was catching up with Sir William and his health was not good, as he suffered from digestive issues.

Her husband had been an English diplomat for thirty-seven years and wanted a sabbatical but was quickly replaced. The Queen, Lady and Sir William Hamilton, Nelson, and their entourage, left Naples as more conflicts endangered them and Napoleon and his army's approached, threatening to take over their territories and rule over them. They went from Germany to Hungary, where they were feted by Prince Esterhazy and Emma entertained by singing along with the music of the composer, Haydn, to Czechoslovakia. The travel was escape as well as vacation.

Considered to be two of the sexiest people alive, gossips believed that Emma and Horatio were having an affair. By early 1800, they most certainly were. Thirteen years into her life in Naples, Emma became pregnant and then there was no denying it. She had risked loosing everything she had gained by being with him and had unprotected sex with a man she was not married to. Emma began to show pregnant and had to know that by the laws of the 18th century, the child would belong to her husband legally. Nelson was a married man too.

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EMMA WAS NOT SHY ABOUT LETTING SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON KNOW SHE WANTED TO MARRY HIM and AT LAST SHE BECAME LADY EMMA HAMILTON

Emma did not shyly wait around for a proposal like an 18th century woman was supposed to do. She told Sir William Hamilton that she loved him and wanted to marry him. Famous now as a beauty, a model, a dancer - and an intellect - faithful and loyal to him, she pledged to continue to make him happy.

While Sir William denied to all to his friends - who asked for the truth - that he had married her, there were those who believed he already had. By 1790 it was the gossip in fashionable London that the Ambassador to Naples and his mistress were about to arrive. It was a bit of the kind of scandal people loved. Those of his rank imagined that he was not her sexual partner, perhaps because he was, in fact, a senior. So it went with the English.

However, those of his friends who lived in Naples and had seen them as a couple thought otherwise. They encouraged him to marry Emma. Even the Queen Maria Carolina of Naples and the Two Sicilies encouraged marriage.

Emma traveled England with Sir William and his entourage. Her mother was part of the entourage but the daughter she had been forced to send away by Charles Greville, now nine years old, went unvisited by Emma. (Instead her mother, Mary, called Mrs. Cadogan, went.)

His family had a reason to discourage a marriage besides Emma's background and that was that they wanted his estate intact to inherit it. He claimed her to have made him extremely happy. He suggested that they would be "engaged for life" but proudly seeing how popular she was, he began to reconsider. Ultimately, and by my way of thinking, much to his credit, the man began to follow his heart.

Excerpt page 158 : Sir William confessed to his friends that he had decided to "make an honest Woman of her." He promised that he would never set her above visiting female aristocrats by allowing her to present them to Maria Carolina. Declaring himself entirely confident about the future, he cheerfully knocked two years off Emma's age. He wrote to his friend, Georgiana, Countess Spencer, mother of the Duchess of Devonshire:

A man of 60 intending to marry a beautiful young Woman of 24 ad whose character on her first onset of life will not bear a severe scrutiny, seems to be a very imprudent step, and so it certainly would be 99 times in a 100, but I flatter myself I am not deceived in Emma's [resent character --- We have lived together five years and a half, and not a day has passed without her having testified her true repentance for the past.

On August 28, Sir William attended court at Windsor and gained the king's consent to the marriage. Two days before her marriage, she sat for artist George Romney for the last time.  The artist had created dozens of paintings of Emma, but for the first time he wrote Lady Hamilton rather than Mrs. Emma Hart in his record of models who sat for him.

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THIRST

 

EMMA, MISTRESS OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, DEVELOPS HER PERFORMANCE CALLED "THE ATTITUDES" BASED ON ANTIQUITY : SHE AIMS TO MARRY SIR WILLIAM

1787

Amy Lyon, born into the poorest of the poor, because her mother was a Mistress, was able to develop into a beauty, but her rough and bumpy life included unpaid servitude, a bout with the theatre, work as a tavern prostitute, and becoming the Mistress of Honorable Charles Greville who grew bored of her. She bore a child at sixteen to Greville who was sent away to be raised, but was passed along to his relative, the older man, Sir William Hamilton. Hamilton had the beautiful young woman model for painters, sculptors, and cameo makers, and was proud of her progress as a singer and dancer, as well as an increasingly cultured and sophisticated entertainer at his dinner parties in Naples. He wowed his guests with a spectacle. Emma doing her Attitudes, which she modeled on the paintings she saw in Pompeii and antiquities being sold in Naples.

Excerpt pages 140-141 : ... When they were all assembled, he called them to hush and servants snuffed a few of the candles.  In the gloom, they could just catch the sight of a female figure draped in white, her dark hair flowing around her shoulders.  As she came closer, they recognized Mrs. Hart, Sir William's pretty, witty mistress, who had been laughing at all their jokes, flushed with gaiety, entertaining them with anecdotes about England. But now she was pale and ethereally composed. Taking up the shawls that lay at her feet, she began to swathe them around her, to kneel, sit, crouch, and dance. They quickly realized she was imitating the postures of figures from classical myth. First she pulled the shawls over her like a veil and became Niobe, weeping for the loss of her children; then using them to make a cape, she was Medea, poised with a dagger, about to stab. Then she pulled the shawls around her into seductive shapes, becoming Cleopatra, reclining for her Mark Antony. ...

She combined her dance training and her modeling at the Temple of Health and for Romney with influences she collected in Naples to create her Attitudes, an extraordinary fusion of eightieth-century dance with classical costumes and references, and a truly innovative art form.

THIS IMAGE IS FROM THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ART - UNITED STATES

The Attitude of Lady Hamilton 1791

Pietro Antonio Novelli - artist

After she showed Goethe her performance in 1787 word got out that he loved it and hundreds came to see Emma perform. She was twenty-two at the time and for the next thirty years she was asked to perform them. For the next few years she gained in confidence in all ways, as a performer, entertainer, hostess, and Mistress, one who was determined to make Sir William Hamilton marry her.  She obviously succeeded in doing so, as she comes to us as Lady Emma Hamilton.  As I read Author Kate Williams' wonderful biography of the woman who started out life as Amy Lyon, I'm rooting for her.

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"MRS. EMMA HART'S" EXTRAVAGENT HOLIDAY IN NAPLES : EMMA IS SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON's NEW HOBBY and SHE LEARNS THE TRUTH THAT GREVILLE IS OVER HER

1786

Naples was the third largest city in Europe after London and Paris and a playground for the rich. There were glamorous parties, operas, exclusive shopping areas and amazing cuisine. A sort of boom town, it was also considered to be built quickly, with gorgeous but controversially colorfully painted architecture. Author Kate Williams compares it to an "eighteenth century Las Vegas" also because people gambled stayed up all night, drank, and womanized. It was a place to let go and get loose, to swim nude or forgo stiff protocols. Emma became Sir William's new hobby, showering her with gifts including a new wardrobe and a horse, and showing her off. However she continued to write to Greville, as though she were only aware of being on a vacation.

Excerpt page 127 : In July, Emma wrote to Greville, eager to share the excitement of her summer holiday.  They had visited Pompeii and Posillipo and planned to sail to the islands of Ischia and Capri.  She has been been bathing daily and her 'irruptions" were gone, leaving her, as she claims, "remarkably fair." Sir William had invited every artist and sculptor in Naples (apart from Mrs. Damer*) to portray her.  One, possibly Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, was painting her in a "Bacchante setting, in a turban, a Turkish dress," and she was modeling for another in blue silk gown and a black feathered hat. The young Swiss-German Angelica Kauffman, and two others planned to paint her, and the cameo maker Marchmont would soon carve her head into a stone that could be set into a ring.  Sir William already had five portraits, and he had asked for more from Romney.

Finally in August, Greville told the truth and she was shattered and both admonished him and begged him to take her back. He urged her to be Sir William Hamilton's mistress. Six months later she was still refusing to do so. She was faithful to Greville, her first lover. (The men she had sex with as a sex worker were not.)

Excerpt page 129 : Emma could not believe his hypocrisy. Exploited from the age of fourteen, she had thought that Greville had saved her, and she had grown proud of her hard-won respectability.  As she knew, mistresses tended to be passed on to progressively poorer protectors, and she expected that Sir William would keep her for no longer than a year and then pass her on.

But Sir William also proved to be a good shoulder to cry on. And by Christmas their relationship was an affair. Her letters were full of love and lust for him. He forgot his plan to also have her as a temporary mistress. She found herself more secure than ever but he, like Greville, aimed to make her over and improve her. Emma learned to sing, dance, and play the harpsichord and guitar and her coaches were those who taught the highest in society.

She was often asked to sing at dinners and even received an offer to sing at the opera in Madrid. Exposed to his extensive library of English literature, she read and then began to try to learn Italian. Sir William was proud of her.

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*Mrs. Damer was the sculptress who Sir William Hamilton was considering marrying after the death of his wife and whom Emma met when she first visited with Sir William while with the Honorable Charles Greville.

AMY LYON AKA "MRS. EMMA HART" AS THE MISTRESS OF HONORABLE CHARLES GREVILLE BECOMES THE MISTESS OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON

And then she met the one... 

But it did not start out as expected.

Amy Lyon had accepted to be called Mrs. Emma Hart while the Mistress of Charles Greville, who wanted to remake her into a meeker and more conservative woman - the "virtuous housewife" which meant repressing her true self and acting.  He had banished the daughter she bore with another man as a sixteen year old, rented her a house on the outskirts of London and installed her mother to keep her company.  Emma aimed to please him and keep his patronage and told him he made her happy and that she loved him; maybe she did. 

Greville had status in English society as a second son in the historical Warwick family but he had not attracted a wife who would bring her inheritance into the marriage. Perhaps for a time he thought that being known to have a Mistress might give him a desirable reputation among men. But his search for a wife did not end with having Emma and nor did it prevent him from having an affair with Elizabeth, Lady Craven. He was out of love for Emma and sought to find a way to send her on her way without drama.

The newly widowed Sir William Hamilton was a relative that Greville wished to court for money.  He fifty-five years old - much older than Emma - and as the fourth and youngest son of Lord Archibald Hamilton, worked as a diplomat assigned top Naples. He came to visit and they delighted each other but Lord Hamilton knew that Greville would soon get rid of Emma. Emma was ignorant of Greville's plans and continued to tell the man that she missed him and belonged to him and could only go so far in entertaining Hamilton.

Excerpt page 103 : Emma's new friend had grown up in the royal court with the future King George III.  His mother, Lady Jane Hamilton, had been the Mistress of Frederick, Prince of Wales, from about 1736 until 1745.  Frederick appointed her his wife's lady of the bedchamber.  Then, dizzy with lust, he also made her the queen's Mistress of the robes - not even the poor queen;s clothes were free from her rival's claws.  Lady Jane possessed the absolute sway over Frederick and his family thought her son's earl;y life.  Sir William called King George his foster brother, boasting that "my Mother reared us and the same nurse suckled us.  With this he hinted what many suspected: he was the Prince of Wales's son....

Greville negotiated for Sir William Hamilton to take on Emma.  He was calculating.  He claimed that having a Mistress was preventing him a good marriage, that he admired her and was attracted to her but that she was in love with Sir William. He said she had become obedient and of "good humor" and that considering all the advantages she might bring into a relationship, she was not one to demand a man spend on her. By pushing his lover Emma on Hamilton, he reasoned he was not abandoning her and she accepted the opportunity to travel and visit with Hamilton without knowing.  It took him two years to move Emma and her mother on, beginning with six weeks of tourist travel.

1786

Avoiding the problems in France that would result a couple years later in the French Revolution, they traveled to Geneva first and then Naples where the mother and daughter were to live at Palazzo Sessa, Hamilton's estate. Emma turned twenty-one.  Also there was Mrs. Anne Damer, a sculptress who Sir William Hamilton was thinking of marrying and twice Emma's age.  Hamilton quickly decided in favor of Emma, and he began to treat her like a princess but began to treat her mother like a servant.

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SO MANY WAYS TO LOVE

 

PREGNANT EMMA LYON - THE FUTURE LADY HAMILTON - WAS THROWN TO THE STREET and THE HONORABLE CHARLES GREVILLE RESCUED HER - TEMPORARILY

 

She was afraid... Maybe she had not used contraception or he had not wanted her to or she was unlucky. Or maybe she had hoped to make Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh give her a more formal arrangement or maybe even marry, her for it was not unheard of that a powerful or rich man would take a woman such as herself to be a wife. Harry did pay Madam Kelly to release her from any contract and set her up in one of many of the houses he owned in London. But she kept her pregnancy a secret for three months. Now that she was officially kept, she would only be able to go out on the town with a female chaperone or Sir Harry himself... But he was not much interested in visiting with her and was a no show while she waited.  Secretly, he was going broke... Emma became desperate and clingy when she did see Sir Harry and he was furious when she told him the truth. She was sixteen years old and Harry put her out, abandoning her. She had to go back to being an "independent companion." As her pregnancy advanced she increasingly appealed to Charles Greville to take her as his Mistress and be her savior.

Still hoping the father of her child, unmarried as he was, would change his mind and at least support her through the pregnancy, Emma took to being the tragic heroine of her own drama. Greville took to being the one who owed nothing and had all the power. He wanted her only on his own terms which meant that she be loyal and faithful only to him and sever contact with any old lovers and give up the life of an escort and prostitute. When she finally went to Greville, a servant took her to a "laying in house" where she was secreted to have the baby. 

Childbirth killed one woman in ten in those days but Emma made it through the birth to a daughter she also named Emma...

Excerpt page 80 : After birth, well-off women relaxed in their rooms, cosseted by the servants, showing off the new arrival to visitors while languidly sipping gruel tea, a special hot spiced wine mixture called caudal.  Emma, however, had to return to Greville.  Her daughter was boarded with a wet nurse, probably near the laying-in house. Greville aimed to ensure she would have few opportunities to journey into town and visit her child.  he sent little Emma off to her great-grandmother in Hawarden as soon as possible. Emma knew what was expected of her; she had to pretend that her pregnancy never happened.  Within a week or so she was traveling in a coach to a new home in Paddington, West London. There, she began to reinvent herself. Amy Lyon, the flamboyant would-be actress and extroverted girl about town, became Mrs. Emma Hart, just arrived from Chester, Charles Greville's quiet and terribly shy new Mistress.

In a village on the rural outskirts of London, Greville rented Emma a small house where she was to be retired and become exclusively his.  Her mother Mary, only in her late 30's herself, was already there to live with her. Not only was Emma to go by Mrs. Hart, but her mother was to assume the name of Mrs. Cadogan. Greville had not the money or standing of Sir Harry but he was still a second son of Lord Brooke, who was made Earl of Warwick in 1759, and he still had the reputation of a man who spent money on women. He had been unable to attract a wife, especially not a wife who would bring money into the marriage from her family. He aimed to reform or inhibit or control Emma.

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FALLEN

 

MADAM KELLY'S BROTHEL ATTRACTED ACTRESSES and POWERFUL MEN : EMMA DIDN'T STAY LONG : THE FIFTEEN YEAR OLD'S TEMPORARY FORAY WITH TWENTY-SIX YEAR OLD SIR HARRY FETHERSTONHAUGH

1780ish.

Madam Kelly had been a prostitute herself, as young as the age of ten when she started. She became a Madam who made her prostitutes who worked at her brothel go into debt to her by supplying them fabulous clothes and expensive jewelry and she had no mercy in collecting money owed her. Aspiring actresses and other women who were accepted to work there had their chance to earn far more money than they could anywhere else but that was not always the ultimate goal. Some of them became the Mistresses of these powerful men. But to do so, a man had to "hire her out," pay off the clothes, and ultimately pay off the contract the prostitute had with Madam Kelly.

Excerpt page 68 : Emma was beginning to make friends, and she soon found a protector.  Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, a spoiled young squire, was characterized by gossip columns as the brothel regular "Sire Harry Flagellum" and "The Sporting Lover." Kelly listed him as Baron Harry Flagellum in a daybook for another of her brothels. He had become interested in Emma and asked to take her for a long-term hire at his house, Uppark, to entertain him and his friends  He would have had to shell out a lot of cash to Kelly to cover Emma's "debts" and the madam's loss of earnings, and he had to agree to buy her clothes.  Many girls, after being rented out, became kept mistresses.  Kelly expected to be able to extract an even larger amount when Fetherstonhaugh demanded Emma's ultimate release.

Emma hoped that Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh might be her escape. In her year or so at Kelly's, Emma had found out about glamour and the kind of tricks to tempt a man's passion, and she had also learned to rely on herself and to hide her emotional needs. Her hard, brilliant exterior hid a secret longing for a man to cherish her, who she could believe loved her for herself.

As I read these passages in Kate William's book about Emma Hamilton, and the women at Madam Kelly, though hundreds of years passed to the days of Hollywood Madam, Heidi Fleiss, I'm reminded of Heidi because she bragged at how well paid and beautiful the women who worked for her as prostitutes were. 

Excerpt page 69 : Emma found herself on long-term hire to a stag party set to last the entire summer....  Fifteen year old Miss Lyon was hired to entertain the host and his guests, serve at dinner, dance, and smile.  She meant to work hard, confident that she would persuade Sir Harry to take her as his long-term mistress. 

Sir Harry was only twenty-six years old. He was good looking, a charming bad boy who was not much interested in study but rather drinking and hunting. Some called him effeminate and author Kate Williams uses the term fluffy headed.  He lived beyond his means and troubled his family.  His house was beautiful and rich and his estate workers were industrious.  Emma had her own cottage and exposed to this level of wealth unlike ever before. Servants - more than one hundred - worked tirelessly to keep it up. Though officially she was hired as a Lady's Maid, the other servants found reason to be jealous and resentful of her position.

In order to be more pleasing to Sir Harry, Emma, still called Emma Lyon, learned to ride horses and became an excellent side-saddle equestrian who accompanied him on the hunt.

After the hunt the men would become boisterous and gluttonous. She would dance for them and sing, giving a performance but feeling personally neglected by Harry.

Emma set her sights on an older, poorer man, Charles Greville, second son of Earl of Warwick and MP for Warwick, in the Midlands, who hated hunting, thirty-two, still unmarried, and not the life of any party.

Unfortunately, Emma's boredom with Harry and unhappiness with her life was further complicated by her pregnancy. Sir Harry was the father.

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BACCHANTE

Image from New York Public Library

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs

A START IN THE THEATRE : ACTRESS JANE POWELL INFLUENCED THIRTEEN YEAR OLD EMMA HAMILTON TO DRURY LANE : PORTRAIT MODEL EMMA IS HIRED BY THE TEMPLE OF HEALTH

1778-1779ish

While a servant in London for the Budd's, the thirteen year old Emma Hamilton met another servant - Jane Powell - who wanted to be an actress and would eventually succeed as one; the surname Powell came to her in marriage. Jane had also been fatherless and the two became best friends. Jane's big break in the theatre came after she attracted a rich patron who arranged for her to graduate from the minor roles she had accomplished on her own. Therefor, she, like Mary Lyon, Emma's mother, had the benefit of being a Mistress. The servant girls enjoyed free events such as parades and fairs and the parties that emerged and they were both fired from the Budd's after staying out all night. There was no security at all in being a servant girl. Meanwhile it is likely that Emma had to grow up fast and had probably lost her virginity as a twelve year old.

Excerpt page 39: Thirteen year old Emma already had the energy, beauty, and self-confidence that would carry her far, but such qualities had a darker underside - an addiction to glamour, a hot temper, and a desire to please by winning attention. There was no way that her life of drudgery could continue: she was too pretty and ambitious. On leaving the Budds, equipped only with a few dresses and one or two trinkets from admirers, Emma headed straight for the Drury Lane theater in Covent Garden, the most sensational spectacle in London. 

Emma didn't start as an actress at Drury Lane. She was a dresser, a maid, carried props - a servant for an actress, though she might have been used in a crowd scene or two.

In the eighteenth century in London, it's estimated one woman in eight worked as a prostitute. Prostitutes were part of the party around the theater scene. The price range for sexual services ranged from a few 18th century cents to thousands of dollars. Emma could not have been innocent of this fact. Author Kate William's description of the prostitution scene is one of street and tavern. It's implied that Emma may have been one of them as a teenager. 

Painters also went looking for models and as it turned out, she was considered a perfect English beauty.

Excerpt page 52: ... She was snatched up by the two greatest portrait painters of the time: bitter rivals George Romney and Joshua Reynolds. Sir Joshua, foremost portrait painter of the age and president of the Royal Academy from 1768 to 1782, was well known for hunting in the brothels of Covent Garden for models, and it seems that he found Emma, perhaps before Romney. His Cupid Unfastening the Girdle of Venus shows a dark-haired, pale-skinned model who looks very much like Emma, her bosom exposed, wearing an almost transparent dress, languishing in bed while Cupid unties her sash... .... Emma appears to have modeled for one of Reynold's greatest paintings, Thais.... Thais being the Mistress of Alexander the Great...

The painting was such a sensation that the public demanded to know who the model was and was identified as "Miss Emily"... Emily hardly the typical name for a prostitute, the name implied a higher status. There is a possibility that already she was a Mistress, to Honorable Charles Greville. It was said that she had sat for the painting at his request.

At the time, according to author Kate Williams, modeling was undesirable work and possibly paid worse than prostitution. Artists were not especially kind to models and there were other painters and paintings which looked a lot like Emma. 

As a result of her new found fame of sorts, Emma got a new gig. James Graham, a London entrepreneur, sex therapist, and showman, who believed in "the power of electricity" hired her for his Temple of Health. The spectacle at his townhouse, where people went for a cure, included electrical shocks, fireworks and explosions, music, and, also glamour girls in flimsy white dresses who danced around the treatment bed. Dancing at the temple is something Emma never denied as she did other suggestions once she was a Mistress to aristocratic men. The Temple featured a cure for infertility and Graham is credited with suggesting that a woman needed to orgasm to become pregnant at a time when many women saw sex as dutiful and only for procreation.

The Temple of Health itself attracted not just husbands and wives, but men and their mistresses. It might have become one more place of low paid prostitution. Emma quickly moved on to a brothel, Madame Kelly's, which was London's most exclusive.

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