The suspected remains of Lady Emma Hamilton, muse, socialite, and the famed lover of Admiral Horatio Nelson, have gone on display in a Calais church, following a year-long forensic investigation. Experts say the findings are consistent with Hamilton, who died in poverty in 1815 after a life marked by fame, scandal, and tragedy.
Remains that could belong to Lady Emma Hamilton, the legendary lover of British naval hero Horatio Nelson who defeated French forces at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, went on display at a French church on Friday after a year-long investigation.
It is not 100 percent certain that the remains are those of Lady Hamilton, who died in poverty in the French city of Calais in 1815 after a spell of stardom that also saw her become a muse for artists and a household name.
But a Calais-based expert, backed by forensic investigation, believes there is a good case that her remains have finally been found after an exhaustive search that has captivated local historians.
The funeral urn, which now rests in an alcove in the Notre-Dame de Calais church in the city, remains on removable wooden supports, so that it can be moved in the event of any new developments.
Her relationship with Nelson, with whom she had a daughter despite her marriage to an aristocratic British diplomat, caused a scandal at the time.
Her life was then dogged by tragedy after the death of her lover in 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar, which dashed Napoleon's ambitions to rule the seas.
Ill, alcoholic, and harassed by her creditors, Emma Hamilton fled to Calais in 1814, where she died the following year. Her remains were lost when the cemetery where she lay was buried was relocated.
A decade ago, Dominique Darre, a municipal councilor in Calais and president of a local heritage preservation association, decided to go in search of them, to pay tribute to what he described as "destiny as romantic as it was tragic".
Darre eventually discovered bones that appeared to be a match, "alongside other English graves" in another cemetery, he told AFP.
Philippe Charlier, a forensic pathologist, archaeologist, and anthropologist who had already analyzed the remains of other historical figures such as English king Richard I (Richard the Lionheart), French king Henry IV, and Adolf Hitler, was called to give his expert opinion.
The expert and his team examined the bones and confirmed that "all the elements studied are compatible" with the idea that the remains are indeed those of Emma Hamilton.
The age of death (between 45 and 55) would be correct, as do the physical characteristics studied from reconstructions based on bones, and the potential date of death, dated using carbon-14 techniques, Charlier said in Calais on Friday.
His team was also able to reconstruct an image of Lady Hamilton's face from the recovered remains and compare them with portraits from her lifetime.
But this analysis "cannot be 100 perhaps reliable", he warned, particularly due to the deteriorated state of the bones.
With AFP
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