Lady Hamilton’s Ghost (part 69)

After being interred in an oak coffin in the public cemetery, just outside Calais, Emma Hamilton was moved somewhere else because that churchyard was converted into a timber-yard in 1816.She was probably relocated to a cemetery near a theatre in an area that was later devastated during World War I and World War II.People say… Read More Lady Hamilton’s Ghost (part 69)

Lady Hamilton & Horatio Nelson: Nelson’s Sarcophagus (part 48)

It is odd to think that Nelson‘s body was placed in Cardinal Wolsey’s tomb, hundreds of years after his death, but this story is full of such odd things. That imposing black marble sarcophagus was originally built for that English statesman and Catholic bishop, who commissioned Benedetto da Rovezzano to design a magnificent tomb in… Read More Lady Hamilton & Horatio Nelson: Nelson’s Sarcophagus (part 48)

Lady Hamilton & Horatio Nelson: Nelson’s Funeral (part 47)

After arriving at Greenwich on 23 December 1805, Nelson’s body was placed inside a lead coffin which was in turn placed into another wooden one, made from the mast of L’Orient salvaged after the French warship had been destroyed in the Battle of the Nile, a gift to Nelson in 1799 from Benjamin Hallowell, then… Read More Lady Hamilton & Horatio Nelson: Nelson’s Funeral (part 47)

Barbara Allen/2

As I’ve already written (here) “Barbara Allen” began as a ballad in the seventeenth century or earlier and was published and performed under many different titles, in a vast array of tunes and narrative details.The earliest text was published in London in 1690, under the title “Barbara Allen’s cruelty: or, the young-man’s tragedy”. It appeared… Read More Barbara Allen/2