The story of England's greatest naval genius, a love affair that transgressed class, and a war that stretched across the world.
1771: A new Midshipman arrives at Chatham Dockyard, on the River Medway, to join the Royal Navy. Just twelve years old and small for his age, he has travelled alone from London, having parted company with his clerical father, the Rector of Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk. It is time to take his duties aboard his first ship, the 64-gun "Raisonable", which is moored next to the ship that will forever be associated with his name, HMS "Victory". The boy is called Horatio Nelson.
Little Emma Hamilton, on the same day, is taken to the house of her mother's employer, there to become the subject of an unusual arrangement. Emma will be educated in return for her mother's agreement to travel to London with her employer as a kept mistress. Strikingly beautiful, wayward and high spirited, Emma cannot abide the strictures of life as a domestic servant. From kept woman to bawdy house and back again she will court several lovers before she meets the man she truly loves, a hero capable of changing both her life and the course of history.
