She was, by all accounts, a devoted wife, but in time Horatio met Emma Hamilton while serving in the Mediterranean, and the two embarked in a highly public affair.

Fanny raised a plaque in her dead husband's memory at the St. Lawrence Church in Stratford Sub Castle, near Salisbury, and spent some time in England acting as the guardian of the children of another Nevis planter, John Pinney.

Herbert was by now himself President of the Council of Nevis, and one of the frequent guests to his house was a young naval captain who was stationed off the island, Horatio Nelson.

[3] The widowed Fanny was described as young and pretty, while her availability and position as likely to inherit a substantial portion of her uncle's estate made her an attractive match for Nelson.

[5] Fanny's uncle promised them money on his death but could give them little in the short term; Nelson's relations also could not provide material support in the immediate future.

By early 1786, Nelson had been moved to Barbados, where he engaged in legal struggles with the prize courts and other distractions, though he wrote often to Fanny on Nevis.

[6] Nelson pronounced himself entirely satisfied with his decision, drawing up a new will that made his new wife the sole beneficiary, and writing to his friend William Locker that he was 'morally certain she will continue to make me a happy man for the rest of my days'.

[8] The couple initially visited Horatio's relatives in Norfolk, before finally stopping at his old home in Burnham Thorpe to introduce Fanny to his father, the Reverend Edmund Nelson.

[9] The couple lived happily together at this stage, though Horatio was frustrated by his failure to obtain employment in the navy, and by the discovery that he and Fanny could not conceive a child of their own.

[10] The outbreak of war with France in 1793 finally brought Nelson a ship to command, and he took his stepson Josiah Nisbet with him as a midshipman when he commissioned the 64-gun HMS Agamemnon.

In letters to Nelson's relatives, Lady Hamilton referred to Fanny as that 'vile Tom Tit', while Josiah Nisbet was called a 'squinting brat'.

[16] Lady Hamilton also declared that Horatio's father Reverend Edmund Nelson had been taken in by 'a very wicked, artful woman', who had conspired to turn him against his son.

Fanny was taken in by Reverend Edmund Nelson, and she spent most of her time with him in Bath, while her husband's open cohabitation with Lady Hamilton scandalised polite society.

[19] Edmund Nelson remained especially horrified by the breakdown of his son's marriage, and wrote to Horatio on occasion to rebuke him, both for adultery and abandonment of his wife.

She moved to Paris for a time to live with her son, where her eldest grandchild, also named Fanny, recalled her good nature and her devotion to her husband's memory.