Duty or destiny.I had to make the choice. So although I did my duty to king and country I chose destiny. To live for love.
London, 2005
In the crypt below the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, they stand before my black marble sarcophagus to honour me on this, Trafalgar Day, but it is only my body, crumbled to bleached bones that rests there.
After the battle of the Nile, they called me England’s God of War, but I was no God. Beneath my glittering uniform I was mortal with a man’s weaknesses and it was there, at Naples, that I met my destiny in Emma.Then on that day long remembered,as I looked into the cradle where our beloved daughter Horatia lay, every honour, every victory I achieved was eclipsed by my love for her whom some called whore, but I called wife before God.
Duty or destiny. I had to make the choice so although I did my duty to my king and country I chose destiny. If you, stranger, have known the agony and ecstasy that love brings, then come with me into the world I once knew, then judge as you will, for to know all is to forgive all.
Horatio,Viscount Nelson