The title of the chapter refers to Captain Nelson, the great English Admiral, William Hamilton, the English statesman, and of course, everybody’s favorite rampaging French warmonger- Napoleon Bonaparte. 

There was, at this time in Europe, a new sense of doing away with monarchy. Or if the monarchy was retained, it would be as the head of a more republican state. The idea of an absolute monarchy was losing its grip on Europe and there were discussions…. and more…. about this all over.  

Napoleon had invaded Italy in 1795 and quickly established control over all of Piedmont and Lombardy. He then overthrew the Venetian republic and handed it to Austria. Napoleon decided to attack Egypt but was hung up there after Nelson managed to catch his fleet and win the battle. Napoleon and the French were a terror on land, but the English navy pretty much ruled the sea. 

At Naples, where fear of the French had taken hold, Nelson was held as a hero and welcomed by Ferdinand and the Hamiltons, who were the British envoys to Naples…. er, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. 

But the French, back on the European continent after the setback in Egypt, were already threatening Rome and it looked like Naples would be next. Ferdinand and the royal court ditched Naples and fled for Palermo. The nobility welcomed him, but again, the people were largely indifferent.  

When the French troops did reach Naples, they were attacked by a mob, but that was put down after a few months. 

In Palermo, things had gotten steadily worse with the war and food cost was spiraling upward. Frederick knew the barons would act in self-interest. Clearly, the fever for a more democratic type of rule had reached Sicily as well. Surrounded by difficulty, he wrote: “The people and clergy might let us leave if we promised to agree to the establishment of a republic. But the nobility would oppose our departure because they would be ruined and they fear the democratization of the country.” 

But a Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo came to the rescue, raised an army and went to Naples to stop both the advance of the French… and Italian republicanism. He was successful and drove the French out.  

Ferdinand, however, had come to grips with the fact that he had enemies in Naples. He therefore refused to ever set foot there again.  

In his greatest gift to Sicily, he invited Edward Jenner, the English doctor pioneering vaccines, to the island in 1802 and had the vaccines made mandatory.  

The chapter was titled Napoleon, Nelson, and the Hamiltons. Much of the chapter was dedicated to the rise of Emma Hart, a renowned beauty (she was painted several times by the artist George Romney, and she was an absolute stunner), from actress to wife of William Hamilton, then to mistress of Admiral Nelson; and the English part to play in the politics between Napoleon, Ferdinand, and Sicily. Much of it I didn’t find it particularly relevant, other than in the broader political background. Of course, this is fairly common in a history of Sicily, since the major decisions about the island were usually decided off Sicily by people who weren’t Sicilian.