heaven above
September 17th, 2004, 11:32 PM
Tattered flag recalls the glory of Nelson
By Lewis Smith
FRAGMENTS of Nelson’s battle ensign from HMS Victory have surfaced almost 200 years after the flag was ripped up for keepsakes by sailors at his funeral.
The two strips of flag were grabbed by an onlooker after the coffin was lowered into the crypt at St Paul’s Cathedral. The ensign, which flew from the Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar, was supposed to be laid on the coffin by sailors accompanying Nelson’s body. But in a scene described by witnesses as the most touching element of the service, the sailors tore off a section of the battle flag and ripped it into shreds.
While the sailors tucked fragments of the ensign into their shirts, a spectator, known now only as J. Constable, picked up two fallen strips, one blue and the other white, as his own mementoes of the admiral.
The scene was described by the wife of the captain of HMS Orion, a 74-gun ship of the line that fought at Trafalgar, on October 21, 1805, as the highlight of the funeral: “That was Nelson: the rest was so much the Herald’s Office.”
The fragments of the ensign that have now come to light are part of a huge 19th- century collection of letters and autographs belonging to the Enys family of Cornwall.
Accompanying the strips, which are to be auctioned this month by Bonhams with an estimate of £10,000 to £15,000, is a letter dated May 9, 1856, by Henry Hoper, Vicar of St Nicholas, Portslade, to the Enys family, describing how his wife’s cousin, “Mr J. Constable”, obtained the relic.
Colin White, of the National Maritime Museum, said ten other strips of the flag had survived but that this was the first to have been kept by a bystander rather than a sailor.
During the Trafalgar bicentenary a Nelson & Napoleon exhibition will open next July at the museum in Greenwich and the last voyage of Nelson’s body along the Thames will be re-enacted.
By Lewis Smith
FRAGMENTS of Nelson’s battle ensign from HMS Victory have surfaced almost 200 years after the flag was ripped up for keepsakes by sailors at his funeral.
The two strips of flag were grabbed by an onlooker after the coffin was lowered into the crypt at St Paul’s Cathedral. The ensign, which flew from the Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar, was supposed to be laid on the coffin by sailors accompanying Nelson’s body. But in a scene described by witnesses as the most touching element of the service, the sailors tore off a section of the battle flag and ripped it into shreds.
While the sailors tucked fragments of the ensign into their shirts, a spectator, known now only as J. Constable, picked up two fallen strips, one blue and the other white, as his own mementoes of the admiral.
The scene was described by the wife of the captain of HMS Orion, a 74-gun ship of the line that fought at Trafalgar, on October 21, 1805, as the highlight of the funeral: “That was Nelson: the rest was so much the Herald’s Office.”
The fragments of the ensign that have now come to light are part of a huge 19th- century collection of letters and autographs belonging to the Enys family of Cornwall.
Accompanying the strips, which are to be auctioned this month by Bonhams with an estimate of £10,000 to £15,000, is a letter dated May 9, 1856, by Henry Hoper, Vicar of St Nicholas, Portslade, to the Enys family, describing how his wife’s cousin, “Mr J. Constable”, obtained the relic.
Colin White, of the National Maritime Museum, said ten other strips of the flag had survived but that this was the first to have been kept by a bystander rather than a sailor.
During the Trafalgar bicentenary a Nelson & Napoleon exhibition will open next July at the museum in Greenwich and the last voyage of Nelson’s body along the Thames will be re-enacted.