Their love affair was so intense, their passion for each other so risque, that even friends were scandalised. 

Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton were deeply infatuated with each other during their intense six-year romance, eventually leading to the birth of a child they shared.

However, the taxpayer-supported Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool has now implied that Lord Nelson may have been ‘queer’, apparently based on the supposed final words of the British naval hero.

After being wounded at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, where the Royal Navy defeated the combined fleets of France and Spain, Nelson is said to have uttered ‘kiss me Hardy’ to his loyal flag captain.

The Walker Gallery’s curators have included two paintings of Nelson in their ‘Queer relationships’ collection, stating that ‘whether or not their relationship was sexual remains unknown’.

In response to this, historian Robert Tombs commented to the Daily Mail: ‘I’m afraid it is one more example of the intellectual superficiality now prevalent in our museums, and their chase for publicity regardless of basic common sense.’ 

Voluminous evidence of Nelson’s passion for the opposite sex exists in the form of surviving letters and witness accounts.

Though Lady Emma was his most renowned lover, Nelson also bestowed attention on other women and had been committed to his long-suffering wife Fanny until their relationship deteriorated.

Lady Emma Hamilton, the famous mistress of Horatio Nelson 

In one particularly raunchy letter to Lady Emma, dated March 16, 1805, Nelson said euphemistically: ‘I hope very soon I shall embrace the substantial part of you instead of the ideal. That will, I am sure, give us real pleasure.’

He went on: ‘Only continue to love me as affectionately as I do you and we must then be the happiest couple in the world.’

In other correspondence, he referred to Lady Emma’s private parts as her ‘thatched cottage’ and begged that it be ‘ready to receive’ him.

Nelson also told her how, ‘just the thought of sleeping with you sets me on fire’. 

The naval hero had met Lady Emma, the wife of Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador to Naples, in 1793.

But the pair’s affair did not begin until 1798, 11 years after he and Fanny had gotten married.

And by the time he tied the knot, Nelson had already chased a series of women.

He met his first serious love in 1781, soon after achieving his first command – of the 28-gun frigate HMS Albermarle.

After being shot at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar, in which the Royal Navy triumphed over the combined forces of France and Spain , Nelson allegedly said ‘kiss me Hardy’ to his devoted flag captain 

Nelson, then 23, fell instantly in love with the 16-year-old Mary Simpson. But she was not ready for marriage.

Realising that he would lose his career if he became too infatuated, Nelson gave up the chase. 

He then met the dark-haired Elizabeth Andrews in St Omer, Calais. 

Nelson told a friend: ‘Had I a million of money I am sure that at this moment I should make her an offer.’ 

Not long after, he met Mary Moutray, who was five years older than him. 

Writing again to a friend, Nelson said: ‘Was it not for Mrs Moutray, who is very, very good to me, I should hang myself in this infernal hole.’

After Mrs Moutray returned to Britain with her sick husband, Nelson met the widowed Fanny Nisbet. 

Five years after their marriage, Nelson was given command of the 64-gun HMS Agamemnon.

Nelson and Lady Emma exchanged dozens of raunchy lover letters. Above: One in which Nelson recounted a steamy dream he had had about his lover

It was after being ordered to sail to the Mediterranean that Nelson met his long-term mistress. 

Lady Emma was famously voluptuous and had been courted by a succession of wealthy lovers before her marriage.

But Nelson did not immediately fall for Lady Emma. Instead, he struck up a liaison with opera singer Adelaide Correglia.

A friend wrote at Christmas in 1794: ‘Dined at Nelson’s and his dolly. He makes himself ridiculous with that woman.’

After his heroics at the battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797, the then Commodore Nelson was rewarded with a knighthood and promotion to rear admiral.

But Nelson’s ongoing service meant that his wife had not seen him for years.

By the time he finally came home, in September 1797, Nelson had lost his right arm in battle, his hair was grey, his right eye half-blind and his cheeks sunken from missing teeth.

Nelson achieved his most dramatic victory in August 1798, when he lead a force that attacked and destroyed the French fleet in what became known as the Battle of the Nile.

Lady Emma, the wife of Sir William Hamilton, was Lord Nelson’s mistress for six years

The victory crushed Napoleon’s dreams of conquering Egypt.

The besotted Lady Emma said in a long letter: ‘I would not like to die till I see and embrace the Victor of the Nile.’

She took to lavishing yet more attention on him. Her efforts to impress him included dressing in blue and gold anchors to match his look.

While sitting opposite Lady Emma, Nelson wrote to a senior naval officer: ‘Were your Lordship in my place, I much doubt if you could write so well; our hearts and hands must be all in a flutter.’

Lady Emma went on to host an extravagant 40th birthday party for Nelson, at which her furious son, Josiah, openly criticised his stepfather for his amorous behaviour with his mother.

At other parties, Emma would proudly show off her lover. When writing to his wife, Nelson told her only of his mistress’s ‘kindness’.

After being ordered to sea once more in January 1800, Nelson took to writing to Lady Emma constantly.

In one letter, he described a dream in which he was sat between two women he disliked.

‘The first wanted to take those liberties with me which no woman in this world but yourself ever did.

‘I knocked her down and in the moment of bustle you came in and, taking me in your embrace, whispered: “I love nothing but you, my Nelson.”

‘I kissed you fervently and we enjoyed the height of love. Ah, Emma, I pour out my soul to you.’

Then, when Lady Emma was seven months pregnant with Nelson’s child, Fanny wrote to her husband inviting him, his mistress and her spouse to their marital home.

Fanny and Emma hated each other immediately, and Nelson quickly took against her.

An onlooker at a dinner party recalled how he roughly rejected his wife’s offer of walnuts. The glass they were in broke against a dish.

The witness recalled: ‘There was an awkward pause and then Lady Nelson burst into tears!’

Fanny later told her husband: ‘I am sick of hearing of “Dear Lady Hamilton” and am resolved that you shall give up either her or me!”

But Nelson was saved from his impossible choice by another order to go to sea.

Now believing Emma was being pursued by the Prince of Wales, he wrote further lust-filled letters to her.

In 1801, while Nelson was away at sea, Emma gave birth to twins. Without informing her lover, she gave one of them, also called Emma, to a foundling’s hospital.

The other, Horatia, was celebrated by Nelson in his letters, but Emma betrayed little maternal instinct for her either and she was sent to live with a wet nurse.

After the death of Emma’s husband in 1803, Nelson and his mistress lived out a semblance of marriage as the increasingly demonised Fanny was left to be alone.

And then, on September 15, 1805, Nelson set sail on the Victory for his final battle.

In a letter to Emma, he mentioned their daughter and an enclosed document for his lawyer amid his anxiety that both Hamilton and Horatia would not be supported if he were to die in battle.  

He told her: ‘I send you the enclosed that difficulty may arise about My Dear Horatia in case any accident should happen to me for I know too well the necessity of taking care of those we love whilst we have the power, and these arraingements do not hasten our death.’ 

After his death, Lady Emma was forced to sell her main homes and her financial situation became so bad that she ended up in prison for debt.

To try to stay afloat, she sold Nelson’s letters and his bullet-holed coat. She then left for France with Horatia. She died there in January 1815.

Fanny outlived her by 16 years.