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For the background on this post, including the distinction between certain, probable, and possible, see the first post in this series. This series of posts is available as a video playlist at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9eyRnt5W114bs8_CJNvlcLfIB4NW_YTB.

Working through the primary sources: there’s not enough evidence to prove that an affair between Alexander Hamilton and Angelica Schuyler Church is either certain or probable. But is it possible? If Alexander Hamilton was promiscuous, it might be possible that he slept with Angelica, as well as other women. In the first three posts in this series, we looked at primary sources that are often cited to prove Hamilton was promiscuous: the Reynolds Affair, the “goddess letter”, and the “tomcat story”. None of these hold up as proof that Hamilton slept around. Last week we looked at Alexander’s and Angelica’s letters, considering whether they demonstrate a sexual attraction so strong that Alexander and Angelica couldn’t have resisted acting on it.

Knight of the Garter

The last piece of contemporary evidence that’s often used to suggest an affair is an anecdote from a dinner party in Philadelphia in late 1799. It was attended by Alexander Hamilton, Angelica Schuyler Church, and one of the unmarried Schuyler sisters – probably Cornelia. Eliza Hamilton was apparently not at the party, perhaps because she had borne a daughter (her namesake, Eliza) about a month earlier, on 11/20/1799.

Dinner-party banter doesn’t usually get recorded, but this tidbit was written down by Harrison Gray Otis (1765-1833), a Federalist ally of Hamilton’s. It’s in a letter to his wife Sally, with the note that it occurred on December 24, 1799.

Dined at Breck’s with Mrs [Angelica Schuyler] Church, Miss [Cornelia] Schuyler,  Genl. [Alexander] Hamilton, Champlin &c &c. Mrs. [Angelica] C. the mirror of affectation, but as she affects to be extremely affable and free from ceremony, this foible is rather amusing than offensive. Miss Schuyler a young wild flirt from Albany, full of glee & apparently desirous of matrimony.  After Dinner Mrs. C. dropped her shoe bow, Miss S– picked it up and put it in Hamiltons buttonhole saying “there brother I have made you a Knight.” But of what order” (says Madam C) “he can’t be a Knight of the garter in this country.”  “True sister” replied Miss S– “but he would be if you would let him!”

The Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis, Federalist, 1765-1848, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (University of Michicagn, 1913), p. 142. https://archive.org/details/lifeandlettersh00morigoog/page/n165/mode/2up?q=flirt

A Knight of the Garter has no relationship to sexy women’s wear. It’s an award for chivalry that has been granted since 1348 by the British monarch for service to the nation, or personal service to the monarch. At any given time, there are a maximum of 24 Knights. Among the Knights in 1799 – when the dinner party Otis records took place – were Prince William Henry (the future William IV), Prince Ernest Augustus (the future King of Hanover), the Marquess of Lansdowne, the third Duke of Richmond, the fifth Duke of Devonshire, and the tenth Earl of Westmoreland. To be a Knight of the Garter was to be in an exalted company.

Very, very few Americans in the 1790s were well-traveled or well-educated enough to know what was involved in awarding someone a knighthood – an act such as pinning a ribbon on. Even fewer would know that the Order of the Garter is a high-ranking example of a knighthood. Americans who had lived through the writing of the Constitution probably did know that it was in fact impossible for Alexander Hamilton to be named a knight: the Constitution forbids Americans from accepting a knighthood, or any other foreign title.

My take on this dinner-party anecdote is that the Schuyler sisters and Alexander are riffing, make erudite, sophisticated, and slightly risqué jokes in public. It’s pure accident that Otis decided to record this bit of banter. For Alexander, Angelica, and Cornelia to joke about an actual affair between Angelica and Alexander in public, at a party attended by at least one prominent politician, would imply that they were utterly careless of their reputations. And there’s no evidence from other events that they were.

Chernow’s take

The anecdote reported by Otis has been wildly misinterpreted over the years. Chernow mentions it in Hamilton, citing not Otis’s original letter, but a reference in a different biography of Hamilton. Here’s Chernow’s retelling:

The first scandalous reference to Hamilton’s marital infidelity occurred in late March 1789 just as Angelica Church returned to New York. The town was humming with social events marking the new government, and the mutual admiration between Hamilton and his sister-in-law, apparent at parties and dinners they attended, must have excited speculation. At one ball, Angelica dropped a garter that was swept gallantly off the floor by Hamilton. Angelica, who had a sly wit, teased him that he wasn’t a Knight of the Garter. Angelica’s sarcastic sister, Peggy, then remarked, ‘He would be a Knight of the Bedchamber, if he could.’ This may all have been harmless banter, but such tales fed material to the local gossips.

Chernow, Alexander Hamilton, p. 283, and n. 49, referring to Emery, Alexander Hamilton, p. 126.

This summary is wrong in so many ways … Chernow gives the date as 1789, so Alexander would have been a decade younger. Chernow says Angelica dropped a garter, not a shoe bow, and that Alexander himself picked it up. Chernow says that Peggy (married since 1783), not the unmarried, flirtatious Cornelia, said that Alexander would be a “Knight of the Bedchamber” if he could. “This may all have been harmless banter,” concludes Chernow, “but such tales fed material to the local gossips”. But that wasn’t the banter, was it?

In short: Chernow’s summary suggests that Alexander at least wanted to have an affair with Angelica. Otis’s letter does not. Otis’s version shows the close relationship between Alexander and his sisters-in-law: they know each other well, and they make sophisticated jokes.

This brings me to what I see as the main argument against an affair. Stayed tuned for next week’s post, the last in this series.

More

• This series of posts is an elaboration of a six-page appendix on this subject that appears in Alexander Hamilton and the Reynolds Affair.
• For my books on Alexander Hamilton, see this page; for blog posts, see the Hamilton tag.
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