To his parishoners, he was a man who loved to sit in his library and read. Few of them knew of the role this obscure North Yorkshire parson played in the most famous victory in British naval history. Nick Morrison looks at the life of the man who held the dying Nelson in his arms.

THE battle was in full pell-mell when the chaplain was called. He was in another part of the cockpit, administering lemonade to the wounded, but came instantly to the dying admiral's side, picking his way across the bodies.

"Doctor, I told you so," Admiral Lord Nelson said to him. "Doctor, I am gone." Breathless and agitated, grimacing with pain from the musket ball lodged in his spine, he gasped: "Remember me to Lady Hamilton. Remember me to Horatia. Remember me to all my friends."

It was about half past one on the afternoon of October 21, 1805. Over the next three hours, the Reverend Doctor Alexander Scott tended to the dying Nelson, offering him words of solace, trying to cool him with a fan, and listening to his final words.

Even as the battle raged around them, and buoyed as they were with reports of success, of enemy ships striking their colours to surrender, the small group of men attending Nelson were enveloped in grief. In the hour of his greatest triumph, they knew their captain's death was imminent. He was a hero to the nation, and an idol to those who knew him.

Scott was among Nelson's inner circle. He had served as both the admiral's chaplain and his secretary, his command of languages proving invaluable in negotiations, and his dog-collar an entry into social gatherings where he could glean precious information.

He was Nelson's dining companion and conversation partner, spending hours in the admiral's cabin debating the issues of the day, both public and personal. The death of Nelson robbed him of a friend.

But after the battle, and as the nation celebrated its victory and mourned its loss, Scott left the navy and returned to a living on land, as vicar of Southminster. Later, he was to combine this with the living of vicar of Catterick, and it was the North Yorkshire village he made his home. For the next 23 years he lived in obscurity, spending his time quietly, few parishioners aware of the role he had played in history.

Alexander John Scott was born in 1768, the son of a retired lieutenant. After Charterhouse and Cambridge, where he had shown an affinity for languages, he was ordained a deacon. It was college debts which drove him to sea, and in 1793 he joined the Berwick to take advantage of a chaplain's salary.

His fluency in languages, which ran to French, Spanish and Italian and later German, Danish and a little Russian, saw him employed in negotiations, and also saw him make the acquaintance of the then Captain Horatio Nelson. Nelson twice asked Scott to join him, but was twice turned down, until he was eventually persuaded to join the Victory in 1803. Officially, he was the ship's chaplain, but acted as much as Nelson's private secretary and interpreter, for which he was paid £100 by the admiral in a private arrangement.

He remained with the fleet while it was in the Mediterranean, and in the voyage to the West Indies and back, and was frequently sent ashore, as though on leave, to garner intelligence, exploiting the ease with which he gained admission to fashionable society.

After a month ashore, Scott rejoined the fleet on September 15 as it sailed to encounter the combined French and Spanish fleet off Cadiz. On October 21 the fleets came together in a battle which would decide the fate of Napoleon's plan to invade Britain.

Nelson was shot at the height of battle, as his ships engaged the enemy in a daring and innovative manoeuvre which had become the hallmark of his command. Taken to the cockpit below decks, he was attended by the ship's surgeon, Dr William Beatty. Beatty quickly realised the wound would prove fatal, although this was kept from all on board apart from Captain Hardy, the purser, two assistant surgeons, and Scott.

According to Scott, after his pleas to be remembered to his lover, Lady Hamilton, and daughter Horatia, Nelson became less agitated and began to ask about the state of the battle, calling for Captain Hardy.

Hardy arrived and reported on the state of the fleet, before asking: "Is your pain great, Sir?", to which Nelson replied: "Yes, but I shall live half an hour yet. Hardy, kiss me," upon which Hardy knelt and kissed Nelson on the cheek.

Nelson asked his steward to turn him onto his right side to ease the pain, but as the blood began to flood his right lung his breathing became slow and shallow and his voice weaker. "Doctor, I have not been a great sinner," he whispered to Scott, adding: "Remember that I leave Lady Hamilton and my daughter Horatia as a legacy to my country... never forget Horatia."

Scott tried to ease his pain by rubbing his chest and tried to cool him with a fan, but the end was near. "Thank God I have done my duty," he whispered, gasping: "Drink, drink, fan, fan, rub, rub." As the chaplain and the purser supported his shoulders, he fell silent.

Beatty was called and took his wrist but could feel no pulse. At this, the admiral opened his eyes, looked up and closed them again. Scott continued to rub his chest, but when Beatty returned he confirmed Nelson was dead. It was 4.30pm.

The battle was a total victory. The French and Spanish fleet had lost 18 ships captured or destroyed, almost 6,000 men killed or wounded and 20,000 taken prisoner. The British Navy had lost no ships, although almost 1,700 had been killed or wounded. But the British had taken command of the seas, and Napoleon's invasion plans were permanently shelved.

Nelson's body was returned to England in a cask of brandy and was attended by Scott at both Greenwich and St Paul's Cathedral. But Scott found the nation was less than grateful now victory had been secured. A degree of Doctor of Divinity from Cambridge was his only public recognition, and his chaplain's pay was stopped for the weeks he had been absent from his ship.

He became vicar of Southminster, but the pay was poor and in 1816 he was offered the living at Catterick, in the gift of the crown. He had married in 1807 but his wife died in 1811 leaving him with two daughters, and Scott lived a quiet life in Catterick, spending much time in the library at Kiplin Hall at nearby Scorton, owned by his friends the Crowe and Carpenter families.

Scott died in 1840 and was buried at Ecclesfield in Sheffield, where his son-in-law was the vicar. But while he may have died in obscurity, he never forgot the admiral he could call his friend.

"Let the country mourn their hero," he wrote in a letter after Nelson's death. "I grieve for the loss of the most fascinating companion I ever conversed with - the greatest and most simple of men - one of the nicest and most innocent - interesting beyond all, on shore, in public and even in private life.

"Men are not always themselves and put on their behaviour with their clothes, but if you live with a man on board a ship for years; if you are continually with him in his cabin, your mind will soon find out how to appreciate him.

"I could for ever tell you the qualities of this beloved man. I have not shed a tear for years before the 21st of October and since, whenever I am alone, I am quite like a child."