George Matcham, dubbed the most unsettled man alive, was born in East India Company controlled Bombay and undertook three epic overland treks between Asia and England before marrying the favourite sister of the not yet famous Horatio Nelson. Intimate details about George's life have been preserved because of his close relationship with Nelson and his famous paramour Emma Hamilton, whose rises and falls he observed first-hand.
Packed with period press clippings and eyewitness accounts, A Most Unsettled Man provides an unprecedented glimpse into the private life of a modest 18th century English gentleman, as well retelling the enduring love story of Nelson and Emma from an entirely new perspective.
Book Title: A Most Unsettled Man
Author: Lily Style
Publication Date: 23rd July 2024
Publisher: Historium Press
Pages: 362 Pages
Genre: Historical Biography
Excerpt
It was an unseasonably cool summer when, at five in the evening on the 21st of July 1802, a party of eight assembled in a private room in a prestigious Oxford hotel. The elegant diners wouldn’t have looked out of place in a modern Jane Austen film –perhaps an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The ladies, being fashionable, would have worn long-sleeved, high-waisted frocks and short hair-dos from which curls tickled their graceful necks. Coloured silks with metallic trimmings were very much in vogue. The gentlemen would have dressed more sombrely, in line with Beau Brummel’s understated elegance, unless, that is, Horace had donned his rotating chelengk. But, when he’d written to George asking him to reserve their table, he’d advised, “Need not say for who.” When with family, Horace tended to switch his hero outfit for civilian attire. This was usually a black suit, although he sometimes donned a coat of bottle-green or, perhaps, a knitted jumper under his frock coat.
…Lady Hamilton, chestnut hair agleam in the candlelight, was skilled at putting people at ease, and would have pressed George to call her Emma. Sir William was expert at this too, having served as British Ambassador in Naples for half of his long life. Part of that duty had been hosting dinners for visiting Brits in his ambassadorial residence of Palazzo Sessa.
The Hamiltons had a trove of terrific tales to tell. They’d nursed the English prince, Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex and, in the darkest days of the French revolution, procured passes to visit the deposed queen Marie Antoinette, in her dismal Paris gaol. And –oh!– their grand progress home from Naples across Europe had been glorious with vast crowds gathered wherever they passed, cheering and throwing flowers at their feet. Queen Maria Carolina, several royal children, and fifty of her retainers had accompanied them as far as Vienna –where her daughter was living with her exiled husband, Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany.
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Lily Style is the direct descendant of famed lovers Admiral Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton and also Nelson's sister, Kitty Matcham (because their grandchildren married).
Lily is the founder of Emma Hamilton Society and writes regularly for Nelson-related publications. She is also a keen genealogist with an interest in piecing together real human stories lying behind dry facts.
One of these stories is of her 4th great-grandfather, George Matcham, whose story she's traced from his mid eighteenth-century birth in East India Company controlled Bombay through to his intimate involvement with Nelson and Emma's rise and fall.
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Thank you for hosting Lily Style today with A Most Unsettled Man.
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Cathie xx
The Coffee Pot Book Club