The Late Lord

This biography of the second Earl of Chatham looks beyond his famous military failure to reveal one of the early nineteenth century’s most fascinating figures. John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, is one of the most enigmatic and overlooked figures of early nineteenth century British history. The elder brother of Pitt the Younger, he has long been consigned to history as the late Lord Chatham, the lazy commander-in-chief of the 1809 Walcheren expedition, whose inactivity and incompetence turned what