It was thought that when owning it, the owner would have a lot of luck, but it was all the opposite.
In March 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte undertook a mystical expedition to Egypt, then a province of the Ottoman Empire, to compete for influence with the British Empire. Many battles between these two empires broke out very violently.
In it, a fierce night battle in the Gulf of Aboukir located in the north of Egypt caused many ships to be sunk as well as countless casualties, on the ship HMS Vanguard, Admiral Horatio Nelson , 29 years old, was seriously injured. at the top.
British Admiral Horatio Nelson. (Image Getty Images).
It seemed that life was already hanging on a hair, but the final victory belonged to Britain the next morning (August 1798) when only 4 out of 17 enemy ships escaped.
Later, the battle, known as the Battle of the Nile, was a major naval battle fought between Anglo-French armies and led to the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte’s expeditionary army, which was “hundred battles and hundred victories” . From there began the Second Coalition against France.
After the battle, Admiral Horatio Nelson became the hero who received the deep gratitude of the Turkish king of the Ottoman Empire who was ruling Egypt. The most prestigious award of the Ottoman Empire for him was the most prestigious medal Chelengk wore on his hat (see image below).
Order of Chelengk. (Wikipedia image).
This medal was given by the Turkish king himself and symbolizes the bravery and honor that the recipient will become extremely famous as a hero. You can see it attached to the admiral’s hat in the photo above!
Normally this medal is not decorated with precious stones, but this time to show gratitude and appreciation for the admiral’s victory, the king of Turkey installed more than 300 white diamonds on 13 decorative bars. , each represents 1 French warship!
The center of the badge is a star that can rotate and reflect candlelight throughout the beautiful room, but now we cannot admire its beauty because it was stolen after World War 2. from the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England.
This valuable medal is encrusted with real diamonds and is said to bring good luck to its owner.
But the new discovery in the research of goldsmith Symbolic & Chase, London when creating a replica of it for display in London, shows the opposite.
Accordingly, the new book about Chelengk also claims that the medal is the cause of Nelson’s death like a terrible cursed medal!
Not only did the medal not bring Nelson’s luck, but it got him into even more trouble.
When he returned to England in November 1800, he expected to be received as a national hero, but King George III was humiliated when he made the mistake of wearing a medal unwise.
This made the insignia even more prominent than the Order of the Bath, bestowed by the King of England and worn on his robe before, so King George III was not pleased even if it was just an accident, no deliberate.
The daughter of a blacksmith is Emma Hamilton, but she has a natural beauty, she is the wife of the Marquis William Hamilton, the muse of the painter George Romney, but is also loved by Nelson, although Lord Nelson also has a wife. Lady Fanny Nelson.
She wanted the beautiful diamond-encrusted medal on her neck that Nelson had been given, their affair revealed when she repeatedly carried the medal that belonged to Nelson despite his disapproval.
Emma Hamilton. (Photo by The Guardian).
The result was that the two had a daughter in 1801 and his family had to divorce his wife Fanny, tragedy did not end there when he was surrounded by debt because of Emma’s extravagant spending habits.
Many times, he had to borrow from friends to repay his debt, but he couldn’t stay like that forever. Finally, he decided to sell the Chelengk – which symbolizes the honor and courage of a hero.
In September 1805, he decided to sell a portion of the diamonds on the medal when he and his friend, Lieutenant John Lee, aboard the ship HMS Swiftsure, also attended the Battle of the Nile, to a gem dealer.
About a month later, he died in the battle of Trafalgar, which is believed to be because the glittering medal on his hat helped the gunner to accurately aim his head. The medal later went to his younger brother William, who has two children, Horaxe and Charlotte.
Disaster struck William when in 1808, two years after owning Chelengk – he and his wife Sarah lost their 19-year-old son Horaxe to typhus. In 1828, his wife Sarah died and he married another wife but did not have any more children.
Finally, six years later he died in a carriage accident in Salisbury, after which his daughter Charlotte got involved in a legal Chelengk inheritance with the family of Nelson’s sister Susannah.
As a result, she received the right of inheritance, but after her death in 1873, General Alexander Hood’s son Viscount Bridport faced financial collapse when he invested his fortune in an illegal business.
Copy of the medal. (Photo by The Guardian).
In 1895, he was forced to auction the Chelengk, the medal owned by a banker Constance Eyre Matcham, but the Great Depression of 1920-1921 also caused the medal to be sold again.
Heiress Lady Sarita Barclay, widow of African explorer Herbert Ward bought it and gave it back to the nation as a tribute to her husband. Seven years later, the medal became a “star” in the gallery of the National Maritime Museum.
It thought its “life” would rest here, but a professional thief named George Chatham stole the badge in the summer of 1951, since then no one knows where it went or where it belongs. Ai, the story of the cursed badge is also temporarily over.