Shelley and Byron could almost greet each other across the river and became good friends. Teresa liked Shelley though she suspected that he was trying to convert Byron to something or other, but she was satisfied that the charming madman was wasting his time. Byron said of him: 'He is one of the most moral men as well as the most amiable man I know.' But incensed by Byron's inflexibility about putting Allegra into the convent, Shelley pleaded with him 'to disally himself from being insensible to the claims of humanity'. Shelley often thought Byron wicked and Byron often thought Shelley mad.

Augusta was sending him reports from England of his other daughter Ada and he acknowledged receipt of a lock of Ada's hair from Lady Byron. He told his wife that he had but two thoughts of her: 'That she was the mother of his child; and they would never meet again.'

There could be no excuse for Byron's treatment of Keats. Having received a volume of Keat's poetry, he trashed it: 'No more Keats, I entreat, flay him alive . . . there is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the Mankin.' Three months later Keats died and Byron felt rather ashamed of himself and asked that all he had said about him be omitted from any of his publications.

Byron's friendship with Shelley was also to end in horror. With his friend Edward Williams and an English boy sailor, Shelley set sail in his new little boat the Don Juan from Leghorn to Lerici. The storm that blew up lasted no more than 20 minutes, but the boat disappeared. After several days of agonised waiting, two bodies were washed ashore - and another two days later. Shelley and Williams were identified and the authorities insisted on cremation on the spot.

John Trelawny, a friend of Shelley, and a sea-going adventurer with a flair for literature, performed the task. Byron was violently sick, dived into the sea and swam to his boat. Shelley's ashes were put in a box and placed beside his son William in the Protestant cemetery in Rome. Feeling remorse that he had not appreciated Shelley's friendship whilst he was alive, Byron wrote: 'There is thus another man gone, about whom the world was ill-naturedly, ignorantly, and brutally mistaken. I will, perhaps, do him justice now, when he can be no better for it.'

The brig Hercules, a collier-built tub of 120 tons, was hired to take himself and his party to Leghorn. Making up the ship's complement were Teresa's brother Pietro; Dr. Bruno, a young Italian doctor fresh out of medical school; eight servants including a gondolier and a Negro; four horses; two dogs; and the ship's captain, who drank a bottle of rum every day.

At Byron's invitation, John Trelawny, who had learned his sailing as a midshipman in the British Navy but now described himself as a living corsair, also joined the party. He didn't like Byron. 'Byron never drew a sword to redress any wrongs but his own,' he said, but later had to admit: 'That if he had drawn his sword in Greece he would have thrown away the scabbard.'

Teresa tried to dissuade Byron from going, even wanted to go with him, but he refused her. She became half delirious with sorrow, having a premonition that she would never see him again. Byron solemnly promised to return to her. After five days sailing the Hercules arrived at Leghorn. Byron was immediately advised to head for Cephalonia where he would find Sir Charles Napier, the only man in office favourably disposed to the Greek cause. Unsure whether he was bidding for laurels or a fool's cap, Byron appeared distant.

The party arrived at the island's capital Argostoli on 3 August where Byron received conflicting reports. Since the insurgent Greeks were in dissent and the Turks commanded the seas surrounding the mainland, Byron decided: 'Not to budge an inch until I can see my way.'

Even though pestered with emissaries seeking his interest and money, he continued his riding, pistol practice and a diet of a mess of cold potatoes, rice, fish or greens, deluged in vinegar. The strong drastic pills added to it did not improve his health. Twice he had violent seizures. Once he was found in his bedroom half-undressed, standing in a far corner like a hunted animal at bay, and was driven back by a well-aimed chair. Next morning, he was graciously himself again.

Early in April, Byron was caught riding in a deluge and arrived back at his house wet through and in a violent sweat. Dr. Bruno diagnosed rheumatic fever, nothing serious. When Byron still showed signs of fever a few days later, another doctor was called in. He also bled him. Parry called to see the ailing poet and wrote later: 'He seemed resigned and composed, so different from anything I had ever seen in him before.'

Two more doctors were called in when Byron became delirious. Out of the confusion of tongues surrounding him came agreement on only one point - bleed him. Byron resisted, called them a damned set of butchers, but they bled him again, applying 12 leeches at the temples and extracting 2 lbs of blood. There were lucid intervals between his delirium and on Sunday evening he was heard to say: 'I want to sleep now.' The poet scarcely moved again.

At 6:0 p.m. the following day, Easter Monday, he opened his eyes, and as if he had seen enough of the world, immediately closed them again. At that moment one of the most awful thunderstorms broke over Missolonghi and Byron died. He was aged only 36.

On 15 July 1824, the lace boom in Nottingham was at its height and Lord Byron's body lay in state at the Blackamoor's Head in Pelham Street, Nottingham, having been refused burial in Westminster Abbey. The following day, escorted by a vast concourse of mourners, including the Lord Mayor of Nottingham, his body and heart were taken the last few miles to the family vault at Hucknall church (pictured right).

One hundred years later at 6:0 p.m. on 24 April 1924 at Missolonghi, the Greek artillery fired another 37 minute gun-salute, and the President of the University of Athens told a gathering how an English poet had helped to put Greeks back again among the nations.

Greece had remembered and always would.