Famous Royal Mistresses – Prinny and Mrs Fitzherbert

When is a famous royal mistress not a royal mistress? When perhaps, like Mrs Fitzherbert, she may actually have been a royal wife? The British Royal Family has been much in the news recently, with the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton having just taken place at Westminster Abbey, but members of our Royal Family have throughout history found themselves the centre of attention, written about in newspapers and pamphlets and even finding themselves in the centre of a scandal. One royal who was no stranger to scandal was George, Prince of Wales, the son of King George III and Queen Charlotte, who went on to become Prince Regent and then King George IV. Known to his friends as ‘Prinny’, Prince George led a decadent life at the head of a group of beaus and dandies known as the Carlton House Set, spending his days gambling, drinking, decorating his houses and running up a huge amount of debt. When he was a young man, George was handsome and a great favourite with the ladies, but as he grew older the ravages of his lifestyle caused him to become bloated and pile on the weight, prompting Beau Brummell to utter his famous caustic remark ‘Alvanley, who’s your fat friend?’  Prince George also enjoyed an extensive and varied love life and had many mistresses throughout his life, but perhaps he ever only truly loved one of them?

Mrs Fitzherbert

The lady in question is known to history as Mrs Fitzherbert, although she was born Maria Ann Smythe on 26^th July 1756.  She was the eldest child of William Smythe and Mary Ann Errington, who were Roman Catholics and well-connected with the British aristocracy, as her mother was a half-sister of the Earl of Sefton. She was sent to Paris for her education, but was married at the age of 18 to Edward Weld, a wealthy Catholic landowner who was 16 years her senior. Unfortunately for the young Maria, her new husband was thrown from a horse only three months after their wedding, without having yet made a new will. This left the young widow in dire financial straits and in desperate need of a new husband to support her, so three years later she wed another older man, Thomas Fitzherbert of Swynnerton in Staffordshire. This time she was ten years younger than her spouse, and the couple had one son who tragically died very young. She was widowed again on 7^th May 1781, but this time she was more fortunate in the inheritance stakes as she gained a smart house in Park Street, Mayfair and a healthy annual income.

When she came out of mourning, Mrs Fitzherbert was sponsored into the glittering whirl of London Society by her uncle Lord Sefton and her half-brother Henry Errington. She was now a very eligible young widow, and probably had many suitors. But in the spring of 1784 she was introduced to the very cream of this Society, when Maria Fitzherbert caught the eye of the 22 year old Prince of Wales when she attended the opera in the company of Lord Sefton. Although, at 27, Mrs Fitzherbert was older than Prince George, the impressionable young prince was smitten and immediately began to pursue her. Rumours soon started flying around Polite Society that Mrs Fitzherbert was the Prince’s latest mistress. The pair seemed to be genuinely in love, and in July 1784 her besotted prince offered her a ring as a gift. The ring was initially refused, but Mrs Fitzherbert finally accepted the gift, after Prince George threatened to commit suicide. The ecstatic Prince believed that this acceptance of his ring meant that Maria Fitzherbert had agreed to marry him,  and knowing that marrying the Prince would be nigh on impossible she escaped to Europe.  Maria Fitzherbert’s whereabouts were eventually traced, and she returned to London in December 1785. It was at this point that the couple underwent a secret marriage ceremony in the drawing room of Mrs Fitzherbert’s house in Park Street.

So why was there so much secrecy surrounding this wedding? It was because under English law the marriage was regarded as invalid. This was because George was the Prince of Wales and the 1689 Bill of Rights stated that any heir to the throne who married a Roman Catholic would be lose their place in the succession and the Royal Marriage Act of 1772 required that the King’s consent had to be obtained before one of his children could wed. As Mrs Fitzherbert was a Roman Catholic and it was highly unlikely that King George III would give consent to his eldest son and heir marrying a Catholic widow, the couple can have been only too aware that it was unlikely that their marriage would ever be recognised by the Royal Family and legitimised. We may never know why the couple took the risk of getting married in secret, but there were rumours flying around Society at the time that Mrs Fitzherbert was pregnant, and being a Roman Catholic may well have been deeply worried about having a child out of wedlock. It must be remembered that before she met the Prince of Wales, Maria Fitzherbert had led the life of a very respectable woman and had a high standing in the Society of which she was a part. In fact, they had to approach three different clergymen before they found one who would perform the ceremony, and it was one of the Prince of Wales’s own chaplains, the Reverend Robert Burt who finally agreed. There has been speculation that Reverend Burt only agreed because the Prince had agreed to pay off his debts or even got him out of debtor’s prison, but there is no real evidence to support this, and Burt came from an affluent family who had made their fortune in the West Indies.

The rumours continued to fly about the Prince of Wales and Mrs Fitzherbert, but they lived together as a married couple until 1794. It was Prinny’s extravagance and decadent lifestyle that was to be their undoing as he had reached a point where he was unable to discharge his debts. He had already once been financially bailed out by his father, the King, and so to ensure that he stayed in his father’s good books, Prince George finally agreed to marry a foreign, protestant princess called Caroline of Brunswick. To complicate matter further, in 1794 George started a romantic liaison with Frances Villiers, the Countess of Jersey, who was strongly counselling him to marry Princess Caroline and get rid of his mountain of debts. Lady Jersey was very keen on retaining her status as his royal mistress, and felt that Caroline of Brunswick was much less of a threat to her position than Mrs Fitzherbert, a lady who he had been in love with for nearly a decade. The question has to be did Prince George really believe that he was already married, and if so was he worried and unhappy that in some people’s eyes he was committing bigamy by marrying another woman? Although how do you divorce someone that you may or may not be legally married to? When the Prince broke off his relationship with her, Maria Fitzherbert fled first to Margate, and then to Marble Hill in Twickenham, ending up in Ealing in the October of 1795.

It is quite safe to say that the Prince’s marriage to Caroline of Brunswick was a disaster, and by 1799 Prinny was once more back in the arms of Mrs Fitzherbert. They lived together in Brighton until around 1807 where Mrs Fitzherbert owned a house called Steine House that had been designed for her by the architect William Porden, and the Prince was building his fantastical piece of Eastern architecture, the Brighton Pavilion. The couple seemed to have had a shaky relationship for the next two years, but it seems that they had finally parted forever by 1811, the Prince having embarked on what would be a 12 year long affair with the somewhat curvaceous Lady Hertford.

Mrs Fitzherbert continued to live quietly in Brighton in Steine House until her death in 1837, and she was buried in the Roman Catholic church of St John the Baptist in the Kemp Town area of the town. One of the big questions asked about Mrs Fitzherbert was whether or not she ever bore the Prince of Wales any children? There were those rumours of her pregnancy at the time of her morganatic marriage, and many people believe that James Ord, who was born in 1786, was that child. James Ord was taken to the United States and became a Jesuit priest there, but left the order to first join the US Navy and then the US Infantry. However, In Maria Fitzherbert’s will there is no mention of a son, but in the second codicil she does make references to ‘two dear children’ who were Mary Ann Smythe and Mary Dawson-Damer. Mary Ann Smythe became Mary Ann Stafford-Jerningham after her marriage and was nominally a niece of Mrs Fitzherbert, and Mary Ann Dawson-Damer was known as the daughter of Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour and his wife Lady Anna Horatia Waldegrave. The Seymour’s son was one of the executors of Mrs Fitzherbert’s will and received a minor bequest from her, and his father has been a lifelong friend and confidant of the Prince of Wales. However, until concrete historical evidence comes to light, the question of whether Mrs Fitzherbert had any natural children with the Prince Regent will remain unanswered. The two women mentioned in her will may well just have been children that she had been very attached to and felt motherly towards, and we perhaps may never know the truth about James Ord either.

So to the world, Mrs Fitzherbert, may have been nothing more than another famous royal mistress, but I think that she sincerely believed that she was the true wife of the Prince of Wales. And although Prinny left her to make a marriage of convenience with a foreign princess, and enjoyed several other mistresses during his lifetime, it does seem that Mrs Fitzherbert was the woman who held his heart and whom he loved until his dying day. After his death in 1830, it was discovered that the recently deceased monarch had kept all of the love letters and correspondence that had passed back and forth between him and his beloved Mrs Fitzherbert, but, unfortunately for us, these undoubtedly fascinating documents were then destroyed. The new king was William IV, a brother of George, who offered Mrs Fitzherbert a dukedom when he came to the throne, to compensate her for all of the trials and tribulations that she had suffered at the hands of his sibling. Maria Fitzherbert turned this honour down stating that ‘she had borne through life the name of Mrs Fitzherbert; that she had never disgraced it, and did not wish to change it’. This was a lady who had done what she did for love and not to gain money or fancy titles; she just wanted to live her life as the beloved wife of her prince.

Image Wikimedia Commons Public Domain

The Gunning Sisters – A Georgian Cinderella Story

When you were younger did you ever dream that one day you would meet a prince, be swept off your feet, and then get married and live happily ever after?  Well, then you may not be too surprised to learn that during the Georgian period two beautiful sisters from fairly humble origins took London Society by storm and then married into some of the most aristocratic families in the land. These two beauties were Maria and Elizabeth Gunning, and their wit, liveliness and good looks captured the public interest and their fame led to them being mobbed when they promenaded in the park and spectators standing on chairs when they were presented at Court.

So how did two unknown girls, lacking in fortune and connections, ever reach these dizzy heights?  The sisters were born around 1733 in Hemingford Grey in Huntingdonshire, the daughters of an Irishman called John Gunning and his wife the Honourable Bridget Bourke.  They were raised in genteel poverty and in 1740 or early 1741 the family returned to Ireland where they rented a house in Dublin and also resided in the ancestral home of Castlecoote House, County Roscommon. As soon as they were old enough it seemed that the Gunning sisters started working in the theatres of Dublin to boost the family income, which was very unusual for daughters of the gentry during the Georgian period, as it was widely assumed that most actresses were also courtesans.

However, in 1748 they were still regarded as respectable enough to be invited to a ball hosted at Dublin Castle by Viscountess Petersham.  It is said that at this point the Gunning sisters were so impecunious that they could not even afford to buy suitable ball gowns for the occasion, and that they were rescued by a theatre manager called Tom Sheridan who lent them a Lady Macbeth and a Juliet costume to wear to the dance. At some point during the ball they were presented the Earl of Harrington, who was the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and they made such a good impression on this noble personage that in 1750 he granted their mother a generous pension.

On receipt of her pension their mother immediately swept the Gunning sisters back to England and their house in Huntingdon, where they entered local Society.  The two beautiful girls were an instant hit at nearby Assemblies and balls, and soon their fame had even spread as far as London. They soon moved to the capital, where their celebrity continued to grow, taking Polite Society by storm.  They were even accorded the honour of being presented at Court in December, 1750, an event which was even chronicled in the newspapers of the day.

The Gunning sisters were much courted and admired, and in January 1752 Elizabeth Gunning was introduced to the Duke of Hamilton.  This fateful meeting led to a whirlwind courtship and at a St Valentine’s Day party in Bedford House the Duke threw caution to the wind and demanded that a local parson marry them then and there.  The parson refused as the Duke of Hamilton had not procured a licence and the banns had not been called.  Undeterred by this setback, the Duke took his bride-to-be to the Mayfair Chapel, where they were married without a licence and with a ring taken from a bed curtain.  These ceremonies were known as ‘clandestine marriages’ and although regarded as somewhat improper were legally binding and valid.

As Duchess of Hamilton, Elizabeth Gunning bore three children, but unfortunately the Duke passed away in 1758.  She had not lost her allure, however, and attracted the attention of the Duke of Bridgewater, and entered into an engagement with this illustrious gentleman.  However, for reasons that are not known, the engagement was terminated, and in 1759 she married John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne.  In 1770 Elizabeth Gunning became the Duchess of Argyll when her husband succeeded to the dukedom, and she went on to have a further five children.  She was a great favourite with the royal family, and between 1761 and 1784 she served as a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte and King George III created her the Baroness Hamilton of Hameldon in her own right. The impoverished Irish beauty had become one of the greatest ladies in the land and she was also the darling of some of the period’s finest artists, being painted by both Gavin Hamilton and Sir Joshua Reynolds.  She lived to the age of 57 and passed away on 20^th December 1790 in her London home, Argyll House and was laid to rest at Kilmun in Argyllshire.

Elizabeth Gunning

In contrast, her sister, Maria Gunning, lived a much shorter and arguably less respectable life.  As beautiful as her sister, Maria Gunning was also well known for being incredibly tactless.  In London Society this tactlessness just added to her popularity, and she even told King George II that the spectacle that she would most like to witness was a royal funeral.  Fortunately George II found this comment amusing, and Maria went on to marry the 6^th Earl of Coventry in March 1752.  The noble couple took themselves off on a tour of the Continent for their honeymoon, taking along Lady Petersham in their train.  The two women did not seem to overly enjoy this trip, and the new Countess of Coventry took a special dislike to the romantic and sophisticated city of Paris.  This might have been because her husband was beginning to show his controlling tendencies, and was refusing to allow her to wear the excessive rouge on her face that was so fashionable in Paris at that time.  As the story goes, the Earl even went as far as wiping her face with his handkerchief when she appeared at dinner with an overly made up face.

When they returned to London, Maria Gunning’s popularity had not waned, and she even had to have her own guard to keep her from being mobbed in the park that was headed by the Earl of Pembroke.  She was not immune from scandal however, as her husband became involved with the notorious courtesan Kitty Fisher, and the two women even clashed over the Earl in public. She was probably no angel either, as it was rumoured that she had an inappropriate romantic liaison with the Duke of Grafton.

But the Countess of Coventry was not to enjoy a long life.  Despite her husband’s protestations, she continued to wear the heavy face make-up that was so fashionable at the end of the eighteenth century.  Unfortunately these cosmetics contained lead and arsenic, which are both highly toxic.  These toxic ingredients would have caused the skin to become highly irritated and break out and would probably have prompted Maria Gunning to have plastered on even more of the make up to cover these skin imperfections.  Continued overuse of the toxic cosmetics eventually caused lead poisoning, which in this case proved fatal, and Maria died on 30^th September 1760 at the tragically young age of 27.

So, it was possible for two unknown and impoverished Irish beauties to capture the hearts of fashionable society and marry rich, powerful men. For one of the Gunning sisters it was unfortunately not a case of happy ever after, but is shows that the rest of us can still dream on. One day our prince just might arrive on his white charger!