Maria Fitzherbert

Maria Fitzherbert
Born	Maria Anne Smythe 26 July 1756(1756-07-26) Tong, Shropshire
Died	27 March 1837(1837-03-27) (aged 80) Steine House, Brighton
Resting place	St John the Baptist's Church, Kemp Town, Brighton
Spouse	Edward Weld (July – October 1775) Thomas Fitzherbert (1778-1781) and went through a form of marriage with George, Prince of Wales (1785)
Parents	William Smythe Mary Ann Errington

Maria Fitzherbert (Maria Anne Fitzherbert, born Smythe; 26 July 1756 – 27 March 1837) was a mistress of George, Prince of Wales. The future George IV secretly underwent a form of marriage with her when he was 23. Though Maria had been disinherited by her first husband, his nephew (Cardinal Weld) persuaded Pope Pius VII to declare the marriage valid.

Early life

Maria Anne was born at Tong, Shropshire. She was the eldest child of William Smythe of Brambridge, Hampshire, younger son of Sir John Smythe, 3rd Baronet, of Acton Burnell, Shropshire. Her mother was Mary Ann Errington of Beaufront, Northumberland, maternal half-sister of Charles William Molyneux, 1st Earl of Sefton. She was educated in Paris, France.

Marriages

First marriage

Maria married Edward Weld, 16 years her senior, a rich Catholic landowner of Lulworth Castle in July 1775. Weld died just three months later after a fall from his horse and having failed to sign his new will. His estate went to his younger brother Thomas, father of Cardinal Weld. Maria was left effectively destitute, had little or no financial support from the Weld family and was obliged to remarry as soon as she could.

Second marriage

She married a second time, three years later, to Thomas Fitzherbert of Swynnerton, Staffordshire. She was ten years younger than he. They had a son who died young. She was widowed again on 7 May 1781, inheriting a residence in Mayfair and an annual income of £2,500.

Third "marriage"

Castle Hill Lodge 1814
Pictured in 1814 after improvements by the Duke of Kent this was 'the Italian villa at Castle Bar Hill, Ealing' purchased by Mrs Fitzherbert for 9,000 guineas in October 1795 and sold by her to the Duke of Kent in 1801

The young twice widowed Mrs Fitzherbert soon entered London high society. In spring, 1784, Maria was introduced to a youthful admirer: George, Prince of Wales. She became the most notable royal mistress to the future George IV of the United Kingdom by secretly, and as all parties were well aware, against the law, going through a form of marriage to him on 15 December 1785, in the drawing room of her house in Park Street, London. Her uncle, Henry Errington, and her brother, Jack Smythe, were the witnesses. This illegal marriage ceremony was performed by one of the prince's Chaplains in Ordinary, the Reverend Robert Burt, whose debts (of £500) were paid by the prince to release him from the Fleet Prison.

The 'marriage' was invalid because it had not received the prior approval of King George III and the Privy Council as required by the Royal Marriages Act 1772. Had approval been sought, it may not have been granted for many reasons including, for example, Mrs. Fitzherbert's Roman Catholic allegiance. Had consent been given and the marriage then valid, the Prince of Wales would have been automatically removed from the succession to the British throne under the provisions of the British Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement 1701. See his brother's first marriage, Prince Augustus Frederick, later Duke of Sussex with Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the Earl of Dunmore which took place (twice) in 1793 without the King's consent and produced a son and a daughter but was never recognized.

Character

Portrait of George published by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1785.

Portrait of Mrs. Fitzherbert

Mrs. Fitzherbert was often depicted as the patient, saintly and long-suffering victim of the Prince of Wales. But she was a woman of spirit and spunk who liked an off-colour joke, spoke frankly and was remarkably self-reliant. Like her royal admirer, she was vain, proud and not without a sizeable ego. Maria was not a classic beauty, mocking her aquiline "Roman catholic nose." Her chin was considered too "determined," her cheeks too broad and she had ill-fitting teeth. But she made up for it with her hazel eyes, silky blonde hair and flawless complexion.

Relationship with George IV after his marriage

Maria and the Prince continued to see one another romantically even after the Prince's marriage to Caroline of Brunswick, and the Prince returned to live with Maria in about 1800, but their relationship had ended permanently by 1811. During this time he was also romantically involved with Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey.

Death

Following the death of George on 26 June 1830, it was discovered that he kept all her letters, and steps were taken to destroy them. Architect William Porden designed Steine House, on the west side of Old Steine in Brighton, for Mrs Fitzherbert. She lived there from 1804 until her death in 1837. She was buried at St John the Baptist's Church in the Kemp Town area of Brighton.

Possible children by George IV

Steine House

Some scholars have suggested that Maria Fitzherbert had one, possibly two, children by her marriage to the future king. "In 1833, after the King's death, one of [his] executors, Lord Stourton, asked her to sign a declaration he had written on the back of her marriage certificate. It read: 'I Mary Fitzherbert ... testify that my Union with George P. of Wales was without issue.' According to Stourton, she, smiling, objected, on the score of delicacy". Indeed, during her early days in Brighton with the Prince of Wales, his uncle the Duke of Gloucester and other friends believed Mrs. Fitzherbert to be pregnant.

One suggested child of the Prince and his longtime paramour was James Ord (born 1786), whose curious history of assisted relocations and encouragement has been chronicled; Ord eventually moved to the United States and became a Jesuit priest (but appears later to have married, see article on American Civil War General Edward Ord).

In addition to James Ord, the longterm relationship between George, as Prince and King, appears to have led to more than a dozen claims of children conceived out of wedlock; Hannah Harrison Lowe is a more substantive one of these. These join the many additional catalogued cases of George's liaisons(>75 by A.J. Camp, ibid.), some of which have received further discussion vis-a-vis largely inexplicable financial care given the immediate purported descendant by King George IV or his peers. These lineages include the Herveys (from 1786 liaison with Lady Anne Barnard née Lindsay), the Croles (from 1798 liaison Eliza Crole, which the generally skeptical A.J. Camp considers "fact"), and the Hampshires (from 15 year mistress Sarah Brown).

Plaque at Maria Fitzherbert's burial place in Brighton

The second codicil to Maria Fitzherbert's will outlines her two principal beneficiaries, and includes a personal note, "...this paper is addressed to my two dear children... I have loved them both with the [unclear] affection any mother could do, and I have done the utmost in my power for their interests and comfort..." Their married names were Mary Ann Stafford-Jerningham and Mary Georgina Emma Dawson-Damer. Mary Ann Jerningham was nominally Maria's 'niece', and was raised as Mary Ann Smythe. Mary Dawson-Damer was nominally the daughter of Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour and Lady Anna Horatia Waldegrave. Hugh Seymour had been a close associate of George IV since their youth, and Hugh's son George Francis Seymour was an executor and minor beneficiary of Maria's will. There is no evidence that either of these women were the natural children of Maria Fitzherbert - indeed the reference to 'the affection any mother could do' (with stress on mother) could indicate she only saw herself as a mother-figure to them, and no more. The will makes no reference to any sons, though this observation must be seen its historic context; of the ten illegitimate children of Dorothea Jordan, Irish actress and mistress of 20 years to the Duke of Clarence, later King William IV of the United Kingdom, care for the five boys was initially assumed by King William and his households, and custody and care for the girls given to Jordan.

Notably, any such historical claim of descent is accompanied by controversy, and many of the preceding have been challenged. Given the early and childless death of Princess Charlotte, should the Ord or Lowe links be substantiated, the line descended through them would join the list of claimed surviving descendants of King George IV.

In film

• The Man in Grey (1943) - Nora Swinburne
• Mrs. Fitzherbert (1947) - Joyce Howard
• Beau Brummell (1954) - Rosemary Harris
• The Madness of King George (1994) - played by Caroline Harker

References

• Langdale, Charles (1856). Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert: with an account of her marriage with H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, afterwards King George IV. London: Richard Bentley. OCLC 1044173. 
• Irvine, Valerie. The King's Wife : George IV and Mrs Fitzherbert. – London : Hambledon & London, 2005. – ISBN 1-85285-443-X
• Leslie, Anita. Mrs. Fitzherbert. – London : Hutchinson & Co. Ltd., 1960
• Leslie, Shane. Mrs. Fitzherbert : A Life. Chiefly from Unpublished Sources. 2 Bände. – London : Burns Oates, 1939–40
• Simpson, Geraldine. Mrs Fitzherbert : The Uncrowned Queen, 1971
• Wilkins, W.H. Mrs Fitzherbert and George IV. – London, New York und Bombay : Longmans, Green, & Co., 1905
• Irvine, Valerie (2007) The king's wife: George IV and Mrs Fitzherbert. Hambledon Continuum; New Ed edition ISBN 184725053X
• Munson, James (2002) Maria Fitzherbert: The Secret Wife of George IV. Robinson Publishing; New Ed edition (1 Jan 2002) ISBN 1841196169