Fitzherbert

Fitzherbert, Mrs, a Roman Catholic lady, born Maria Anne Smythe in 1756, to whom, after she had been a second time left a widow, the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., was secretly married in 1785 by an Anglican clergyman. This marriage, contracted without the king's consent, was of course invalidate under the Royal Marriage Act of 1772; but the prince carried his meanness so far as to persuade Fox to deny that there had been a marriage at all, and afterwards denied that he had done so. On his marriage to the Princess Caroline in 1795 the connection was broken off for a time, to be resumed with the pope's consent, and finally broken off in 1803. Mrs Fitzherbert, whose conduct in trying circumstances has been warmly praised, died at Brighton, 29th March 1837. See her Memoirs, by Langdale (1856).