Maria Fitzherbert (cont) Maria was very grateful, but then Lady Hertford became the Prince’s latest mistress, and “used her influence on George to widen the gap between them,” Peskett says. “Apparently their relationship sort of limped on, but not with the passion that it had had previously.” To keep her own affair secret, Lady Hertford forced Mrs Fitzherbert to play the dutiful wife at social events, threatening to take Minney away if she didn’t. Maria told the Prince his latest fling piness of both our lives’. The final breakup came in June 1811, a few months after George had been made Prince Regent. Having been invited to a fête at George’s London residence, Mrs Fitzherbert was told she wouldn’t be seated anywhere near the Prince. Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds had ‘quite destroyed the entire comfort and hap- “That’s how he let it be known to her that he what was at stake for him, what he was risking… didn’t need her anymore, that she was dispensed So that helps us to understand his point of view with,” Peskett says. as well.” “He was very mercurial and led by his heart… After 1811, they wrote to each other ‘occasion- Whereas she seems to have been quite calm and ally, but their letters were confined to practical had her feet on the ground,” Peskett continues. matters, usually money,’ according to Royal Ro- “I think she was a kind of safe harbour for the mances. She lived mainly in Brighton from about tumultuous waves of his personality. George’s 1815, and if she met the King there, they would mother, during one of their ruptures, wrote ‘exchange frosty glances’. It’s frequently said that to her and asked her to make it up with him, the people of Brighton were very fond of Maria, because his behaviour was so bad without her as and this has been suggested as one reason that a steadying influence. George’s later trips to Brighton were mostly “I think she was very strong and stoic. But how spent in seclusion in the Pavilion. must she have felt? To be rejected for other Before George died, in 1830, he ensured that women, and this blowing-hot-and-cold thing he would be buried with a locket containing a they had going on. And, from the time he lied to picture of her. When told of this gesture, Maria her about Fox’s statement having nothing to do was seen to be crying. Steve Ramsey with him, she must have known that she couldn’t With many thanks to Louise Peskett, who really trust him, despite these violent protesta- gives women’s-history themed walking tours of tions of love. That must have really been dif- Brighton during the Fringe. See her website, ficult. But, of course, she would have been aware historywomenbrighton.com. .... 35....