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Description: | Maria Anne Smythe moved into Brambridge House in 1762, when aged 5 years, on the acquisition of the estate by her father. She married first Edward Weld of Lulworth Castle and secondly, on the death of her first husband in a riding accident within a year, Thomas Fitzherbert, a Staffordshire gentleman, in 1778. During her first widowhood, Maria lived for a while in a cottage at Colden Common. Her second husband died at Nice in 1781, leaving Maria £1000 p.a. and houses in Park Street, London and at Richmond. Occasionally she returned to Brambridge, and in 1782 she endowed the small Roman Catholic chapel which her family had built at nearby Highbridge.
Her life changed in 1784 when she met the Prince of Wales. The next year they were secretly married in her drawing room in Park Street, an illegal marriage under both the Royal Marriages Act and the Act of Settlement. Tangled constitutional issues were raised which threatened the monarchy, and which were compounded when the Prince married Princess Caroline of Brunswick in 1795. The liaison with Mrs Fitzherbert continued until 1811. She died in 1837.
Reference:
Hitchings, Paul, The royal lady at Brambridge, Hampshire Magazine, August 1969, p. 31-32. | Format: | image/jpeg | License: | http://www.sopse.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.exe?a=query&p=gateway&f=generic_sitetext%2ehtm&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&cms_con_core_subtype%3acms_con_text_what=copyright&%3acms_sys_group=%22sopse%22 | Subjects: | Highbridge Mrs Fitzherbert Roman Catholic monarchy Thomas Fitzherbert Edward Weld Prince Regent portrait Maria Anne Smythe George IV Brambridge Brambridge House Catholicism Prince of Wales | Temporal: | start=1810-01-01; | Source: | Sense of place SE | Creator: | R Cooper; J Bell, La Belle Asemblee | Identifier: | http://www.sopse.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | image/jpeg | Go to resource |
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