Dorothea Jordan Dorothea Jordan Dorothea Jordan (22 November 17615 July 1816) also known interchangeably as Mrs Jordan, and previously Miss Francis or Miss Bland, was an Anglo-Irish actress, courtesan, and the mistress and companion of the future King William IV of the United Kingdom, for 20 years while he was Duke of Clarence. Together they had ten illegitimate children, all of whom took the surname "FitzClarence". Dorothea (often called Dorothy or Dora) Bland was born near Waterford, Ireland, on 22 November 1761, and was baptised at St Martin in the Fields, Middlesex, on 5 December of that year. She was the third
William IV of the United Kingdom opposed efforts to bar those found guilty of adultery from remarriage. From 1791 William lived with an Irish actress, Dorothea Bland, better known by her stage name, Mrs. Jordan, the title "Mrs." being assumed at the start of her stage career to explain an inconvenient pregnancy and "Jordan" because she had "crossed the water" from Ireland to Britain. William was part of the first generation to grow to maturity under the Royal Marriages Act 1772, which forbade descendants of George II from marrying unless they either obtained the monarch's consent or, if over the age of 25, gave twelve months'