Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey his "wife", Maria Fitzherbert, with whom he had undergone a form of marriage in a clandestine Church of England ceremony that all parties to it knew was invalid under the Royal Marriages Act 1772. Having encouraged the Prince of Wales to marry his first cousin, Caroline of Brunswick in 1794, Lady Jersey nevertheless set out to make Caroline's life difficult. However, the now Princess of Wales (Caroline) had very little regard for George IV, nor he for her, and after the birth of their child, they lived apart during their twenty-five year marriage, leaving a void Frances and other mistresses,
Villiers family the Boteler and Washington families, respectively. Among the children from Sir George Villiers' second marriage to Mary (née Beaumont, † 1632) were George († 1628), the favourite of King James I of England who was eventually created Duke of Buckingham, and his sister Susan († 1652), who married the 1st Earl of Denbigh. According to Thomson, Sir George Villiers is the ancestor of sixteen British prime ministers from the 3rd Duke of Grafton to David Cameron. In August 1614, then twenty-one-year-old George Villiers became the favourite and lover of King James I of England and remained in this position until