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,
George IV of the United Kingdom was bought off with a generous pension when she threatened to sell his letters to the newspapers; Grace Elliott, the divorced wife of a physician; and Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey, who dominated his life for some years. In later life, his mistresses were the Marchioness of Hertford and the Marchioness Conyngham, who were both married to aristocrats. George was rumoured to have fathered several illegitimate children. James Ord (born 1786)—who moved to the United States and became a Jesuit priest—was reportedly his son by Fitzherbert. The King, late in life, told a friend that he had a son who