Mary Robinson (poet) Mary Robinson (poet) Mary Robinson (née Darby; 27 November 1757? – 26 December 1800) was an English actress, poet, dramatist, novelist, and celebrity figure. During her lifetime she was known as "the English Sappho". She earned her nickname "Perdita" for her role as Perdita (heroine of Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale") in 1779. She was the first public mistress of King George IV while he was still Prince of Wales. Robinson was born in Bristol, England to Nicholas Darby, a naval captain, and his wife Hester (née Vanacott) who had married at Donyatt, Somerset, in 1749, and was baptised 'Polle(y)' ("Spelt
English and British royal mistress Barbara Villiers, Mary Davis, Nell Gwyn, Louise de Kérouaille, Hortense Mancini, Mrs. Knight, Mary Bagot (widow of Charles Berkeley, 1st Earl of Falmouth) and Elizabeth, Countess of Kildare. Among these women are both the noble and the common: Charles is the first monarch whose mistresses from the lower classes are recorded. These women provided him with fourteen acknowledged bastards. Barbara Villiers, one of his longest-standing mistresses (fourteen years), was a woman well known for her beauty, as well as her sexual promiscuity and that she had affairs with at least five other men during her tenure as mistress (and it