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 became a mistress of King Charles II of England, by whom she had five children. The Villiers family had been settled at Brooksby, Leicestershire, since at least 1235. In the early 13th century the tenant of Brooksby, Gilbert de Seis, married a member of the Villiers family, a line of minor gentry of Norman descent. The estate remained in Villiers hands for the next 500 years. At this time, Brooksby consisted of the hall, the nearby Church of St Michael and All Angels, a small number of peasants' houses and a field system with common land. In the 16th century,