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 Villiers (1759–1827) to the king begging him to suspend judgement on the points raised by the committee's report. The king replied that it was "indispensable" to remove Villiers from his office under the circumstances, but extended his sympathy and suspended judgement on him. The final disaster for Villiers occurred in November, when Princess Amelia died. After her death, Villiers and his wife attempted to blackmail the Royal Family by threatening (in a letter to her doctor, Sir Henry Halford) to release some of her correspondence, much to the shock of her sister, Princess Mary. The family finally moved out of Cranborne Lodge