Which future British monarch ‘married’ Maria Fitzherbert in 1785?
Maria Fitzherbert Maria Fitzherbert Maria Anne Fitzherbert ("née" Smythe, previously Weld; 26 July 1756 – 27 March 1837) was a longtime companion of George IV of the United Kingdom before he became king. In 1785, they secretly contracted a marriage that was invalid under English civil law because his father, King George III, had not consented to it. She was a Roman Catholic and so had the marriage been approved and valid, George would have lost his place in the line of succession since the law forbade Catholics and spouses of Catholics from becoming monarch. Before marrying the prince, Fitzherbert had been
Maria Fitzherbert widow's weeds, and to dress her servants in royal livery. Architect William Porden designed Steine House, on the west side of Old Steine in Brighton, for Fitzherbert. She lived there from 1804 until her death in 1837. She was buried at St John the Baptist's Church in the Kemp Town area of Brighton. Some scholars have suggested that Maria Fitzherbert had one, possibly two, children by her marriage to the future king. "In 1833, after the King's death, one of [his] executors, Lord Stourton, asked her to sign a declaration he had written on the back of her marriage certificate.