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 executors, Lord Stourton, asked her to sign a declaration he had written on the back of her marriage certificate. It read: 'I Mary Fitzherbert ... testify that my Union with George P. of Wales was without issue.' According to Stourton, she, smiling, objected, on the score of delicacy." Indeed, during her early days in Brighton with the Prince of Wales, his uncle the Duke of Gloucester and other friends believed Mrs. Fitzherbert to be pregnant.