By George! What a Fine, Upstanding Husband He Makes.

Last week George was having money problems. Can you think of any problems his wife might be having?

For over a year, (1793) the Prince and Mrs. Fitzherbert had been growing ever more distant. I think it would be more accurate to say that the Prince had grown more distant. Or, at least, more insensitive. They were fighting frequently. After one such fight, Mrs. Fitzherbert fled the room with “angry tears.” Said the Prince to a dinner guest who witnessed the altercation, “If she loved and considered me as I love her, we should not quarrel as often as we do.” I don’t think it was humanly possible to give the Prince the sort of uncritical adoration he craved. That didn’t stop him from expecting it, however.

One story illustrates the tender, considerate affection to which the Prince subjected her. One night in Brighton, the Prince and some drunken buddies made their way to Mrs. Fitzherberts home. Being no stranger to these nocturnal visits, Mrs. Fitzherbert “would seek a refuge from their presence, even under a sofa, when the Prince, finding the drawing room deserted, would draw his sword in joke, and searching about the room, would draw the trembling victim from her place of concealment.” Perhaps Mrs. Fitzherbert was just being a good sport and playing along with the “joke” by trembling with fear on cue.

Of course, being the Prince, and moreover a Hanoverian Prince, he saw no reason why being “married” should in any way prevent him from having his fun with the girl of his choice. According to one historian “there had been an unsuccessful attempt on his part to seduce the lovely and tiresomely virtuous daughter of Lady Archer.” Poor fellow! Virtuous girls are such a buzzkill.

He had rather better luck with one Anna Marie Crouch, a singer of Welsh/ French decent with a suitably checkered past. Mrs. Crouch was married to a naval officer. While hubby was away, she fended off lonely nights with the help of an Irish opera singer and actor, Michael Kelly. All pretty run of the mill, affair-wise. What was notable was that, when hubby was home, Mr. Kelly wasn’t asked to leave. I will leave it to your imaginations, gentle readers, what the three of them got up to when Mr. Crouch’s ship came in.

And into this steamy nest of wedded bliss enters the Prince. Three was company; four was a crowd as far as Lieutenant Crouch was concerned. He moved out. His wife gave him a small allowance to get by on and the Prince bribed him handsomely to keep his mouth shut. My God, what The Times would have made of that story! All in all, Lieutenant Crouch received 400 pounds annually for knowing the wrong things about the right people.

It was too good to last for the Prince. Apparently he made love to Mrs. Crouch only once before moving on to new conquests. Mrs. Crouch returned to the arms of Mr. Kelly for consolation, if she had ever left them, and found time in between bouts of sobbing to count the one thousand gold guineas the Prince gave her to keep HER mouth shut. I’m not sure how much a guinea was worth, but it was gold, and that never goes out of style.

Mrs. Fitzherbert knew about these affairs and others like them. She looked the other way because her social stratum was completely geared toward looking the other way. The crime, for the Better Sorts, was getting caught by strangers. Or worse, the press. Regardless of how The Ladies might feel, regardless of the fire and brimstone raining down from the pulpits, it was a mans world. And men like the Prince were the top of the food chain. Besides, with discretion, The Ladies could behave the same way and no one among the Better Sorts would even blink

Not that Mrs. Fitzherbert behaved like that, She didn’t. And she didn’t like the Prince behaving like that. But men were men. At least that’s what she told herself until she got sick of being the Prince’s doormat.