Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/176



fol., 1567, 1581, 1588, 1598, 1609, 1660, 8vo; another edition in 4to appeared in 1635, an English translation in 1652 (reprinted 1666), 8vo. The translation (with marginalia by Sir Wadham Wyndham, justice, and a commentary by Sir Matthew Hale, chief justice of the king's bench, 1660) was republished in 1635, 1652, 1718, 1730, 1755, 4to, and 1794, 8vo.  'L'Office et Auctoritie de Justices de Peace,' apparently first published by Tottell in the original French in 1583, 8vo, with additions, by R. Crompton, republished in 1593, 1606, and 1617, 4to. An English translation had, however, appeared in 1538, 8vo, which was frequently reprinted under the title of 'The Newe Booke of Justices of Peas made by A.F., Judge, lately translated out of Frenche into English.' The last edition of the translation seems to have appeared in 1594.  'L'Office de Viconts Bailiffes, Escheators, Constables, Coroners,' London, 1538. This treatise was translated and published in the same volume with the translation of the work on justices of the peace, in 1547, 12mo. The original was also republished along with the original of the latter work, by R. Crompton, in 1583.  'A Treatise on the Diversity of Courts,' a translation of which was annexed by W. Hughes to his translation of Andrew Horne's 'Mirrour of Justices,' London, 1646, 12mo.  'The Reading on the Stat. Extenta Manerii,' printed by Berthelet in 1539.



FITZHERBERT, MARIA ANNE (1756–1837), wife of George IV, born in July 1756, was the youngest daughter of Walter Smythe, esq., of Brambridge, Hampshire, second son of Mr. John Smythe of Acton Burnell, Shropshire. Little is known of her childhood beyond the fact that she visited Paris, and was taken to see Louis XV at dinner. When the king pulled a chicken to pieces with his fingers she burst out laughing, upon which his majesty presented her with a box of sugar-plums. She married in 1775 Edward Weld, esq., of Fulworth Castle, Dorsetshire, who died in the same year. In 1778 his widow married Thomas Fitzherbert of Swynnerton in Staffordshire, by whom she was left a widow a second time in 1781. Mrs. Fitzherbert, with a jointure of 2,000l. a year, now took up her abode at Richmond, where she soon became the centre of an admiring circle. In 1785 she first saw the Prince of Wales (born 1762). He fell, or thought he fell, desperately in love with her at first sight, and on one occasion pretended to stab himself in despair. On this occasion she was induced to visit him at Carlton House in company with the Duchess of Devonshire, but soon after went abroad to escape further solicitations. After remaining some time in Holland and Germany, she received an offer of marriage from the prince, which she is said to have accepted with reluctance. They were married on 21 Dec. 1785 in her own drawing-room, by a clergyman of the church of England, and in the presence of her brother, Mr. John Smythe, and her uncle, Mr. Errington. By the Marriage Act of 1772 every marriage contracted by a member of the royal family under twenty-five years of age without the king's consent was invalid; and by the Act of Settlement if the heir-apparent married a Roman catholic he forfeited his right to the crown. It was argued, however, that a man could not be said to marry when he merely went through a ceremony which he knew to be invalid. According to one account, repeated by Lord Holland in his 'Memoirs of the Whig Party,' Mrs. Fitzherbert took the same view, said the marriage was all nonsense, and knew well enough that she was about to become the prince's mistress. The story is discredited by her well-known character, by the footing on which she was always received by other members of the royal family, and by the fact that, even after the marriage of the prince regent with Caroline of Brunswick, she was advised by her own church (Roman catholic) that she might lawfully live with him. Nobody seems to have thought the worse of her; she was received in the best society, and was treated by the prince at all events as if she was his wife.

In April 1787, on the occasion of the prince applying to parliament for the payment of his debts, Fox, in his place in the House of Commons, formally denied that any marriage had taken place. It is unknown to this day what authority he had for this statement. Common report asserted that 'a slip of paper' had passed between the prince and his friend; and Lord Stanhope, in his 'History of England,' declares his unhesitating belief that Fox had the best reasons for supposing the statement to be true. The prince himself, however, affected to be highly indignant. The next time he saw Mrs. Fitzherbert he went up to her with the words, 'What do you