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 the whig leaders, and sought amusement in an endless round of routs and masquerades, boxing matches, horse races, and drinking bouts. He lavished vast sums on alterations and decorations at Carlton House. He spent 30,000l. a year on his stud. By the end of 1784 he was 160,000l. in debt. He appealed to the king for aid, and talked of living incognito on the continent in order to retrench. The king refused either to help him or to allow him to travel. With every month he became more and more embarrassed. In 1786 he opened negotiations with the ministry for a parliamentary vote of 250,000l. He endeavoured to put pressure on the king by proposing to devote 40,000l. a year, two-thirds of his income, to paying his debts; broke up his establishment, shut up part of Carlton House, and sold his horses and carriages at auction. He lived in borrowed houses, travelled in borrowed chaises, and squandered borrowed guineas. At length a meeting of his friends was held at Pelham's house, and early in 1787 it was decided to appeal to parliament, and accordingly Alderman Newenham, member for the city of London, gave notice of a motion on the subject for 4 May.

The prince's friends were embarrassed by the allegation that, in breach of the Royal Marriage Act of 1772, he was secretly married without the king's consent, and to a Roman catholic. In 1784 he had become acquainted at Richmond with the widow of Mr. Fitzherbert of Swinnerton, Staffordshire [see Fitzherbert, Maria Anne (DNB00)], then a beautiful and accomplished woman of eight-and-twenty. He fell violently in love with her. She resisted his importunities. To work upon her feelings he stabbed himself so as to draw abundance of blood without risking his life, and sent complaisant friends to bring her to see him in this state of despair. She withdrew to Holland, where he persecuted her with endless couriers and correspondence. His ardour passed all bounds. He would go to Fox's mistress, Mrs. Armstead, to tell her of his love, cry by the hour, beat his brow, tear his hair, roll on the floor, and fall into fits of hysterics (see for his use of phlebotomy on these occasions, Memoirs of the Whig Party, ii. 68). At length in December 1785 Mrs. Fitzherbert was prevailed upon to return, on condition that a formal ceremony of marriage should be gone through. Fox, suspecting what was intended, wrote to the prince advising him to have nothing to do with a marriage. The prince replied that he was not going to marry, but on 21 Dec. he secretly went through the ceremony of marriage, by a clergyman of the church of England, with Mrs. Fitzherbert in her drawing-room in Park Lane, in the presence of her brother, John Smythe, and her uncle, Henry Errington. They thenceforth lived together openly, and in the society of his friends, male and female, she was treated with the respect due to his wife. The rumour of this union seriously endangered his chance of obtaining parliamentary assistance in 1787. The leading whigs, headed by the Duke of Portland, had declined to injure their party by espousing his cause. At the meeting at Pelham's the prince denied that he was married to Mrs. Fitzherbert, but Fox alone was eager to support him. Newenham's notice of motion was at once followed by dark hints from Rolle, M.P. for Devonshire, of an inquiry into the supposed marriage. On 30 April Fox, authorised and instructed by the prince, rose to deny that any marriage had been entered into, or form of marriage gone through. To the prince the announcement was of inestimable value ; it encouraged his friends, and disarmed his enemies ; but having obtained his end by throwing over Mrs. Fitzherbert, he found it necessary to pacify Mrs. Fitzherbert by throwing over Fox. Next day he owned to Grey that a ceremony had been gone through, and asked him to say something in the House of Commons to modify what Fox had said, but Grey haughtily declined (, Memoirs of the Whig Party, ii. 139;, Memorials of Fox, ii. 289). He told Mrs. Fitzherbert that Fox had 'exceeded his instructions.' Fox found his mouth closed. To vindicate himself was to charge the prince with lying, and for a whole year he refused to speak to him. Mrs. Fitzherbert had to console herself for her husband's slight with the increased respect which she received from the Duchesses of Portland and Devonshire, and all the leaders of whig society. Pitt now saw that no ground remained for refusing assistance which could creditably be brought forward. On 21 May a royal message was brought down, recommending an increase in the prince's income, and promising 10,000l. a year from the civil list; 161,000l. was voted to pay the debts, which amounted to that sum, and 20,000/. for the completion of Carlton House. The prince promised to be more careful in future.

The reconciliation which followed with the king was short-lived. In August the Duke of York returned from abroad, and the prince, in his company and that of Fox, Sheridan, Brummell, and Lord Rawdon,soon fell into new extravagance. Resenting the exclusion from Brooks's of his henchmen, Payne and Tarleton, he founded a new club under the management of his German cook, Weltjie, where boundless drinking and gaming went on. Here, when he was sober enough to play