terminated their intimacy. To detail the numerous acts of gallantry of the Prince and his associates would in nowise add to the improvement and enlightenment of the present age; nor is it necessary to give a biographical sketch or even a list of all his companions. His connexion, however, with Mrs. Fitzherbert {266} demands some mention to be made of that excellent lady who received the most cordial kindness and formal honours from the first families of distinction in the land. The Royal Marriage Act, which passed soon after the commencement of the reign of George III., in consequence of the marriage of the Duke of Cumberland with Mrs. Horton, and the Duke of Gloucester with the Countess of Waldegrave, declared that the descendants of George II., except the offspring of such of the Princes, as were married to, or might marry foreign Princesses, were incapable of marrying till the age of five-and-twenty years, without His Majesty’s consent previously obtained; or after the age of five-and-twenty, in the event of His Majesty’s refusal, without the consent of both Houses of Parliament. The marriage, then, between the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert, which Horne Tooke declared did take place, inasmuch as he was acquainted with the English clergyman who performed the solemn ceremony on the 21st of December, 1785, was null and void. Mr. Fox, in the House of Commons, denied that there had been marriage; but his denial was an act of expediency, as, according to the Act of William III., the admitted marriage of the Prince of Wales would have prevented his taking upon himself the Regency of the country, as the people, from his having married a Papist, would have been absolved from their allegiance. Amongst the real friends of the Prince his connexion with Mrs. Fitzherbert was an event of much gratification; for irregular as might have been its nature, it preserved him from the vulgar propensities to which he had been previously prone. Dowers and legacies of two previous marriages qualified her to command all the elegancies of fashionable life, and to perform many noble acts of charity. A separation only took place in 1795, when the Prince was about to marry (for the payment of his debts), the unfortunate Caroline of Brunswick. In such high esteem was she held by the Royal Family that upon William the IV. ascending the throne, he, with his Royal Consort, Queen Adelaide, paid her numerous visits of courtesy. The remains of Mrs. Fitzherbert, upon her decease, 27th March, 1837, were deposited in a vault beneath the Roman Catholic Church, St. George’s Road, where a handsome marble monument, by Carew, has been erected to her memory. Her age was eighty-one.