slightest degree regard the Prince), he had also opened an intercourse with Lady Jersey, who was not half such a prude as the Duchess, and who was the most shameless of those to whom the heartless Prince had pretended to surrender his heart. With many loves, or what were called such, Mrs. Fitzherbert continued the married sultana. He built for her a residence at Brighton, where she kept up the establishment of a queen--really looked like one, for she was a superb woman--had as brilliant diamonds as Queen Charlotte herself, and was greeted by all the bathing women with the respectful appellation of ‘Mrs. Prince.’ But the Queen had soon to deplore another _mésalliance_. Her son Prince Augustus (Sussex), when travelling in Italy, had become attached to the Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the Earl of Dunmore; and, after a courtship during which the Prince wrote love-letters to the lady that, with respect to style were neither sublime nor beautiful, and with regard to grammar were calculated to make Lindley Murray die of despair, the parties were married privately by an English clergyman, and were re-married, at St. George’s, Hanover Square, on their return to England. Of this union two children were born, of whom the daughter (once known as Mademoiselle d’Este) became the wife of Lord Truro, who, when Mr. Serjeant Wilde, endeavoured to establish the validity of her father’s marriage, and acquired the lady’s hand by way of _honorarium_. The moment the marriage of the Duke with Lady Augusta Murray was first declared invalid by the ecclesiastical court, Lady Augusta separated from her husband. The latter appears to have borne the separation very philosophically, but he did not marry again during Lady Augusta’s life. In his later days, when his brother, William IV., was King, he married the lady who long survived him under the title of Duchess of Inverness. But a marriage of more importance remains to be noticed. CHAPTER X. LENGTHENING SHADOWS.