It will suffice to record here that the marriage took place on the 8th of April, 1795, under unseemly auspices. The behaviour of the Prince at the ceremony undoubtedly may be received as confirming the accounts of his aversion to the bride. He confessed to the Duke of Bedford (one of the two unmarried dukes who supported him at the marriage) that he had taken several glasses of brandy before proceeding to it. He must have taken many, for he was so drunk that the two dukes could scarcely keep him from falling. The conduct of the Prince was, of course, the subject of much remark, and it was set down, at the time, not to brandy but remorse--remorse at the idea of that other marriage which he had contracted with the woman whom he undoubtedly did love, if he ever entertained for woman at all a sentiment worthy of that name. Very few days passed after the solemnisation of the ceremony before ‘many coarse and indelicate strictures on the bride’s person and behaviour were currently reported as coming directly from the Prince in every society in London.’ So says Lord Holland; and that noble writer, who pronounces to be a bad and worthless woman--mad, at least, if not bad--a princess whom his party, if not he himself, held up, in the days of her persecution, as a martyr of virtue, goes on to say, that the ill-usage to which the Princess of Wales was exposed at Brighton and elsewhere from the Prince and his mistress, Lady Jersey, was notorious, unpardonable, and so utterly disgraceful, ‘that persons of rank (afterwards indebted to him for advancement in it) have plumed themselves upon refusing to meet him at dinner at my house [Holland House, Kensington], observing that he was not fit company for gentlemen.’ The marriage began miserably, continued miserably, and ended miserably. As Lord Holland observes, neither the Prince’s reconciliation with Mrs. Fitzherbert nor his subsequent intimacies with Lady Hertford and others (although such returns and changes of love were usually accompanied by similar changes and returns of a train of favourites, friends, and dependents), ever softened his hatred to the Princess. When, in 1820, on the death of Napoleon, some officious courtier ran up to him to apprise him of the news which he supposed would be welcome to him, in these words, ‘Sir, your greatest enemy is dead!’--‘Is _she_, by G--?’ was the royal husband’s dignified and pious ejaculation.