It may be stated here, that of all the children of Frederick, Prince of Wales, George III. can be said to have been the only one happily married. The second son, William Henry, the amiable, assiduous, brave, but not over-accomplished Duke of Gloucester (born in 1743), scandalised Queen Charlotte and the court by a _mésalliance_ which he contracted, in 1766, with Maria, Countess-dowager of Waldegrave. This marriage was not, indeed, especially unhappy to the contractors of it, except inasmuch as they were embarrassed by being obliged for some time to keep it secret, and that when discovered, the royal husband and his noble wife were for a long period banished from court. They resided during a portion of their time of exile in Italy; and at Rome, the Pope himself had so much esteem for the Prince that his Holiness, on one occasion, declined to take precedence of him when their carriages encountered in the streets. The Holy Father drew on one side, and courteously waited while the Prince, in obedience to the bidding of the Universal Bishop, passed on. The children of this union were subsequently acknowledged as the legal heirs of their parents. The duke died in 1805. The third son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, Henry, Duke of Cumberland (after the death of his uncle ‘_the_ Duke’), born in 1744, more grievously offended Queen Charlotte by a _mésalliance_ than his brother. He was fierce of temper, frivolous of character, and foppish in his dress. In the year 1770 the attentions of the duke to Lady Grosvenor were so marked, and so ridiculous, that everybody talked about them, except her husband. The lady, when a Miss Vernon, had been first seen by Lord Grosvenor as she and a companion were leaving Kensington Gardens, flying under sudden and heavy rain. He looked at and pitied the shower-bearing nymphs, as Aristophanes styles maidens so molested, and he offered them an asylum in his carriage. Soon after, Miss Vernon was the married mistress of his house; and the union would have been happy had not the foolish prince appeared to disturb it. He speedily contrived to seduce Lady Grosvenor from her duty. He followed her about in disguises, often betraying himself by his fopperies and imbecility, slept whole nights in woods like any Corydon not subject to the infirmities of nature, and subsequently had 10,000_l._ to pay for the ruin he brought to Lord Grosvenor’s hearth. But this guilt did not so much flurry Queen Charlotte as the marriage of the duke in the following year with Mrs. Horton, a widow, daughter of Lord Carhampton, who was much older than the senseless and coarse-minded prince, her husband.