Maria Fitzherbert, wife of George IV. of England, born in July, 1756, died in Brighton, March 29, 1837. Her father, Waller Smythe of Brambridge, Hampshire, was of an old Catholic family, and she was married successively to Edward Weld of Dorset and Thomas Fitzherbert of Stafford, being left a widow a second time in 1781. In 1785 the prince of Wales, afterward George IV., first saw her, and in December of that year they were privately married by a clergyman of the established church, in the presence of witnesses. The union, being contrary to the English statute, which prohibits marriage between a subject and a prince of the blood royal, was not valid in law. Subsequently the prince contracted a legal marriage with the princess Caroline of Brunswick; but after his quarrel with Queen Caroline he returned to Mrs. Fitzherbert. His excesses, however, compelled her to leave him, and she retired to Brighton, where she passed the remainder of her life, receiving a large pension from the government. -See "Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert," by the Hon. Charles Langdale (London, 1856).