“. . . We have been at the Pavillion both Friday and
yesterday, and Mrs. F. has desired us to
come every night without invitation. . . . Both these parties
have been private and the
Prince equally good and attentive to me
at both. . . . Last night he took me under his arm through the dark, wet garden
into the other house, to shew me a picture of himself. Poor little Lady Downshire push’d herself (tho’
humbly) into our party, but he sent her before with Bloomfield and the lanthorn, and he and I might have gone
astray in any way we had liked; but I can assure you (faithless as you are
about coming back to me) nothing worse happened than his promise of giving me
the best print that ever was done of him, and mine
that it shall hang in the best place amongst my friends.”
Benjamin Bloomfield, first baron Bloomfield (1768-1846)
After serving in the 10th Hussars he was chief equerry, clerk marshal, and private
secretary to the Prince Regent; he was MP for Plymouth (1812-17) and raised to the Irish
peerage in 1825.
Maria Anne Fitzherbert [née Smythe] (1756-1837)
The consort of the Prince of Wales whom she married in 1785 as her third husband; the
marriage was regarded as illegitimate since she was a Catholic.
