Noble Blood - What Eye Has Wept for George IV?

Episode Date: September 17, 2019

When King George IV died, his obituary in The Times read: “There never was an individual less regretted by his fellow-creatures than this deceased king." But even George IV once fell in love.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Aaron Menke. Listener discretion advised. Just a few years ago, in 2017, the esteemed British auction house Christies put up for sale a golden pendant encrusted with diamonds. with a tiny portrait of George IV inside. It was George the fourth's bad luck to have lived during the peak of British political cartooning. He didn't actually become king until he was nearly 60. And in his years as a prince-in-waiting and then as regent,

satirical papers became ubiquitous depicting him as a grotesquely overweight and heavy-drinking clown, wearing a military costume that never actually saw a battlefield. But the portrait in the locket that Christie's put up for auction looked very different. It was unrecognizable from the buffoon that George would come to be seen as. This George IV is young and gallant, almost nightlike. His light brown hair is swept across his forehead, his lips are faintly red, and his blue eyes are clear and bright. The locket had been passed down through descendants of Maria Fitzherbert,

the strikingly beautiful woman who captivated George IV so completely that even though it risked his position in the line of succession, he married her in secret. It's ironic that the period of history that bears George IV's name, the Regency, is synonymous with refinement and social constraint when George himself was such a figure of gluttony and excess. He was a drinker, a gambler, a womanizer, and when he finally ate himself to death by rupturing his,

his stomach, his subjects had little sympathy for him. But it's his love story with Maria Fitzherbert that maybe comes the closest to anything in George's life to resembling a Jane Austen romance. The problem with Jane Austen novels, though, is they end with a wedding. They don't tell you about what happens afterward when Prince Charming's nation's status and miserable fatal flaws force the star-crossed couple apart to grow old alone with loneliness and resentments. Now, when Maria Fitzherbert is mentioned in histories of George IV,

it's usually a side note and rarely even by name. She's the, quote, divorced Catholic that the rebellious prince legally married before his real marriage to his cousin, Caroline of Brunswick. Maria is less of a person than just one of the many examples of George's youthful peccadillos, an early scandal that would soon be buried under many, many, many men. The Christie's pendant sold for 341,000 pounds, nearly three times the auction house's highest estimate. But the piece was incomplete. You see, miniatures and lockets at the time were usually produced in pairs, and this pendant was no exception.

Its mate was equally diamond-encrusted, featured inside a small portrait of Maria Fitzherbert. But it would have been impossible for Christie's to have sold the matching set. When George IVth died, he still had Maria Fitzherbert's locket with him, and when the king was buried, it was buried with him, held close beneath his crossed hands. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. The love story between George IV and Maria Fitzherbert began with him seeing her from afar and deciding instantly that he was madly in love with her. He was 18 years old at the time and the Prince of Wales.

She was six years older and married. George was walking down the street with a friend when the carriage containing Maria and her husband, Thomas Fitzherbert, came ambling up the avenue. Maria noticed the prince right away and pointed him out to her husband, who seemed uninterested. But Maria looked back again,

and when she did, she saw that Prince George had run into the middle of the street to chase the carriage. He had fallen behind by then, but he was still looking straight at her. as he faded into the distance. Maria had not married for love, but who does? Thomas Fitzherbert was actually her second husband.

She had married for the first time when she was just a teenager to a man twice her age named Edward Weld, a wealthy landowner who resided at Lulworth Castle. Edward could afford Maria a life of comfort and stability, or at least he could have if he hadn't fallen off his horse three months after their wedding and died. In fact, he died so suddenly after their marriage that he hadn't even managed to sign a new will to provide for his young bride. All of his possessions were instead transferred to his brother, and Maria was left with absolutely nothing.

If she was going to survive, she needed to marry again and quickly. Thomas Fitzherbert, her second husband, was only ten years older than her. He was another landed wealthy Catholic, a tall, athletic, energetic man, but his health was less robust than it seemed. A year into their marriage, his coughing began. Two years into their marriage, he could barely leave the house without heaving over in violent spasms to try to get enough air. A year after that, he was dead. At 24 years old, Maria Fitzherbert was twice widowed. And that was when she met George the fourth face to face for the first time. Maria had been persuaded by her family to leave her morning

behind and go to the opera in London. Just for one night, her uncle Lord Sefton had urged her, it's time you get back out into society. George could hardly believe his luck when he saw the woman from the carriage sitting across from him at the opera house. She had been so beautiful that day on the street that he had half convinced himself that she was a dream. While the opera was still going, he turned to his companion and, in his full voice, demanded an introduction to her. From that meeting, a deep curtsy, a kiss on the hand, George was a man completely obsessed. He wrote letters to Maria and sent couriers to her apartments every day. He asked her to join him at dinners and parties. The woman graciously deferred.

Even as a young man, George already had a reputation for his womanizing, but that wasn't even really the problem here. The problem was that Maria was Catholic, and there were no fewer than three laws in England at the time that explicitly prevented the heir to the throne from marrying someone like her. For George, that was unacceptable. He had not stopped thinking about this woman

since he saw her in the carriage, and he had been in love with her from the moment he touched her hand at the opera and brought it to his lips. And so the impulsive young prince took one of his daggers and stabbed it deep into his side. A surgeon was rushed to the scene and instantly patched the wound to prevent its continued bleeding. But that wasn't what George wanted. Hey, he told the surgeon, go find Mrs. Maria Fitzherbert. Tell her I've stabbed myself.

Also, tell her that if she does not come to my side, I'm going to pull off my bandages. You can't pull off your bandages, the surgeon said. You'll bleed to death. Exactly, George said, chop, chop. And so the surgeon got into his carriage and went to Maria Fitzherbert's house at the end of Park Street and delivered his message to the bewildered widow. Maria knew that getting into a carriage with the male surgeon to go visit the prince would be enough to cause a scandal. And so she agreed, but only as long as they made a stop along the way to pick up a friend of

the Duchess of Devonshire Georgiana Cavendish. Georgiana would be something of an escort to ensure that the visit was beyond reproach. Maria and the surgeon caught Georgiana just as she was leaving her home to go on another social visit. But as soon as she heard the dramatic circumstances of why she was being summoned, she immediately abandoned her plans and joined them. When they made it to Prince George's palace, they discovered that the stabbing wasn't just a made-up story to entice Maria to his presence. as she had been half convinced it was.

He had blood oozing out of his side, dried streaks of it coming down his shirt, a small pool at his feet. Say you'll marry me, the prince said, or I'll rip off my bandages and I'll bleed to death. Georgiana and Maria looked at one another. George, grimacing, began pulling the dressing out of his wound. Okay, Maria said, I'll marry you.

George's pain was instantly forgotten. He bounded down onto one knee and pressed a ring, onto Maria's finger. But just as a reminder, Maria had agreed to that marriage under the threat of imminent suicide. As soon as she and Georgiana were back in their carriage on the way home, the two immediately agreed that a proposal under those circumstances was definitely not binding. The prince wanted to marry her. Maria knew she couldn't marry him. And so, without leaving a forwarding address, Maria packed her things and fled the country. If you thought a little thing like Maria living across the English Channel in France was going to stop George IV from pursuing her,

it feels like you might have forgotten the whole stab himself to get her attention thing. George was a man obsessed. Although Maria had not given him any information as to where she would be living, or even what city she would be in, the prince sent countless envoys along to try to find her as she traveled throughout France and Switzerland. George sent so many couriers from England to France, and so often that the French government became suspicious. In fact, couriers were arrested and imprisoned in France

on three separate occasions on suspicion of espionage. But in truth, theirs was just a mission of love. George sent letters, tokens, trinkets. He promised marriage. He said his father's silly rule against Catholics didn't matter at all. All that mattered was being with the woman he loved. By this time, Marie Lerner, had lived abroad for a year. She was lonely, missing her friends and her life in London.

Besides, she was being plagued by proposals from the French scoundrel Marquis de Beloit, a sort of regency-era Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. For 12 months, George had sent her letters bearing his heart, telling her that he loved her so truly that he would refuse any marriages his father set him up with. His promises were silly, but still, he made his point. For Maria Fitzherbert, a year in exile was long enough. Maria wrote to the prince and said that she would consent to be with him, as long as they were married in secret. If not under the eyes of the law, then at least under the eyes of her God.

Delirious with joy, George accepted. The two were married at Maria's home on Park Street in a small ceremony attended by Maria's brother and uncle. No priest would be willing to officiate, to marry George IV against the orders of his father, the king, was tantamount to treason. And so George found a clergyman in Fleet Street prison and paid off his debts of 500 pounds in exchange for his willingness to perform the ceremony. For the next few years, the pair lived in relative harmony together in Brighton,

living in two separate houses but sharing a view of the sea. The pair became the center of high society, holding intimate, small parties, for only the most selective guest lists. Things were relatively easy for them. With George's father still on the throne, the prince could more or less behave exactly as he wanted to. And he did. He drank, he gambled, he ate excess,

and obviously that took its toll on him. Once, at a masked ball, the prince's friend, the dandy and famous fashion plate Bo Bummel, didn't recognize George. Brummel turned to their friend, Lord Avonlea and asked, Alvinly, who's your fat friend? That's the sort of comment

that's embarrassing under the best of circumstances, but when it's a royal you're insulting, it tends to end in exile. George did love Maria, but he loved gambling too, and less than a decade into their marriage, the prince was out in the humiliating position of needing to ask his father

to help him pay off his exorbitant debts. George owed in excess of 600,000 pounds, what would be tens of millions today. His father, George III, agreed to pay off what his son owed, but on one condition. The prince needed to get married, properly this time, to a Protestant who could give England an heir to the throne. Parliament agreed. George IV would marry his cousin, Caroline of Brunswick, and in exchange, his debts would be paid. Almost exactly 10 years after she had wed the prince in secret,

Maria Fitzherbert received a letter informing her in curt, cold language that her relationship with George was terminated. George's allies in Parliament gave passionate speeches claiming that the rumors that he had ever been married to a Catholic were scandalous lies. The marriage disappeared like smoke on a cold day, evaporating into nothingness. And for the third time in her life, Maria Fitzherbert was abandoned by the man she had married. George met his future bride, Caroline, for the first time on their wedding day. He was not impressed.

He saw her face and then turned to his manservant and said, I am not well. Pray get me a glass of brandy. He spent their entire wedding ceremony drunk out of his mind, and their wedding night passed out in the grate in front of a fireplace. The next morning, he roused himself, brought himself to her bed, and consummated their marriage for the first and only time. Nine months later, their daughter, Princess Charlotte, was born, and from that time on, George IV wanted nothing to do with his wife.

He all but explicitly bribed her to leave England and go travel the continent, which she did. They both acknowledged that their marriage would be forever loveless and that the best they could do under the circumstances was to live separate lives. Only days after his daughter was born and his wife had left the country, George began dreaming yet again of the woman he had lost, Maria Fitzherbert. He wrote a new will, bequeathing all-worldly property to my Maria Fitzherbert, my wife, the wife of my heart, and soul. Though she cannot avail herself publicly of that name,

still such she is in the eyes of heaven, was, is, and ever will such be in mine. But Maria was not entirely convinced. She had married him, yes, but now technically, wasn't he married to someone else? And George had become famous for his many, many mistresses, actresses and duchesses whose caricatures frequently joined his in the popular satirical cartoons of the day. So Maria turns to the highest authority she could, the Pope. The Pope advised her to reconcile with her husband.

And he also made it clear to her that he, and he and he, and the Catholic Church, still believed her marriage to be legitimate. And so, with the Pope's blessing, Maria and George came together once more, for what she would later describe as the happiest days of their lives. But this was also the period in which George's father, George III, was losing more and more of his faculties. Though contemporaries called it madness, historians now believe he was suffering from a nervous system disease called

porphoria. But whatever you called it, the result was that George III became blind and deaf, speaking nonsense and suffering from increasingly severe dementia until he completely lost track of reality. George IV had been acting as an unofficial regent for his father for many years, but the severity of his father's decline led Parliament to making that role official. To celebrate his new position, George threw a party at Carlton House. for the most esteemed guests in the country. Maria entered the dining room to find that she had not been set a place at the table. Prompted by his royal peers, the laughing George IV called her Mrs. Fitzherbert

and said that she would have to sit according to her rank. She had tolerated the affairs and the drinking, the gambling and the excessive eating. But that night, she had reached the point at which she could take no more humiliation. Maria Fitzherbert left the party and never returned to George V. Fourth's home. Eventually, King George III died and the prince ascended to his throne in earnest. When he spoke of Maria, it was with biting malice and hatred, repeating the claims that had been made in front of Parliament, that their marriage was just a sham all along.

His feelings for Caroline, though, were, if anything, worse. When George was being coronated, Caroline had traveled back from the conference, in order to be crowned queen, only to have the doors of Westminster Abbey literally shut in her face. The queen stood fuming against a line of soldiers, holding bayonets under her chin, refusing her entry. Though the population tended to side with her in the press over her lush of a husband, the scene left them laughing and jeering. The uncrowned queen humiliated, retreated, and died three weeks later. She was buried under the inscription,

Here lies Caroline, the injured queen of England. For the rest of his life, George IV lived alone with his mistresses and his demons. His weight reached nearly 300 pounds, and he enlisted a thick corset to try to contain his 50-inch waist whenever he was getting his portrait taken. The king became addicted to laudanum, opium drops in alcohol, after it was prescribed for bladder pain. By the end of his last,

George was taking over a hundred drops of laudanum per day in order to get through his state duties. He suffered from gout and dropsy, but he continued to eat, gorging himself on breakfast that consisted of a pigeon and beef steak pie, a bottle of mazel, a glass of dry champagne, two glasses of port, and a glass of brandy. And then, of course, came his doses of laudanum. In short, he was approaching the end. And that was when he wrote to Maria Fitzherbert, with the same meaning. message he had sent so many years ago.

Please come to me. Death is near. But in Maria's life, there had been far too many messages from George threatening death. She didn't believe that the king was really dying, and so, even though she wrote him a letter in treating him to get well soon, she was, truth be told, a little bit insulted that he hadn't bothered to write back. She didn't know that while the king had been dying, he had her unanswered letter clutched under his pillow.

King George IV received an infamous obituary in the times. Of the unpopular king, they wrote, There never was an individual less regretted by his fellow creatures than this deceased king. What eye has wept for him. What heart has heaved one throb of unmercenary sorrow? If he ever had a friend, a devoted friend in any rank of life, we protest that the name of him or her never reached us. But the times was wrong when it came to their claim that no one cried for him.

Unpopular as he was among his people, when the executor of the king's will, the Duke of Wellington, informed Maria that the king requested he be buried with her miniature diamond portrait around his neck. She did what the time had assumed was impossible. She wept. That's it for this episode of Noble Blood, but stick around after a brief sponsor break

to learn more about Maria Fitzherbert. and George the 4th. Everyone, I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo. Woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up-and-coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved.

And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot in luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change.

We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are a number of claims that George IV and Maria Fitzherbert had a secret child together. Although the proof is scarce and circumstantial, the most compelling theory

is that Maria bore a son, who was known as James Ord, born a year after Maria and George's wedding, baby James Ord never knew who his parents were. As an infant, he was whisked away to Spain where he was raised by the British ambassador, Maria's cousin. John and the man he called,

called his uncle later moved to America, where he was brought under the wing of the Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, who also just happened to be a close friend of Maria's. James Ord got married to a woman named Rebecca, and they had a son, Edward Ord. Edward was one of the heroes of the American Civil War. It was his core of soldiers that led the march down to the Appomattox Courthouse to force the surrender of Southern General Robert Ely. When Ulysses S. Grant shook hands with Lee at the McLean House to end the war, Edward Ord was by his side.

For generations, the Ord family has passed along the story of how they might be the mysterious descendants of an illicit marriage between a future king and his Catholic wife. One such ord today, also named James, is an ex-Morman lawyer living in Utah. Like his apocryphal great-great ancestor, this modern ord knew what it meant, to not be able to marry the person he loved. But times and laws change for the better. The day that Utah began legally permitting same-sex marriage, James Ord and his partner, Steve Hemple,

were one of the first couples in the state to legally become husbands. Noble Blood is a co-production of IHeart Radio and Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales and you can learn more about the show over at Noblebloodtales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there.

Yeah, it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to thanks, Dad, on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.