FITZIIERBERT, MARIA, was the youugcst daughter of Waller Smythe, Esq., of Brambridge, Hants, second son of Sir John Smythe, third baronet, of lishe. Durham, and Acton Burnel, Salop. She was born in July 1756, and lu 1775 became the wife of Edward Weld, Esq., of Lulworth Castle, Dorset, who died the same year. In 1778 ehe remarried Thomas Fitzherbcrt, Eem, of Swinnerton, county of Stafford, but was again left a widow In 1761, when she was scarcely twenty-five years of age. In 1785 she first became acquainted with King George I V., then Prince of Wales, to whom she was privately married on December 21st of tho same year, the ceremony being performed at Carlton Mouse by a Protestant clergyman, iu the presence of her uncle and brother. This union was invalid as to its civil effects, as being contrary to the act which forbade, and still forbids a union between the subject and a prince of the blood royal : while further, the marriage of a royal prince with a Roman Catholic is sufficient in point of law to exclude him from succession to the throne.
Subsequently however the prince contracted a marriage according to the laws of England with the Princess Caroline of Brunswick ; but his attachment to that princess speedily failing, Mrs. Fitzherbert returned to the prince, under the advice of the Roman see, and again lived with him for several years as his wife. The irregularities of the prince however eventually drove her into retirement, and she spent the last years of her life at Brighton, enjoying the respect and good opinion of King George IIL, King William IV., and the whole of the Royal family, and dispensing a large income in numerous charities. She refused the offer of a peerage upon more than one occasion. She died at Brighton March 29, 1837, and was buried in the Roman Catholic Chapel of that town, where a monument was erected to her memory by her adopted child, the orphan daughter of Lady Horatio. Seymour.
(Lord Holland, Memoirs of the Whig Party,1855; Hon. C. Langdale, Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzherbert, 1856.)