ad promiscuous affairs with women appealed at first
to the popular sense of the romantic. It was not long, however, before
these episodes were trampled down into the mire of vulgar scandal.

One of the first of them began when he sent a letter, signed
"Florizel," to a young actress, "Perdita" Robinson. Mrs. Robinson,
whose maiden name was Mary Darby, and who was the original of famous
portraits by Gainsborough and Reynolds, was a woman of beauty, talent,
and temperament. George, wishing in every way to be "romantic,"
insisted upon clandestine meetings on the Thames at Kew, with all the
stage trappings of the popular novels--cloaks, veils, faces hidden, and
armed watchers to warn her of approaching danger. Poor Perdita took
this nonsense so seriously that she gave up her natural vocation for
the stage, and forsook her husband, believing that the prince would
never weary of her.

He did weary of her very soon, and, with the brutality of a man of such
a type, turned her away with the promise of some money; after which he
cut her in the Park and refused to speak to her again. As for the
money, he may have meant to pay it, but Perdita had a long struggle
before she succeeded in getting it. It may be assumed that the prince
had to borrow it and that this obligation formed part of the debts
which Parliament paid for him.

It is not necessary to number the other women whose heads he turned.
They are too many for remembrance here, and they have no special
significance, save one who, as is generally believed, became his wife
so far as the church could make her so. An act of 1772 had made it
illegal for any member of the English royal family to marry without the
permission of the king. A marriage contracted without the king's
consent might be lawful in the eyes of the church, but the children
born of it could not inherit any claim to the throne.

It may be remarked here that this withholding of permission was
strictly enforced. Thus William IV., who succeeded George IV., was
married, before his accession to the throne, to Mrs. Jordan (Dorothy
Bland). Afterward he lawfully married a woman of royal birth who was
known as Queen Adelaide.

There is an interesting story which tells how Queen Victoria came to be
born because her father, the Duke of Kent, was practically forced to
give up a morganatic union which he greatly preferred to a marriage
arranged for him by Parliament. Except the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke
of Kent was th