Parliament any marriage with her would be
illegal. Yet just because of all these different objections the prince
was doubly drawn to her, and was willing to sacrifice even the throne
if he could but win her.

His father, the king, called him into the royal presence and said:

"George, it is time that you should settle down and insure the
succession to the throne."

"Sir," replied the prince, "I prefer to resign the succession and let
my brother have it, and that I should live as a private English
gentleman."

Mrs. Fitzherbert was not the sort of woman to give herself up readily
to a morganatic connection. Moreover, she soon came to love Prince
George too well to entangle him in a doubtful alliance with one of
another faith than his. Not long after he first met her the prince, who
was always given to private theatricals, sent messengers riding in hot
haste to her house to tell her that he had stabbed himself, that he
begged to see her, and that unless she came he would repeat the act.
The lady yielded, and hurried to Carlton House, the prince's residence;
but she was prudent enough to take with her the Duchess of Devonshire,
who was a reigning beauty of the court.

The scene which followed was theatrical rather than impressive.--The
prince was found in his sleeping-chamber, pale and with his ruffles
blood-stained. He played the part of a youthful and love-stricken
wooer, vowing that he would marry the woman of his heart or stab
himself again. In the presence of his messengers, who, with the
duchess, were witnesses, he formally took the lady as his wife, while
Lady Devonshire's wedding-ring sealed the troth. The prince also
acknowledged it in a document.

Mrs. Fitzherbert was, in fact, a woman of sound sense. Shortly after
this scene of melodramatic intensity her wits came back to her, and she
recognized that she had merely gone through a meaningless farce. So she
sent back the prince's document and the ring and hastened to the
Continent, where he could not reach her, although his detectives
followed her steps for a year.

At the last she yielded, however, and came home to marry the prince in
such fashion as she could--a marriage of love, and surely one of
morality, though not of parliamentary law. The ceremony was performed
"in her own drawing-room in her house in London, in the presence of the
officiating Protestant clergyman and two of her own nearest relatives."

Such is the serious statement of Lord Stourto