tement of his debts and some assurance that he would
keep within his income in the future. The prince was unwilling to send
details of his debts, and when Sir James Harris tried to persuade him to
please his father by ceasing to identify himself with the opposition and
by marrying, declared that he could not give up "Charles" [Fox] and his
other friends, and that he would never marry. When at last he sent his
father the required statement, it showed liabilities amounting to
L269,000, of which L79,700 was for completing the work at Carlton house.
George was very angry, and the prince finding that his father would not
help him stopped the work, dismissed his court officers, and sold his
stud. There was an open quarrel between the father and son. "The king
hates me," the prince said, and he did not consider how grievously he
had provoked his father.[212]

His friends wished to obtain the payment of his debts from parliament,
but were embarrassed by the report that he was secretly married to Mrs.
Fitzherbert, a beautiful and virtuous lady, six years older than
himself, who at twenty-seven was left a widow for the second time. After
repeated solicitations, unmanly exhibitions of despair, and a pretended
attempt at suicide, he had persuaded her to accept his offer of
marriage, and they were married privately before witnesses by a
clergyman of the established Church on December 21, 1785. This was a
most serious matter, for Mrs. Fitzherbert was a Roman catholic, and the
act of settlement provided that marriage with a papist constituted an
incapacity to inherit the crown, while on the other hand the royal
marriage act of 1772 rendered the prince's marriage invalid. In April,
1787, his friends in the house of commons took steps towards seeking the
payment of his debts from the house. Pitt refused to move in the matter
without the king's commands, and, notice of a motion for an address to
the crown on the subject having been given, declared that he would meet
it with "an absolute negative". In the course of debate, Rolle, a member
for Devonshire, alluded to the reported marriage as a matter of danger
to the Church and state. Fox explicitly denied the truth of the report,
and on being pressed declared that he spoke from "direct authority".
There is no doubt that he did so, and that the prince lied. Mrs.
Fitzherbert was cruelly wounded, and in order to satisfy her the prince
asked Grey to say something in the house which would convey