The Duke of Gloucester,whom we met at Weymouth as really quite a disreputable man.
Just read his tangled love life from this piece about him from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
In January 1765 his sister Augusta, hereditary princess of Brunswick, had written that ‘William is very much like by the ladies’ but unlike his younger brother Henry Frederick he seems to have avoided amatory scrapes and instead seemed to share the sobriety of George III.
However, at the end of 1764 Gloucester began the ardent courtship of Maria Waldegrave, née Walpole , the widow of James Waldegrave, second Earl Waldegrave. She was baptized on 10 July 1736 at St James's, Westminster, the second daughter of Sir Edward Walpole , at that time MP for Great Yarmouth, a younger son of Sir Robert Walpole, prime minister, and Dorothy Clement . Her parents were not married; her mother, the daughter of Hammond Clement, postmaster at Darlington, had (according to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) been discovered sitting on a dustcart by Catherine, wife of the clergyman Thomas Secker, who declared that ‘she never saw a more lovely creature’ (. Dorothy Clement then became apprenticed to a Covent Garden milliner, who brokered her sexual partnership with Edward Walpole.
Maria grew up with her sisters and brothers at her father's houses at Englefield Green, Surrey, and in London; they were treated by their father's family as if they were legitimate. Their aunt Jane Clement was brought from co. Durham to help with their upbringing. Maria's siblings were Laura , who married Frederick Keppel, bishop of Exeter; Edward, a lieutenant-colonel in the army; and Charlotte who married Lionel Tollemache, fifth earl of Dysart. Their father lived as retired a life as possible, and their uncle Horace Walpole took it upon himself to arrange their introductions into society and their marriages.
On 15 May 1759, at her father's house in Pall Mall, Maria married James Waldegrave, second Earl Waldegrave , a prominent courtier who had been a lord of the bedchamber to George II and governor to the future George III. Horace Walpole regarded her as a great beauty and saw her as a rival to Maria, countess of Coventry; he was pleased to report in June 1759 that Lady Coventry ‘has made a friendship with my charming niece, to disguise her jealousy of the new Countess's beauty’. Although Maria was twenty-one years younger than her husband, the marriage was successful and the couple had three daughters: Elizabeth Laura (1760–1816), Charlotte Maria (1761–1808), and Anna Horatia (1762–1801). They lived at Waldegrave's estate at Navestock, Essex, until Waldegrave died of smallpox in his London house in Albemarle Street on 8 April 1763.
Maria was left a jointure of £1000 per annum and the care of her three daughters; at the time of Waldegrave's death she believed that she was pregnant with his fourth child, who might have been a son, but in August she conceded that this was not the case, recognized her brother-in-law as third Earl Waldegrave, and surrendered to him her husband's signet ring, and with it control over the Waldegrave estates in Essex and Somerset.
‘As she is so young’, Horace Walpole told Sir Horace Mann, ‘she may find as great a match and a younger lover’ and Maria, who took a house near her uncle in Twickenham, exceeded his expectations. Gloucester and Maria were secretly married at Gloucester's house in Pall Mall on 6 September 1766 by her chaplain, Dr Morton. There were no witnesses. Over the subsequent few years Maria claimed as many royal privileges as she could, accompanying Gloucester at social occasions and dressing her servants in approximations of the royal livery. In 1768 Gloucester bought her a house at St Leonard's Hill, near Windsor, and near his own house at Cranborne Lodge which he had acquired on becoming ranger of Cranborne Chase. The attitude of George III to the relationship was ambivalent; he disliked his brother marrying a subject, but was unhappy with his having a mistress. In 1768 the king awarded Maria a pension of £5000 per annum from the Irish revenues, but George regarded her as bad for both Gloucester's conduct and health and arranged a series of continental tours for him beginning in 1769. During these journeys Gloucester acted as an informal diplomatic representative, renewing or establishing personal connections between the British royal family and other European monarchies, including that of Empress Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II, whom he met in Vienna in September 1770. In September 1771 Gloucester visited the British possessions of Gibraltar and Minorca before arriving in Genoa. There, by chance, he met the Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart. A few weeks afterwards Gloucester became seriously ill, with physical symptoms similar to those later suffered by George III. It was during his recovery that he learned of the marriage of his brother Henry Frederick, duke of Cumberland, to Mrs Anne Horton.
Gloucester told George III that the duke of Cumberland's behaviour was ‘inexcusable, and weak beyond measure’ . He returned from Italy in May 1772, following spectacular receptions from Ferdinand IV of Naples and Pope Clement XIV. The disclosure of the Cumberlands' marriage increased the pressure on Gloucester and Maria. She revealed the wedding to her father on 19 May 1772 and when in late summer Gloucester learned that his wife was pregnant, he informed George III by letter on 13 September.
George III immediately ordered that an inquiry be made into the validity of the marriage, the duchess's chaplain having since died. Gloucester successfully ensured that the inquiry was held before the birth of the child to forestall any danger that it could be considered illegitimate. It took place on 23 May 1773, six days before the duchess gave birth to a daughter, Sophia Matilda. Although George III showed more sympathy towards Gloucester than he did towards Cumberland, the duke, duchess, and their children were barred from the royal presence and Gloucester's diplomatic excursions were ended. A struggle to maintain the trappings of royal status and a growing family on his existing financial settlement of £29,000 followed. George III refused to ask parliament to provide for the duke of Gloucester's family, as he would not yet ask for a settlement for his own. Following the birth and death of another daughter, Caroline Augusta Maria , and the return of Gloucester's medical complaint, the family left for the continent.
Their son William Frederick was born at Rome in January 1776. A further health crisis while Gloucester was travelling back from Italy via Trent in 1777 helped repair the breach between himself and George III. The Gloucesters returned home in October 1777 and legislation the following April included a financial settlement for Gloucester's children as well as for the king's. The Gloucesters could once more live in Britain, allowing Maria to supervise her daughters as they reached marriageable age. They were much sought after as brides and were the subjects of a famous painting by Reynolds. Lady Laura married her cousin John, Viscount Chewton, afterwards fourth Earl Waldegrave, in 1782, and was given away by Gloucester; Lady Maria married George Henry Fitzroy, earl of Euston, afterwards fourth duke of Grafton, in 1784; and Lady Anna Horatia married Hugh Seymour Conway, later Lord Hugh Seymour in 1786.
Gloucester now attempted to take up an active military career but George III was unwilling to have his still-disgraced brother in arms during the American war. The king consented to Gloucester's request that he join the Prussian army as a volunteer but this diplomatically sensitive move was rejected by Frederick the Great, ostensibly on grounds of cost. In July 1779 he obtained a copy of French invasion plans which he forwarded to the king; finally his offer of service during the Gordon riots was appreciated and in June 1780 the king received him for the first time in eight years.
Gloucester henceforward spent his time attending to the affairs of his regiment, the 1st foot guards, on which George III was usually careful to consult him. He regularly attended the anniversary service and dinner held at the end of every March by the London Hospital, of which he had been president since 1767; the hospital advertised his presence on invitations, keen to exploit a dutiful royal patron. In December 1780 he wintered for the first time in Weymouth, a resort which he would recommend to George III after the king's illness of 1788–9.
In the early 1780s he began a sexual relationship with his wife's lady-in-waiting, Lady Almeria Carpenter (1752–1809), who was born on 20 February 1752, the eldest daughter of George Carpenter, first earl of Tyrconnel (1723–1762), and his wife, Frances Clifton (d. 1786). In January 1782 Carpenter gave birth to a daughter, Louisa Maria La Coast (d. 1835), who was brought up by Farley Edsir, Gloucester's steward who kept a dairy farm at Hampton Court. Louisa eloped in 1799 with Godfrey Macdonald, later third Baron Macdonald, though they were not legally married until 1803. Gloucester and his duchess, still attended by Carpenter, spent much of 1784–7 on the continent, living in Geneva and Italy, again for both financial and physiological reasons. Before Gloucester's return George III arranged for a governess for his children, Miss Dee, and a pension from the Irish revenues. Carpenter remained a presence. In his Memoirs for December 1788 Nathaniel Wraxall described her as ‘one of the most beautiful women of her time, but to whom nature had been sparing of intellectual attractions’ (Wraxall, 5.201) and the ‘ornament’ and ‘pride’ (ibid.) and hostess at Gloucester House. By the start of the 1790s the duke and duchess had all but separated and Gloucester sometimes restricted his wife's access to their children. None the less, the Gloucesters continued to maintain their household jointly and Carpenter was never allowed to completely eclipse Maria.
Gloucester endeavoured to remain on good terms with his nephews as they reached maturity as well as with George III. In 1796, with the king's support, he negotiated between George, prince of Wales, and Caroline, princess of Wales, in an attempt to save their marriage, with no success. This may have been because he had never enjoyed the confidence of his nephews in the same way as his brother Henry Frederick. He was also more timid than the situation may have demanded. His health remained poor and he died on 25 August 1805 at his home, Gloucester House, Upper Grosvenor Street. At Gloucester's request plans for a public funeral were abandoned by George III and he was buried on 4 September 1805 at St George's Chapel, Windsor. His widow moved to Oxford Lodge, Brompton Road, and died there on 22 August 1807; she was buried at St George's Chapel, Windsor, on 31 August 1807. Lady Almeria Carpenter survived until 5 October 1809.
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