WORLD'S GREATEST LOVE ROMANCES.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1917, Page 7

WORLD'S GREATEST LOVE ROMANCES.

THE PRETTY WIDOW WHO BE WITCHED A PRIXCE.

In July, 1784, London':, ojes wore dazzled by the appc-irauee of a woman of such radiant loveliness that the soberest eves were turned at sight of her. Even the beautiful (limning si-ters, who had taken London by storm a iTcneration earlier, were not, as the older men declared, so beautiful as this fair unknown. And the sensation she caused was all the greater from the mystery that surrounded her, for no one seemed te know who she was or where sl.e hud !iad come from.

And yet her story wag quite simple. The newcomer was the grand-daughter of Sir .John Smythe,' a north-country baronet. She had already made two trips to the altar, arid as Mrs. fitzherbert, a widow for the second time and well gilded, had come to London at the age of twenty-seven, in the full bloom of her lovciines?, prepared for a third conquest. » KELL HOPELESSLY I.\ LOVE.

It is small wodner that a woman so richly dowered by Nature should soon have a legion of lovers dancing attendance on her: or that that arch oonnoiseur of female beauty, George, 'Prince of Wales, the 'first gentleman' and also one of the handsomest men in Europe, should soon join her retinue of admirers. When and where the l'rince first set eyes 'on the lovely widow we do not know. Some say that it was when she was taking the air one day on Richmond Hill; others, that he first saw her in Lady Sefton's box at the opera. But we know that within a very short time of their first meeting he was hopelessly in love with her, and was her constant shadow. But to the heir to the throne Tvlrs. Fitzherbcrt was no more gracious than to the meanest of her suitors. His ardent words did not bring a single flutter to her heart. Indeed, so far from encouraging her Royal lover, she seems to have treated his advances with marked coldness.

His letters, fifil ot passionate devotion. moved her more than his words. Tb one she answered. "Why should you wish foi mo? There are hundreds of prettier women! Mrs. 0 , for example; you think her pretty! She is indeed divide. and has a husband to shield her from tin rude attacks of envy. You may enjoy her conversation. and she yours, and malice dare not speak. But me, an unfortunate orphan? It, will be cruel to pursue the humble Margherita.''

A CUNNING PLOT. When he vowed that lie would tai<c his life if she would not listen to his suit, she, only laughed in his face and told hiin not to be a ''silly boy." There was no weapon in all his armory which could penetrate his-.indifference; her coldness, her contemptuousness drove him to distraction, which had its climax one day when she was summoned to Carlton House by the news that the Prince had stabbed himself; that his life was in great danger; and that only her immediate presence could save him. It was, however, only after long hesitation that- she at last, obeyed the summons; and, with the Duchess of Devonshire as a companion,, drove to Carlton House, where. Lord Stourton tells us, "she found the Prince pale and covered with blood. He told her that wfthing could induct him to live unless she promised to become his wife and permitted him to put a ring on her finger." The sight of the boy who loved her so passionately—his deathly face, his appealing eyes, the whispered words in which he entreated her to marry him—affected her so deeply that she at last consented; arid thus, in her grief, alarm and sympathy, she suffered a ring of the I Duchess' to be placed by tho apparently ■dying Prince on her hand. Before the next morning dawned, however, reaction and disillusion came. She realised that *he had been made the victim of a despicable trick, and that the niariage into which she had been trapped was but a mock ceremony, of no binding effect. Then her pity gave place to a fierce indignation and, .after writing a leitei of bitter reproach io the Prince, <-he (led to the Continent to find a refua>' from such heartless persecution.

'REFUSED TO ACKNOWLEDGE HER AS HIS WIFE.

When the Prince heard of her flight, l«is grief and rage were uncontrollable. He sent couriers racing all over Europe in search of the runaway, and when they had found her, bombarded her with letters—"pages and pages of passionate appeals, of threats of self-destruction if she remained obdurate."

Such importunity as this, as might be expected, was not without its efl'ect on the U-nder-nearted widow, who, no doubt, had really a warm place in her heart for her impetuous worshipper. She began to relent, and by degrees she was induced, first, to promise that she "would never marry any other man," and finally, that she would give her hand to save the life of such a desperate wooer.

And thus it was that one December day in 1735 the widow and 'Tlorizel" plighted their vows in her Park street drawing-room, a youthful curate officiating for tin; bribe of £SOO, an uncle and brother acting as witnesses, and the Hon. Orlando Bridgman, the Pivnce's equerry, keeping guard outside the door.

For a year or more Mrs. Kitzherbert found her Prince a devoted husband. He surrounded her with luxury and a semi-roval state, and lavished affection on her. There was, in fact, nothing he refused her, except to acknowledge her to the world as his wife."

CRUEL AXD UNTRUE. But "Florizel" could not long be constant to any woman. To every woman, indeed, who crossed his baneful path he proved traitor and coward. When his mountain of debts threatened to overwhelm him and it became necessary to appeal to 'Parliament to pay tlieni and to increase his allowance, he persuaded his friend Fox to declare to the Commons that the report of his marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert was "a monstrous invention, a low, malicious falsehood." Kven this cowardly act of disloyalty Mrs. Kitzherbcrt forgave, as she forgave the many acts of infidelity and cruelty which now became almost every-d»y incidents of her life. So afraid was slm of him that many a time "when she heard the Prince and his drunken companions on the staircase, she would =o.-!; a refuge from their presence nude: tin sofa, when thi> Prince, finding the '-iiv-ing-rcom deserted, would iri" b:> sword ip a juke, arc', search iiv. the rooT,. would at,last draw,-..

trembling; victim from her place of concealment." .Thus for years Mrs. Fitzherbert bore patiently her purgatorial life, even after her husband liad hiccupped out his dnmken -;>ws to Caroline of Uimi.vwklc at the altar; and it was only when the 'Prince crowned his long' sequence of insults and cruelties by lici a scat at a State banquet and contemptuously turning his bac-l; on her, that she decided to leave him for ever. Nineteen years later, alter George had worn his crown for ten ye.i:<, he was, by his own wish, laid to rest "with the picture of mv beloved svife, Maria Fitzherbert, suspended round my neck with a ribbon and placed right upon my lu-art," thus seeking to atone for a life lie had cruelly wrecked.