Lord Edward Fitzgerald----

Lord Edward FitzGerald
@Wikipedia

Edward FitzGerald

(1763-1798)

Irish aristocrat, nationalist

army officer and revolutionary.

Son of: James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster & Lady Emily Lennox, daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond.

Pamela Sims
@Vigee Le Brun

Husband of: Pamela Sims, mar 1792

Former mistress

Lord Edward's personal & family background.

"Lord Edward Fitzgerald was the fifth son of the twentieth Earl of Kildare and first Duke of Leinster. He was a direct lineal descendant of Garret Og Fitzgerald, the last native ruler of Ireland, and, as commander-in-chief of the United Irishmen, in 1798, became an early victim of the treachery of his friends. . . ." (A Grave in Kilmurry)

Born to the Premier Peers of Ireland.
"Lord Edward was born to a great dynastic heritage. The Kildares were the 'premier peers' of Ireland -- the family who had been, by a combination of opportunism and canny marriages, the first recognised members of an aristocracy formed and given legitimacy by the English monarch. Originally banditti from Florence, they were said to have served successively Norman, English and Irish kings, before fighting for Edward III and being given, as a reward, the earldom of Kildare. Settling in Ireland, the Fitzgeralds acquired huge tracts of the country's fertile central flatlands and, over the next four centuries, successfully oscillated between pragmatic gestures of loyalty to the English Crown and spectacular acts of defiance that allowed them to claim a distinct Irish identity. They became Protestants at the Reformation and supported William of Orange against Stuart claims to the English Crown. But despite their accumulating land and wealth, they maintained their links with Ireland's other old families and never deserted Dublin and the Irish parliament for more lucrative and heady pursuits in London and Westminster." (Citizen Lord: The Life of Edward Fitzgerald, Irish Revolutionary)

Royal connections of Lord FitzGerald's parents.
"When he married Lady Emily Lennox in 1747, Kildare had had ambitions to shine in Westminster as well as Dublin. Besides being a beauty and a minor heiress, Emily was a means to the ear of the monarch George II and to the gates of Westminster. Her parents, the second Duke and Duchess of Richmond, were prominent courtiers: the Duchess was Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Caroline, the Duke Master of the Horse and a member of the cabinet. Equally important, her elder sister Caroline was married to one of the fastest-rising stars of the House of Commons, Henry Fox. To underline Kildare's political ambitions, his new father-in-law procured for him a British peerage which carried a seat in the House of Lords. A few days before his marriage, Kildare was created Viscount Leinster of Taplow and given the promise of a dukedom which was fulfilled in 1766 when he became Duke of Leinster." (Citizen Lord: The Life of Edward Fitzgerald, Irish Revolutionary)

Physical appearance & personal qualities.

"Lord Edward was a famously charismatic figure. Thomas Moore in breathless prose recalled the effect of seeing him once striding down Grafton Street: 'Though I saw him but once, his peculiar dress, the elastic lightness of his step, his fresh, healthful complexion and the soft expression given to his face by their long dark eyelashes are as present and familiar to my memory as if I had intimately known him.'" (History Ireland)

Character or persona.
". . . He had a terrific sense of humour. . . He was chatty, witty, charming, a chess player, a fine dancer, handsome, sensual, endlessly fond of women and relaxed in their company at balls and operas. He was also active and energetic---hunting, fishing, fond of the outdoor life. He took to the Canadian winter---skating, snow-shoeing, tobogganing, canoeing. He was also an accomplished linguist. . . . " (History Ireland)

Lord Edward at 29 years old.
" . . . Lord Edward was now twenty-nine, and is described as being 'five feet seven inches in height, a very fine, elegantly formed man, with an interesting countenance, beautiful arched eyebrows, fine grey eyes, handsome nose and high forehead, thick dark-colored hair, brown or inclining to black; as playful and humble as a child, as mild and timid as a lady, and, when necessary, as brave as a lion. . . ." (Temple Bar: 192)

"Lord Edward was a famously charismatic figure. Thomas Moore in breathless prose recalled the effect of seeing him once striding down Grafton Street: 'Though I saw him but this once, his peculiar dress, the elastic lightness of his step, his fresh, healthful complexion and the soft expression given to his face by their long dark eyelashes are as present and familiar to my memory as if I had intimately known him.'" (History Ireland)

Lord Edward the serial lover.
". . . Edward was a serial lover and his life oscillated constantly between profoundly felt attachments and bitter separations---Catherine Meade in 1786, his cousin Georgiana in 1788, Elizabeth Linley, wife of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, in 1791, with whom he had a love-child, and eventually his future wife Pamela in 1792---married after a whirlwind romance. The recoil from these entanglements often sent him on distant adventures---to Canada after Georgiana, to Paris after Elizabeth. And Edward also maintained a long running and affectionate relationship with his French mistress Madame de Levis---an adventuresome grass widow." (History Ireland)

". . . Back in Europe, he had several love affairs, a few mistresses and some casual conquests, gambled and visited the great houses of friends." (NYT)

A dangerous facility for falling in love.
Among his many peculiarities was  dangerous facility for falling in love. He had already had two grades passions: first for Lady Catherine Meade (whom he always called 'pretty Kate'), second daughter of Lord Clanwilliam, and afterwards for a certain G___. . . But G____ proved faithless and married some one else just as he was returning from the silver mines of America, full of joy aqt the thought of seeing her again. . . ." (Temple Bar: 193)

Intense male friendships.
"He was equally quick to form intense male friendships. The African-American Tony Small rescued him from the muddy battle site at Eutaw Springs in 1782. Edward never parted from him for the rest of his life. He struck up intense friendships with the celebrated Indian leader Joseph Brant when he met him in 1789, the equally famous Thomas Paine in Paris in 1792, and his ‘twin-soul’, Arthur O’Connor in Dublin in 1796." (History Ireland)

His lovers were:

1) Catherine Meade.

Lover in 1786.

Daughter of: John Meade, 1st Earl of Clanwilliam and Theodosia Hawkins Magill

Wife of: Richard Wingfield, 4th Viscount Powerscourt.

"The tedium of existence at home had left but one thing to be done. It was an expedient for which Lord Edward's nature fortunately offered special facilities. He had accordingly resorted to it without loss of time. He fell in love. The heroine of this preliminary romance was Lady Catherine Meade, daughter of Lord Clanwilliam, and afterwards married to Lord Powerscourt. Of Lady Catherine herself little is known, and that little chiefly from the letters of her lover, written at a time . . . in the beginning of the year 1786. . . ." (Taylor: 53)

"Dublin at this period was a gay capital (not a dowdy dowager among cities), and Lord Edward, while mixing in society there, met, and fell in love with, Lady Catherine Meade, a daughter of Lord Clanwilliam. Before this affair of the heart had advanced too far, his cautious stepfather, to get him out of temptation's way, hurried him off to England, and persuaded him, as Parliament was then up, to go through a course of gunnery instructions at Woolwich. Lord Edward consented to the plan; yet that, in the midst of his studies, his heart remained in Ireland, is pretty clear from the tone of his letters to the Duchess. 'I am as busy as ever,' he writes in midsummer 1786: 'it is the only resource I have, for I have no pleasure in anything. I need not say I hope you are kind to pretty dear Kate; I am sure you are. I want you to like her almost as much as I do;--- it is a feeling I always have with people I love excessively." (Temple Bar: A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, Volume 61: 20)

" . . . Of Lady Catherine herself little is known, and that little chiefly from the letters of her lover, written at a time when, in the beginning of the year 1786, three years after his return to Ireland, he was parted from his mother, having placed himself at Woolwich with a determination there to pursue a regular course of study. A military career was that to which he still looked forward, and it is plain that he regarded his Parliamentary duties in the light of a more or less irrelevant interlude. . . ." (The Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, 1763-1798: 53)

2) Elizabeth Linley (1754-1792)
Lover in 1791.

Daughter of: Thomas Linley, a composer & Mary Johnson.

Wife of: Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a playwright, manager, patentee, poet, & politician, mar 1772.

Marriage to Richard Sheridan.
"In March 1772 Sheridan eloped with the beautiful young singer Elizabeth Linley. They went first to London, then to France. By arrangement of her father, Elizabeth had been betrothed in 1770 to the elderly and wealthy Walter Long. That betrothal was broken off, and Thomas Linley received a large financial settlement. But the affair provoked considerable controversy in the press and resulted in Foote's farcical and transparent treatment of the events, The Maid of Bath, which had its first performance at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 26 June 1771. . . Elizabeth and Richard were married by a priest in a village near Calais at the end of March 1772. . . On 6 April 1773 he entered the Middle Temple, and on the thirteenth of that month he married Elizabeth Linley at Marylebone Church. . . ." (A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians ..., Vol 13: 307)

Affair's effect on her husband.
"Elizabeth became pregnant and was delivered of a daughter, the child of Lord Edward. The difficult pregnancy and labour were to rob her of her final vestiges of health and she was to succumb shortly afterwards to the tuberculosis that had plagued her since her marriage. It is to the credit of Sheridan that, in full knowledge of the pregnancy’s circumstances, he cared for his wife tenderly and showered her with love and attention in her final months, refusing to reproach her in any way and in fact, seeming only to blame himself." (Madame Guillotine)

Child with Lord Edward Fitzgerald.
"Elizabeth Linley Sheridan was several times pregnant by our subject, Richard Brinsley Sheridan. On 6 May 1777 she delivered a stillborn child. At the age of 37 she had a daughter, Mary Sheridan, born on 30 March 1792 at Cromwell House, Brompton, probably the child of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Elizabeth seems to have engaged in an affair with Fitzgerald in retaliation for Sheridan's years of philandering. Mary's birth sapped Elizabeth's strength and contributed to her death in 1792. Sheridan suffered genuine grief at the loss of his wife, and then was doubly stricken by the death of the infant Mary in October of her first year. Soon afterward Sheridan fell in love with Pamela, the nineteen-year-old daughter of Mme de Sillery by Philippe Egalite, but in December 1792 Pamela married Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Elizabeth Linley's former lover." (A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians ..., Vol 13: 317)

The most beautiful flower that ever grew in Nature's garden. 
" . . . Elizabeth's talent and beauty, praised by many, made her one of the most desirable young women in Bath. John Wilkes described her as 'the most beautiful flower that ever grew in Nature's garden'. She became a magnet to the high-spirited gentlemen of the town, who were attracted by her wit and charm as well as her beauty. Thomas More wrote that she spread 'her gentle conquests, to an extent almost unparalleled in the annals of beauty. Her personal charm, the exquisiteness of her musical talents, and the full light of publicity which her profession threw upon both, naturally attracted round her a crowd of admirers, in whom the sympathy of a common pursuit soon kindled into rivalry, till she came at length the object of vanity as well as of love. Her extreme youth, too, must be removed, even from minds the most fastidious and delicate, that repugnance they might justly have felt for her profession.'" (A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians ..., Vol 13: 328)

3) Lady Georgina Lennox (1765-1846).
Lover in 1788.

"That the possibility of infidelity had begun to make itself felt was apparent, not only in his protestations of changelessness, but also in the credit he took to himself for the fact that, though he had been staying at Stoke, the house of his uncle Lord George Lennox, and had there enjoyed opportunities of intercourse with Lord George's three daughters, he still remained faithful. 'Though I have been there since the Duke went,' he writes, not without some pride, 'I am as constant as ever, and go on doting upon her; this is, I think, the greatest proof I have given yet. Being here has put me in much better spirits, they are so delightful.' And most delightful of all was Georgina Lennox, the youngest of the sisters, then about twenty-one. Giving a description of this niece some six years earlier, Lady Sarah Napier had mentioned that she was considered to be very like herself, which would seem to imply that she was gifted with her full share of the family beauty; and with the wit, the power of satire, and the good-nature with which she was said, even at fifteen, to be endowed, she must have been a dangerous rival to the absent Lady Catherine. A fortnight later than the last letter quoted another was written, which contained a clear foreshadowing of the end, though still accompanied by the protestation of unalterable attachment." (The Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, 1763-1798: 62)

4) Madame de Levis.

5) Pamela Sims
Lover in 1792.

Future wife.

Daughter of: Guillaume de Brixey & Mary Sims

a native of Fogo Island, Newfoundland

Pamela's personal & family background.
"Shortly after, he made a marriage at once ducal and revolutionary. Pamela Sims, as her parents wished her to be called, was the child of the duc d'Orleans, a cousin to Louis XVI and in the line of royal succession, and Mme. de Genlis, his mistress and a memoirist beneath whose pen truth became as malleable as clay. At the revolution, the duke flung aside his rank, became Philippe Egalite and earned the detestation of respectable Europe by voting in the Convention for the death of the King. A year later, he was himself guillotined." (Citizen Lord: The Life of Edward Fitzgerald, Irish Revolutionary)

" . . . To that resemblance is also attributed her conquest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who, objecting to 'blue stockings,' had refused to meet the Genlis party in England, but saw Pamela at a Paris theatre, was immediately introduced to her, was invited to dinner the next day, joined the party on the road, on their expulsion from Paris as emigres, accompanied them to Tournai, and there married her, 27 Dec. 1792. . . " (Wikisource)

First encounter.
" . . . At one of the Paris theatres, Moore tells us, he saw a face, though a loge grillee near him, which struck him at once, not only from its own peculiar beauty, but also from its strange likeness to a lady some months dead. We have no difficulty in guessing this lady to have been Mrs. Sheridan. Lord Edward found that she was no other than that very Pamela of whom he had heard so much, and whom he had resolutely refused to meet. Away went all his prejudices against learned ladies; he was introduced by an Englishman, Mr. Stone, and was never absent from Pamela's side. . . ." (Temple Bar: 193)

Lord Edward & Pamela's wedding.
" . . . His courtship now was very short; the first meeting took place the end of November, and during the first days of December the party migrated to Tournay. Three weeks afterwards Lord Edward's marriage with Pamela too place, the contract being witnessed, among others, by Philippe Egalite. Pamela appears as 'Citoyenne Anne Caroline Stephanie Sims, Connie en France sous la nomme de Pamela, native de Fogo dans l'ile de Terreneuve, fille de Guillaume de Brixey et de Mary Sims.' Here is a new paternity due to Madame la gouvernante's inventive faculty, but in the Irish papers of that date, among the marriage announcements, we find, 'The Right Hon. Lord Edward Fitzgerald to Madame Pamela Capet, daughter of his Royal Highness the ci-devant  Duke of Orleans.'. . . ." (Temple Bar: 194)

"Pamela Sims was the young ward of renowned educationalist and dramatist Madame de Genlis - probably her daughter by the Duke of Orleans (Philippe Egalité, who voted for the execution of his kinsman Louis XVI and was himself executed under the Terror). Pamela had previously, when on a visit to England, been briefly engaged to the widowed Brinsley Sheridan. (His wife Elizabeth had died shortly after giving birth to Lord Edward's daughter, Mary.) In Paris in December 1792, she married Lord Edward Fitzgerald who was to become the United Irish Army's Commander-in-Chief before the Rising. She shared her husband's radical views and took an active part in the revolutionary work of the United Irish Movement." (Remembering the Past: The women of `98)

Julie de Saint-Laurent----

Julie de Saint-Laurent
@Wikipedia

Julie de Saint Laurent

Comtesse de Montgenet
(1760-1830)

Lover in 1790-1818
of

Edward, Duke of Kent

Edward, Duke of Kent

(1787-1820)

Daughter of Jean-Claude Mongenêt, an engineer, & Jeanne-Claude Pussot.

Wife of:
1. Jean Charles de Mestre, Baron de Fortisson, a colonel in the French Army.
2. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent
3. Prince Prospero Colonna

Julie's physical appearance & personal qualities.
Everyone said she was beautiful. She was talented, gentle, and well-bred. In May 1794, Governor John Wentworth wrote from Halifax, Nova Scotia, in a private letter to his friend John King, Under-Secretary of State in London, 'She is an elegant, well bred, pleasing, sensible woman, far beyond most . . . I never yet saw a woman of such intrepid fortitude yet possessing the finest temper and refined manners.' In 1806, a young protege wrote from London to his sister in Quebec, 'She is certainly the most kind, the best natured and the most amiable of all women; the beauties of her mind can only be equalled by those of her lovely person.'" (The Prince and His Lady: The Love Story of the Duke of Kent and Madame de St. Laurent in Georgian Halifax: 2)

First encounter.
" . . . In Canada he also renewed his acquaintance with a French-Canadian prostitute, Madame Julie de St. Laurent. She had originally been procured to provide sexual services for him in Gibraltar in 1790. The Duke's relationship with his 'French Lady,' as she became known to the family, developed into something deeper than a business relationship as they stayed together for the best part of thirty years." (Royal Babylon: 224)

"When the French Revolution began on July 14, 1789, the Fortissons fled France for Geneva, Switzerland. They found shelter in the home of Auguste Vasserot, Baron de Vincy. One night Vincy introduced them to Edward, who was then a twenty-one-year-old officer cadet under training in Geneva." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

Affair with Madame de Sa. Laurent.

"In November 1790 Therese-Bernardine Mongenêt, as Mlle de Saint-Laurent, agreed to join Prince Edward Augustus, the fourth son of George III, then serving in Gibraltar. He had sent an intermediary to France to find "a young lady to be my companion and mistress of my house." She left her current lover, a countryman of her own who calls himself the Marquis de Permangle,  and became Mme de Saint-Laurent, with an hundred names and titles, among them Baronne de Fortisson, a title adopted, it seems, from an earlier lover. She charmed the prince, spurned a bribe to leave him, and accompanied him in the summer of 1791 to his military command in Quebec, beginning a 27-year liaison of great mutual happiness." (Dictionary of Canadian Biography) 

" . . . She was a French woman of dubious provenance, several years Edward's senior, known as Mme de St Laurent, which was not her real name. The Duke had, however, lived with her, it seems happily, since about 1790, but she had borne him no children. Latterly they had for financial reasons lived an almost bourgeois existence in Brussels. . . ." (Albert and Victoria: The Rise and Fall of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: 4)

Castle Lodge Hill, Ealing, 1814

"From Mrs. Fitzherbert, Edward and Julie bought a house at Ealing — Castle Hill Lodge — which later became their favorite home. In London society Edward and Julie appeared openly together. Julie's demeanor was so prudent that her association with Edward never provoked in the press the bitter ribaldry that other unofficial royal liaisons aroused. To discourage questions Julie placed Melanie with some of her own French refugee relatives who were living in London." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

The Duke's love nest with Julie.
"While serving in Canada, the duke took as his mistress a French widow, Madame Julie de St. Laurent (in fact, Therese Bernardine Mongenêt, an actress from Besançon who kept from him the fact she was seven years his senior). . . After his return, the duke lived briefly and extravagantly with Madame de St. Laurent, at his home near Ealing, where he continued to observe a strictly regimented routine involving close daily checks on the domestic bills, and the conduct of his servants. . . ." (Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion: 222)

"Julie became Edward’s chatelaine at 25 Rue St. Louis, a fifteen-room granite house of spare Georgian design. It still stands in the shadow of the Château Frontenac, overlooking the crooked streets of the Lower Town." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

"In the spring of 1792 Edward and Julie rented as a summer home Montmorency House, a graceful wooden mansion by the Falls of Montmorency, six miles east of Quebec City. Today the place is a Dominican retreat and tourist attraction." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

Life near the Halifax Citadel.

"From 1794 to 1800, Prince Edward, his French mistress Julie St. Laurent and Julie's young daughter loved in a fine house on the southwest side of the hill. . . With Governor Wentworth's blessing, the Prince and Julie took over his private lodge in Bedford, and Edward grew so fond of the place that he ordered a major renovation that included a round music room and a heart-shaped pond, named for Julie. They spent most of the summer months at the lodge, and in winter, snow covered roads were no obstacle. Edward would simply order soldiers to shovel a carriage-wide path along the more than eight miles between the Citadel and Bedford." (Harbour Hopper's Best Halifax Stories: 16)

Julie's life with Prince Edward.

"She made her sixth and last transatlantic crossing in August 1800 when the duke left the climatic rigours of North America forever. Over the next 16 years, including some ten months when the duke was governor and commander at Gibraltar, Madame created the “quiet & peaceable home” he valued. At his Ealing (London) estate, Castle Hill Lodge, or in his Kensington Palace suite, the duke’s “beloved companion” arranged intimate dinners, welcomed friends, read in his extensive library, sewed (“she makes the whole of her clothes herself”), or scribbled in her commonplace-book. Frequent visitors were the four Salaberry sons, delighted by her kindness and charm. She and the duke shepherded the youngest, Édouard-Alphonse* (their godson), through his studies and grieved over his death in April 1812 at Badajoz, Spain; he was the third of the brothers to die. Madame also followed with close interest the education at Ealing of Charles-Jean Mongenet, elder son of her brother Jean-Claude; the duke was godfather to Édouard, the younger son." (Dictionary of National Biography)

". . . For three decades he had lived with his mistress, Therese-Bernardine Mongenêt of Besancon, a woman seven years older than he, who went by the name of Julie de St. Laurent. On learning of Princess Charlotte's death, the Duke of Kent reluctantly abandoned his mistress and sought out a suitable wife who would provide him with a legitimate heir. At forty-nine years of age, corpulent and balding, the duke was no longer a prize catch, and his opportunities were thus considerably reduced. . . ."  (Twilight of Splendor. . . : 27)

Madame de St. Laurent's personal & family background.

"Julie, born around 1764 as Therese-Bernardine de Montgenet, was raised in Besancon, France, near the Swiss border in Franche-Comte.The middle child of five born to Claudine Pussot and Montgenet, an engineer in France's department of highways, she had a quiet childhood, although her early childhood would be dominated by the violence of the French Revolution." (Prince Edward, Duke of Kent: Father of the Canadian Crown: 61)

"Her name was Alphonsine Thérèse Bernadine Julie de Montgenet, Baronne de Fortisson. She was born in the late 1760s into the titled Montgenet family at St. Laurent-sur-Mcr in Calvados, France. As a girl she was taken to Martinique in the French West Indies, where her parents owned sugar plantations. At Trois Ilets. Martinique, she attended a convent school. One of her fellow pupils was Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, daughter of a French officer and later the wife of Napoleon. Both girls were reserved by their ambitious mothers for men of rank in France. In their late teens they were shipped home as brides, Josephine for the Marquis de Beauharnais and Julie for her own cousin Jean Charles de Mestre, Baron de Fortisson. Fortisson was a colonel in the French artillery. By him Julie had one child, a daughter named Melanie." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

Julie & husband's child.
" . . . Back in France, she married her cousin Jean-Charles-Andre de Mestro, baron de Fortisson, and in 1789, to escape the Revolution, fled with him and their baby daughter Melanie to the safety of Geneva."  (The Prince and His Lady: 2)

Edward & Julie's 1st son.
"In 1793 Julie gave birth in Quebec to a son by Edward. Though both parents were pleased and proud, the child presented problems. They felt compelled to keep its existence a secret from all but their closest friends. Edward feared that news of an addition to the collection of royal bastards already sired by his brothers in England would intensify the King's hostility toward him. So he decided to put the child out to foster parents. He selected for the foster father a man named Robert Wood, who had served in the Royal Navy as a chief petty officer. Edward secured for Wood the job of doorkeeper at the Legislative Assembly. Thus, while Prince William’s ten illegitimate children by Mrs. Jordan were raised openly in England and married off into the nobility, the first son of Edward and Julie was brought up covertly in a middle-class colonial home. The son was christened Robert Wood, after his foster father." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

Edward & Julie's 2nd son.
"Julie sailed from Quebec City to Halifax in the spring of 1794. During the voyage she gave birth to a second son. Edward, who had sailed from the West Indies, met Julie in Halifax. Taking the child with them, they sailed together for Martinique. In Martinique the child was christened Jean de Mestre, the surname being one of the family names of the Baron de Fortisson. Julie’s mother, the Comtesse de Montgenet, agreed to bring up the baby in Martinique." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

A remarkably successful partnership and its aftermath.

At birth Victoria was only fifth in line to the throne. But in the years before, her father, Edward, Duke of Kent---the fourth son of King George III---had dramatically revised his life when he realized his siblings were not producing heirs and that the throne could someday pass to him and his offspring. He already had a partner, a gentle Frenchwoman named Julie de Saint-Laurent. Edward had ostensibly hired her to sing at a party with his band in 1790, during his first stint as governor in Gibraltar, but she was really brought into his house to share his bed. Despite these unromantic beginnings, and the fact that even if they had married, the king would never have recognized their union, they formed a remarkable partnership, which lasted through postings in Canada and Gibraltar as well as a scandalous mutiny by Edward's troops. But despite the three decades he had spent with the devoted Julie de Saint-Laurent, Edward had come to decide he needed a legitimate wife, one who would enable him to pay off his substantial debts, as princes were given additional allowances when they wed. When his niece, Charlotte, the presumptive heir to the throne, died in childbirth, it also became clear that if he found a younger wife, she might be able to bear a child who could reign over England." (The Prince and His Lady: 2)

Affair's effect of their spouses, families & society.
"In Edward, however, the Fortissons divined a protector. Was he not a prince of the most powerful nation on earth? Determined to develop a friendship with Edward, Julie relied heavily on her beauty. It is not known exactly when Julie, in trying to capture a benefactor, found herself confronted with a lover. But it was certainly very soon after that first meeting in Geneva. To Fortisson. brooding over the cataclysm in France, Julie’s infidelity was but a raindrop in a sea of trouble. Cynically, he shrugged his shoulders and became a mart complaisant." (Julie portrait of a royal mistress @Maclean's)

Affair's end & aftermath.
". . . Retired from the British Army because of a taste for harsh for hard discipline which had provoked a mutiny at Gibraltar, permanently in debt, a bachelor at forty-eight, he lived mostly abroad with his mistress of twenty-eight years, a French-Canadian woman named Madame de St. Laurent. Inspired in 1818 by an offer of an increased parliamentary subsidy if he would marry and produce a child, he ushered Madame de St. Laurent to the door and proposed to a thirty-year-old widow, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg. They married and within ten months, on May 24, 1818, a daughter was born. Eight months later, the Duke of Kent, having made his contribution to history, died of pneumonia." (Dreadnought: 4)

Madame de St. Laurent's previous lover was:

"Philippe-Claude-Auguste de Chouly, Marquis de Permangle.

"By 1786, the twenty-two-year-old Therese-Bernardine de Montgenet had become the mistress of French aristocrat Philippe Claude Auguste de Chouly, Marquis de Permangle. Bankrupted after having all of his assets seized during the Revolution, the Marquis and his mistress travelled around Europe looking for work.  However, by 1790 there was no more money left to support Therese-Bernardine, and the Marquis had to part ways with her in Malaga, Spain. . . . " (Prince Edward, Duke of Kent: Father of the Canadian Crown: 61)