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Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill
Maria Fitzherbert is a young Catholic widow when George, Prince of Wales, becomes determined to marry her. Their attachment presents an immediate constitutional problem: the heir to the throne is expected to marry a Protestant princess, and under the Royal Marriages Act he cannot contract a lawful royal marriage without the king’s consent. Maria initially resists becoming another royal mistress and even leaves England to escape the pressure.
She eventually returns, and the couple enter a secret marriage whose legal and political status can never match its emotional importance to them. Their relationship unfolds amid the extravagant society of late Georgian London and Brighton, with George III, Queen Charlotte, William Pitt, Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Fanny Burney among the figures surrounding the prince. The novel presents the romance as inseparable from the succession, religion and public duty that make an ordinary marriage impossible.
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