Did King George IV and Maria Fitzherbert have children?

Hello and welcome back. So this week's video is going to be all about whether King George IV of Britain and his mistress slash wife Maria Fitzherbert had some secret children. So George was born on the 12th of August 1762 and was the eldest child of King George III and Queen Charlotte and was heir to the British throne. In 1784 he met the twice widowed Maria Fitzherbert. Maria was born on the 26th of July 1756. Her parents were Walter Smith and Marianne Errington. When she was 18 Maria had married Edward Weld but he died three months after their wedding after a fall from his horse. Three years later in 1778 she married again to Thomas Fitzherbert but he died in 1781. So George and Maria first met in 1784 and when they first met George became instantly infatuated with her and wanted to marry her but Maria done everything that she could to try and put him off marrying her. But soon Maria agreed to marry George but it was only after George had done a load of emotional manipulation on her. In November 1784 four of George's friends turned up at Maria's house and told her that George had stabbed himself in an attempted suicide and that he was claiming that only Maria could save him. So Maria went to see George at his house along with her friend Georgiana Spencer the Duchess of Devonshire and there she did actually agree to marry him. But straight after she accepted the proposal Maria left the country. So whether or not George had actually tried to commit suicide we don't know. He was the kind of person who would probably fake it which is probably what he did. So Maria returned to England in November 1785 and her and George were married on the 15th of December 1785. So their marriage was done in relative secrecy with only a few people knowing due to the fact that their marriage was highly illegal because of the Bill of Rights and the Royal Marriage Act. So Maria was a Catholic and the Bill of Rights 1689 said that any member of the royal family who married a Catholic would automatically be taken out of the line of succession. So that meant that George would not inherit the throne after his father. The Royal Marriage Act of 1772 says that the people in line to the throne of Britain have to ask permission from the monarch to be able to marry and of course George had not done this. So George and Maria set into married life in Brighton and George would actually refuse to go to places where Maria wasn't invited and they would often be seen out and about together. But soon George found himself in a mountain of debt and Parliament only agreed to pay off this debt for him if he made a suitable marriage to his cousin Caroline of Brunswick. On the 23rd of June 1794 Maria received a letter telling her that her relationship with George was over. But during their short marriage did George and Maria have any children? Some people think that they did. In 1833 after George had died Lord Staunton asked Maria to sign a declaration that he had written on the back of their marriage certificate stating that she and George never had any children. Apparently at this Maria smiled and objected on the score of delicacy. So there is one person that people reckon may have been a child of George and Maria's and he is called James Auld. He was born in 1786 and we actually surprisingly know a lot about him and what he got up to. So James emigrated to the United States where he worked as a shipbuilder in Norfolk Virginia. He then went to Charles Country in Maryland where he worked in ship construction. After this he went to Washington DC where he worked on a farm. In 1806 he joined a Society of Jesus but left in 1811 and then he joined the Navy and fought in the War of 1812. He then moved around the US living in Maryland, Michigan and California and he died in 1837. So some people do find it a bit surprising that we know so much about this man and what he done in his life. But then in 1906 King Edward VII gave permission for historian William H Wilkins to open up Maria's vault at Cootes Bank and with this information that was in this vault William wrote a biography about Maria. After the biography was published several people came forward saying that they were descendants of Maria and George. Rebecca Fitzherbert Harris of Kenville New Jersey claimed that she was a great-granddaughter of Maria and George through a son of theirs called Thomas Edward. She wrote to King Edward VII saying that in 1833 Thomas had been sent to the US by his mother because he would be safer there after her death. She said that her family had received an income from an unknown source in the UK for many years. She did request to have access to Maria's papers so that she can lay a claim to her estate but King Edward said that he could not help her with this. It is also claimed by the Wyatt family that they are descendants from George and Maria. It is said that after her death Maria's children was adopted by a Scottish family with the surname Wyatt that the children took on as their own and in 1937 a JG Wyatt and his wife Isabella claimed title to a portion of the Fitzherbert estate. But one of the main things that make people think that George and Maria did have children is Maria's will. In her will there is a personal note which says this paper is addressed to my two dear children. I have loved them both with the tenderest affection any mother could do and I have done the utmost in my power for their interest and comfort. These children are apparently Mary Ann Stafford Jernanham and Mary Georgina Emma Dawson Damner. So Mary Ann was nominally Maria's niece and she was raised as Mary Ann Smith. Smith being Maria's maiden name and Mary Georgina was nominally the daughter of Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour. So Admiral Lord Seymour was a close associate of George and he was also executor and a benefactor of Maria's will. But there is actually no concrete evidence that these two women were Maria and George's children and there is also nowhere in the will that makes any mention to a son. So anyway what do you think? Do you reckon George and Maria could have had children? I personally am unsure. I reckon it could be a big possibility because back then there wasn't really any effective birth control so there was always this chance of becoming pregnant. If they did have children then because of their illegal marriage then these children would have had no right to the throne so they could have been given to other families to raise. But anyway what do you think? Could they have had children? Let me know in the comments below and I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, like and subscribe and I'll see you next time. Bye!