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Neal French – Special commissions

Some years ago at the request of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton we commissioned Neal French to design a pair of figures, using the wonderfully witty and very sharp cartoons of James Gillray, whose original drawings are in the Pavilion archive. Rye Pottery now produce both The Prince Regent and Maria Fitzherbert as extremely accurate 3 d versions of two of the cartoons. “Prinny” secretly married Mrs Fitzherbert against the King and the Privy Council’s wishes in 1785. This marriage was never acknowledged in English law, because not only was she a Roman Catholic, she was also a commoner. As Prince of Wales, George finally had to bow to the King’s wishes and accept a loveless and indeed very unhappy marriage to Princess Caroline of Brunswick in 1795. He then spent the next 24 years unsuccessfully trying to divorce the Princess, going so far as to refuse her admission to his Coronation in 1820.