| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

AlmericFitzRoyScandal

Page history last edited by R H Johnston 15 years, 6 months ago

Was there a scandal involving Sir Almeric FitzRoy?

 

Nora Hough's booklet I Remember You Remember, Blackwater and Hawley, published about 1981, on page 46 says

I recall Sir Almeric ~Fitzroy K.C.B., K.V.C.O., C.V.O. living there with his mother and his daughter..... As a kinsman of the Duke of Grafton he was a descendant of Charles II and probably inherited the Merry Monarch's fascination for the opposite sex as I understand there was a notorious scandal regarding a lady of easy virtue in Hyde Park!

 

The same or a similar story is often told in Blackwater when the FitzRoy family is mentioned, sometimes with the rider that it was as scandalous in its own day as the Profumo affair was in 1963, which ended the political career of the Minister of Defence.

 

But no specific details are given of when this scandal supposedly occurred. Did such an event really happen, or is it another Yateley myth?

 

Certainly, Sir Almeric had an eye for attractive women, for his memoirs frequently record his pleasure at talking to attractive, but invariably intelligent and educated, women at the many functions he attended. But a liaison with a lady of easy virtue in Hyde Park? So far no hard evidence has come to light, though without more details of the date of the event it is hard to start upon the quest for information.

 

If such a scandal had occurred, with an importance according to the more lurid accounts of its significance, would it not have made a significantly adverse impact on Sir Almeric's career as a high ranking Civil Servant? But evidence of this is lacking.

 

Can anyone supply more information which can enable us indentify the events to which Nora Hough referred?


 

The mystery solved - there was a scandal, but almost certainly without any real basis in fact: The online Dictionary of National Biography entry for Sir William states: "FitzRoy was always immaculately turned out, with a keen instinct for social niceties. In October 1922, however, he was fined £5 at Marlborough Street magistrates' court for ‘wilfully interfering with and annoying persons using Hyde Park’ (The Times, 9 Oct 1922). He maintained that he had merely approached a woman under the delusion that she was someone he knew (FitzRoy to Stamfordham, 10 Oct 1922, RA/PS/GV/O1812/2). The conviction was dismissed on appeal, and he was granted costs (The Times, 11 Nov 1922). Though Lord Balfour (lord president at the time of the incident), Lord Stamfordham (George V's private secretary), and the king himself were all supportive, the fourth marquess of Salisbury, who replaced Balfour in October 1922, considered that FitzRoy had been ‘indiscreet, to put it mildly’, and advocated that he should retire after a few months (Salisbury to Stamfordham, 12 Nov 1922, RA/PS/GV/O1812/9). FitzRoy duly left the clerkship at the end of May 1923." (RHJ 10.9.2008)

 

 

 

NEXT --- PREVIOUS

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.