Dorothea Jordan, Mistress of King William IV of the United Kingdom

by Scott Mehl  © Unofficial Royalty 2020

Dorothea Jordan was the mistress of the future King William IV of the United Kingdom from 1790 until 1811. William was the Duke of Clarence at the time.

Dorothea Jordan; Credit – Wikipedia

Dorothea Bland was born on November 21, 1761, in County Waterford, Ireland, the daughter of Francis Bland, a stagehand, and his mistress Grace Phillips, an actress. She had five siblings:

  • George Bland (c.1758-1807) – married Maria Theresa Romanzini, had issue
  • Hester Bland (1760-1848) – unmarried
  • Lucy Bland (c.1763-1778) – unmarried
  • Francis Bland (c.1765 – ?) – unmarried
  • Nathaniel Phillips Bland (c.1766-1830) – married Phoebe James, no issue

In 1774, Dorothea’s father abandoned his family to marry someone else. He continued to support the family, on the condition that they didn’t use his surname, so Dorothea took her mother’s name, becoming known as Dorothea Phillips. Around this time, her mother encouraged Dorothea to enter the theater, and within just a few years, she began to draw large crowds for her performances. She left Ireland in 1782 while pregnant with her first child, and moved to Leeds. It was at this point that she took the name Jordan. She performed for three years with the York Company, before being lured away in 1785 to move to the Royal Theatre, Drury Lane in London. By then, Dorothea was becoming a very popular performer and could be counted on to bring large crowds every night. It was at Drury Lane that her life would come to the attention of The Duke of Clarence several years later.

During her stage career, and before meeting the Duke of Clarence, Dorothea had several relationships, resulting in at least four children. In the early 1780s, she became involved with Richard Daly, the married manager of the Theatre Royal in Cork, and had a daughter:

  • Frances Daly (1782-1821) – married Thomas Alsop, no issue

Other lovers included an Army Lieutenant, Charles Doyne, who proposed to her but she declined. She went to work for a theater company run by Tate Wilkinson, with whom she also had a brief affair. It was then that she took on the stage name ‘Mrs. Jordan’. After that relationship ended, she fell in love with another actor, George Inchbald, but that relationship also ended in heartbreak.

In 1786, after leaving Inchbald, Dorothea began an affair with Sir Richard Ford, a magistrate and lawyer who promised that he would marry her. This relationship resulted in three children:

  • Dorothea Maria Ford (1787) – married Frederick March
  • unnamed son (1788) – died at birth
  • Lucy Hester Ford (1789) – married General Sir Samuel Hawker, had issue

Dorothea realized that Ford would not marry her, and she ended their affair in 1790.  Soon after that, she began her relationship with The Duke of Clarence, the son of King George III. Her children moved in with her sister Hester, and Dorothea transferred much of her savings to provide for the children’s upbringing and education, in addition to providing them with an annual allowance.

The Duke of Clarence (later King William IV); source: Wikipedia

In 1790, Dorothea was first noticed by The Duke of Clarence (later King William IV) while performing at Drury Lane. They quickly began an affair that would last for the next 21 years. Dorothea moved in with the Duke at his home, Clarence Lodge in Roehampton, and later they moved to Bushy House in Bushy Park, Richmond upon Thames.

King William IV and Dorothea Jordan had ten children. Nine of the ten children were named after nine of William’s fourteen siblings. The tenth child was given William’s middle name Henry. The children were given the surname FitzClarence.

The children of King William IV and Dorothea had an elder half-brother, William Henry Courtney, born around 1788 to an unknown mother, and named after his father whose given names were William Henry. Dorothea cared for William, and she was fond of him and he was fond of her. William served in the Royal Navy from 1803 until 1807 when his ship HMS Blenheim was lost in a gale off Madagascar. Despite an extensive search, no trace of the ship was ever found. 590 men were lost aboard HMS Blenheim, including King William IV’s eldest illegitimate son nineteen-year-old William Henry Courtney.

William ensured Dorothea was well taken care of, providing her with an annual allowance of £1,200 and allowing her to continue performing on the stage in London and around England. Aside from her career, Dorothea was very content to enjoy the family life she had always wanted and kept out of political matters completely.

William and Dorothea’s children married into the British aristocracy and their many descendants include these notable people:

By 1811, William was pressured by his family to find a suitable wife. At the time he was fourth in line for the throne following his elder brother, the future King George IV, George’s daughter, Princess Charlotte of Wales, and his next oldest brother, The Duke of York. William gave in to the pressure and ended his relationship with Dorothea, but again made sure she was very well provided for. He gave her an annual allowance of £4,400 (half of which was designated for the welfare of their children), and she kept custody of their daughters while he retained custody of their sons. The one condition he insisted upon was that to receive that money annually, she could not return to the theatre. This arrangement lasted just three years before Dorothea returned to the stage in 1814, to earn money to help settle the extensive debts of her son-in-law Thomas Alsop. Hearing this, William took back custody of their daughter and canceled her annual stipend.

Dorothea performed for just a year before retiring in 1815. Still in debt, she sold her house and moved to France to escape her creditors, settling in Saint-Cloud, just outside Paris. After losing much of her savings when her eldest daughter and her husband ran up large debts in Dorothea’s name, her health quickly began to decline. Virtually penniless, Dorothea Jordan died in Saint-Cloud, France on July 5, 1816, at the age of 54. She is buried in the local cemetery in Saint-Cloud.

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