The eldest illegitimate son of William IV of the United Kingdom and his long-time mistress Dorothea Jordan, he was well-educated, although his written English was atrocious. Like his siblings, he had little contact with his mother after his parents separated in 1811, preferring to rely on his expectations from his father. He served as an army officer during the Peninsular War and subsequently in India. His father, though proud of his military record, was deeply concerned about his drinking and gambling, vices to which many of William's brothers were prone. He was created Earl of Munster, Viscount FitzClarence and Baron Tewkesbury on 4 June 1831, and made a Privy Councillor in 1833. "Earl of Munster" had been a title held by his father before his accession to the British throne. George, like his siblings, was dissatisfied with the provisions made for him and this, combined with his increasing mental instability, caused a series of quarrels with his father which ended in a complete breach. The estrangement caused the King great distress, but those close to him thought it better that there be as little contact as possible, since Munster's visits invariably upset his father. Even the death of Munster's sister Sophia de L'Isle, the King's favourite child, in April 1837, did not bring about a reconciliation. He gained the rank of major-general in the British Army and held the office of aide-de-Camp to his father King William IV between 1830 and 1837. He held the office of Lieutenant of the Tower of London between 1831 and 1833, was Constable and Governor of Windsor Castle between 1833 and 1842 and aide-de-Camp to Queen Victoria between 1837 and 1841. He was elected president of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1841.
Marriage and children
FitzClarence married Mary Wyndham, daughter of George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, and his mistress Elizabeth Fox, on 18 October 1819. They had seven children:
Lady Adelaide Georgiana FitzClarence ; died unmarried.
Lady Augusta Margaret FitzClarence ; married Baron Knut Philip Bonde in Paris in 1844, died of childbed fever in Katrineholm, Sweden, one daughter.
Captain Hon George FitzClarence ; married Maria Henrietta Scott, had issue. Grandfather of the 6th Earl of Munster and great-grandfather of the 7th Earl.
FitzClarence committed suicide at the age of 48 in London. He shot himself with a pistol presented to him by King George IV when Prince of Wales. His suicide came as no surprise to his family who had long been concerned about his mental condition; his father's biographer attributes it to "a paranoiac sense of persecution." At his inquest, his doctor and a surgeon told the coroner that they believed he was going mad, and in recent years there has been speculation that he suffered from the probably hereditary malady of porphyria which had afflicted his grandfather and several other members of the family. He was succeeded in the earldom and other titles by his eldest son, William.
Works
Memoirs of the Late War: Comprising the Personal Narrative of Capt. Cooke, the History of the Campaign of 1809 in Portugal, by the Earl of Munster, and a Narrative of the Campaign of 1814 in Holland ; An account of his experiences in the Peninsular War
Fahrasat al-kutub allatī narghabu an nabtāʻahā wa-al-masāyil allatī tuwaḍḍiḥu jins al-kutub allatī narghabu al-ḥuṣūl ʻalayhā innamā najhalu asmāyihā wa-al-masāyil fī ʻilm al-ḥarb ; on the art of Islamic warfare, a catalogue list of library desiderata in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hindustani, compiled by Aloys Sprenger and commissioned by FitzClarence.
Meadows of gold and mines of gems, ; by Aloys Sprenger; English translation of the historical encyclopedia by the tenth-century Abbasid scholar al-Masudi dedicated to FitzClarence Earl of Munster. In his preface the austrian orientalist acknowledges the earl's assistance correcting and rendering the Arabic into the English idom, and in the compilation of the notes.
