Marriages and later life
Her life was full of scandal: on 30 May 1767, "much against her will at the age of sixteen",[2] she was married to William Craven, 6th Baron Craven. After thirteen years of marriage, seven children, and affairs reported on both sides, the couple parted permanently in 1780.[3]: 148 She had an affair with Charles Francis Greville sometime in late 1783.[4]
Thereafter she lived in France and traveled extensively on the Continent. She lost contact with her eldest six children, but her seventh child, Richard Keppel Craven, who was four, lived with her.[1]
For a number of years she maintained a romantic relationship with Alexander, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach. During her years at the Ansbach court, Lady Craven formed an amateur theatre at court, which counted the composer Maria Theresia von Ahlefeldt among its members.[5] Princess Frederica Caroline of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the Margrave's wife since 1754, died on 18 February 1791, and Lord Craven died in Lausanne on 26 September 1791. Lady Craven and the Margrave then married in Lisbon on 30 October 1791 and settled in England.
The Margravine was not received socially by certain women, and nor by King George III, and Queen Marie Antoinette when she visited France, the couple lived a full and opulent life in Hammersmith, London, and at Benham Park, Berkshire.
Lady Craven was never legally entitled to share her husband's German rank and title, though on 20 February 1801, she was granted the morganatic title of "Princess (Fürstin) Berkeley" by the last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II.[3]: 135, 183 In fact, Alexander, being the last of his cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern, and childless, had exchanged his hereditary birthright to the appanages of Ansbach and Bayreuth for an annuity of 300,000 guilders from his pater familias, King Frederick William II of Prussia, a month after his second marriage. In England, however, the couple were usually known as the Margrave and Margravine of Brandenburg-Ansbach.[3]: 135, 183
After Alexander's death at Benham Park in 1806, Princess Berkeley moved to Naples. She died at Craven Villa in Posillipo and was buried in 1828 in the English Cemetery at Naples. Her links with the Hammersmith area are commemorated in the names of two roads in the area – Margravine Gardens and Margravine Road. There is a wall monument by Roubiliac to her in St Mary's Church, Scarborough.[6]
Her children were:[7]
,_Margravine_of_Anspach_by_Ozias_Humphry.jpg)
