About this time she married Fitzhenry, a lawyer, by whom she had a son and a daughter. He also predeceased her. She reappeared at Smock Alley in October 1757 as Mrs. Fitzhenry in Calista. At one or other of the Dublin theatres, between 1759 and 1764, she played Isabella in 'Measure for Measure,' Emilia in 'Othello,' Cleopatra in 'All for Love,' the Queen in 'Hamlet' (then held to be a character of primary importance), Mandane in the 'Orphan of China,' Queen Katharine, and other parts. On 15 Oct. 1765, as Calista, she made her first appearance at Drury Lane, and added to her characters, 9 April 1766, Roxana in the 'Rival Queens.' Returning to Dublin she played at Smock Alley or Crow Street theatres, both for a time under the management of Mossop, the Countess of Salisbury and Aspasia in 'Tamerlane.' Her last recorded appearance was at Smock Alley 1773-4 as Mrs. Belleville in the 'School for Wives.' Not long after this she retired with a competency and lived with her two children. She returned to the stage, Genest supposes, on no very strong evidence, about 1782-3, and acted successfully many of her old parts. She then finally retired, and is said to have died at Bath in 1790. The date and place are doubted by Genest, a resident in Bath, who thinks there is a confusion between her and Mrs. Fitzmaurice, who died in Bath about this epoch. The monthly obituary of the 'European Magazine' for November and December 1790 says: '11 Dec. Lately in Ireland, Mrs. Fitzhenry, a celebrated actress.' Mrs. Fitzhenry was an excellent actress. She lacked, however, the personal beauty of Mrs. Yates, to whom she was opposed by the Dublin managers, and was in consequence treated with much discourtesy and cruelty in Dublin. Her acting was original, and her character blameless. She was prudent, and it may almost be said sharp, in pecuniary affairs.
[The chief authority for the life of Mrs. Fitzhenry is the Thespian Dictionary, a not very trustworthy production. Other works from which information has been derived are Genest's Account of the English Stage; Hitchcock's View of the Irish Stage; Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs; Notes and Queries, 7th ser. v. 372. A notice in Gilliland's Dramatic Mirror is copied from the Thespian Dictionary.]
FITZHERBERT, ALLEYNE, Baron St. Helens (1753–1839), was fifth and youngest son of William Fitzherbert of Tissington in Derbyshire, who married Mary, eldest daughter of Littleton Poyntz Meynell of Bradley, near Ashbourne, in the same county. His father, who was member for the borough of Derby and a commissioner of the board of trade, committed suicide on 2 Jan. 1772 through pecuniary trouble. He was numbered among the friends of Dr. Johnson, who bore witness to his felicity of manner and his general popularity, but depreciated the extent of his learning. Of his mother the same authority is reported to have said 'that she had the best understanding he ever met with in any human being.' Alleyne, who inherited his baptismal name from his maternal grandmother, Judith, daughter of Thomas Alleyne of Barbadoes, was born in 1753, and received his school education at Derby and Eton. In July 1770 he matriculated as pensioner at St. John's College, Cambridge, his private tutor being the Rev. William Arnald, and in the following October Gray wrote to Mason that 'the little Fitzherbert is come as pensioner to St. John's, and seems to have all his wits about him.' Gray, attended by several of his friends, paid a visit to the young undergraduate in his college rooms, and as the poet rarely went outside his own college, his presence attracted great attention, and the details of the interview were afterwards communicated to Samuel Rogers, and printed by Mitford. Fitzherbert took his degree of B.A. in 1774, being second of the senior optimes in the mathematical tripos, and he was also the senior chancellor's medallist. Soon afterwards he went on a tour through France and Italy, and when abroad was presented to one of the university's travelling scholarships. In February 1777 he began a long course of foreign life with the' appointment of minister at Brussels, and this necessitated his taking the degree of M.A. in that year by proxy. He remained at Brussels until August 1782, when he was despatched to Paris by Lord Shelburne as plenipotentiary to negotiate a peace with the crowns of France and Spain, and with the States-General of the United Provinces; and on 20 Jan. 1783 the preliminaries of peace with the first two powers were duly signed. The peace with the American colonies, which was agreed to at about the same date, was not brought to a conclusion under Fitzherbert's charge, but he claimed to have taken a leading share in the previous negotiations which rendered it possible. This successful diplomacy led to his promotion in the summer of 1783 to the post of envoy extraordinary to the Empress Catherine of Russia, and he accompanied her in her tour round the Crimea in 1787. His conversation was always attractive, and among his best stories were his anecdotes of the empress and her court, some of which are preserved in Dyce's 'Recollections of Samuel Rogers' (pp. 104-5). At the close of 1787 he returned to England to
