Robert Fielding

Robert Fielding (or Feilding; also nicknamed Beau Fielding; 1650/51 – 12 May 1712) was an English bigamist and rake in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He was known as a handsome womanizer at the royal court of King Charles II, where he was given the nicknames "Beau" and "Handsom Fielding", and later became the bigamous husband of his former mistress, Barbara Villiers, the first Duchess of Cleveland.

Fielding was born in Solihull, Warwickshire, to George Fielding, a kinsman of the Earl of Denbigh. There is no record of his mother. A minor reference to his early life and character is found in Jonathan Swift's Miscellaneous and autobiographical pieces, fragments and marginalia, which reports that Fielding married Mary, daughter and heiress of Barnham Swift, Viscount Carlingford. Swift recalls that she "brought him a considerable estatte in Yorkshire, which he squandered away, but had no children." His second wife was the twice-widowed Margaret Burke, daughter of Ulick Burke, the first Marquess of Clanricarde.

Following the death of Charles II in 1685, Fielding became a loyal supporter of King James II and the Roman Catholic cause. James gave him a regiment, and while in Ireland, Fielding became an MP for Gowran, County Kilkenny in the 1689 Patriot Parliament. With his regiment, he is said to have put down a Protestant riot. After the Glorious Revolution and James' forced abdication, Fielding travelled to Paris with the exiled king, before returning to England, where he was imprisoned at Newgate as a Jacobite in 1696. After securing a pardon the following year, he led an ostentatious lifestyle, leading a life filled with gambling, wealthy mistresses and duels. At the age of 50, Fielding was involved in a duel with a barrister named Fulwood, who drew first and injured his opponent. While Fulwood left triumphantly for Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, Fielding showed his injuries to the public, hoping to arouse some compassion. Instead, as Swift recorded: "[h]e was run into his breast, which he opened, and shewed [sic] to the ladies, that he might move their love and pity; but they all fell a-laughing".

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