Lady Florence Paget
(1842-1907)
26 October 1860

Volume 2, page 57, sitting number 1526.

Lady Florence Cecelia Paget was the daughter of Sir Henry Paget, 2nd Marquess of Anglesey, and Henrietta Maria née Bagot. Her surprise marriage to the Marquess of Hastings shocked society in 1864.

She was engaged to the popular sportsman and wealthy Lincolnshire squire Harry Chaplin when, only days before the wedding ceremony was due to take place, she took a carriage to Marshall and Snelgrove's on Oxford Street, supposedly to buy a few more items for her trousseau. In fact she walked straight through the store and out of the back entrance, where she was met by the sister of the Marquess of Hastings, Harry Chaplin's best friend. The two women then proceeded to St George's in Hanover, where the Marquess was waiting with marriage licence in hand. Only the night before, the three protagonists in this triangle had shared a box at the opera.

Hastings, a notorious drinker and gambler, died in 1868, four years after his marriage. He had been ruined - according to the Times - 'in health, in honour and in estate.' Two years later, on 9 June 1870, his widow married Sir George Chetwynd. She died on 3 February 1907 at the age of 64.

Chaplin survived his jilting and married a daughter of the Duke of the Sutherland.