beginning of 1789 until 8 August that year when he left on leave and returned to England. He did not return to France and was temporarily replaced by his Embassy Secretary, Lord Robert Stephen FitzGerald (1765–1833; son of James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster), as Minister Plenipotentiary. New credentials were delivered by Dorset's official successor, Earl Gower, on 20 June 1790. Dorset's credentials were terminated on 29 June 1790. There is a story that, as the revolution began, Dorset was planning what might have become the first international cricket tour by forming an England team to play matches in France. His team, said to have been captained by William Yalden, reportedly assembled at Dover on 10 August but met the Duke coming the other way and the tour was cancelled. According to John Major in More Than A Game, "the whole story is nonsense". Dorset had written to Leeds on 16 July and had already warned other British residents to leave Paris so, as Major points out, he would hardly have invited a cricket team to come to France at the time of such a crisis. Back in England, Dorset's public life continued in the post of Steward of the Royal Household. Personal life Dorset was a notorious womaniser. He had an affair with Anne Parsons, the influential mistress of the Prime Minister, who had divorced his own wife for adultery and planned to marry Parsons until he discovered her infidelity with Dorset. Dorset's best-known and most enduring mistress was the Venetian ballerina Giovanna Zanerini, who was the principal ballerina at the King's Theatre, Haymarket, and used the stage name Giovanna Baccelli. Dorset commissioned a painting of her in 1780–81 from Thomas Gainsborough, which is reckoned to be one of Gainsborough's later masterpieces. He also commissioned a painting by Joshua Reynolds and a sculpture showing her nude and prone on a divan and cushions; this is still to be found at Knole. When made Ambassador to France, Dorset even took her to Paris with him, and she danced at the Opera by invitation. (When he was made Knight of the Garter (KG), she wore the blue ribbon of the Garter while dancing.) Dorset and Giovanna had a son together: John Frederick Sackville (1778–1796), who was raised by his father at Paris and Knole after the couple parted in 1789. The Duke was also known for his affair (c. 1777–1779) with