recorded incorrectly on the marriage certificate as "12th Hussars", a regiment that did not exist at the time. They divorced in 1878 with Isabella as a co-respondent and said to have been paid off by French's wealthy brother-in-law, John Lydall. The divorce could have ruined his career if widely known. Lydall had already paid off French's debts on a previous occasion, and later broke off relations with him when he attempted to borrow money again. Later still, when French's name was seen on newspaper headlines (most likely during the Curragh incident), he was observed to stomp off down the street muttering "sorry fellow, Jack French". Second marriage French married Eleanora Selby-Lowndes in 1880. Eleanore, one of seven sisters known as the "Belles of Bletchley", was somewhat older than he was. His first son John Richard Lowndes was born in Northumberland in 1881. A daughter was accidentally suffocated by her nurse in 1882. His second son Gerald was born in December 1883. Neither Eleanore, nor his daughter Essex (born late 1886, died 1979), were ever aware of his first marriage. French gave away his niece Georgina Whiteway (daughter of his sister Caroline) in 1903 when she married Fitzgerald Watt, French's stockbroker. Watt became, in uniform, his ADC as Inspector-General, then Private Secretary when CIGS, then trusted aide in the First World War. As Inspector-General in the Edwardian period French appears to have been largely separated from his wife, but she appears to have still loved him, and her children sided with her. In 1905, French purchased 20 Park Mansions from Watt as a base in London. He met George Moore, a wealthy American, in about 1909 and in 1910 they took a large house together at 94 Lancaster Gate as a base for partying and womanising. Eleanore did not accompany him to Ireland (officially, as it was too dangerous). From 1922, French re-established relations with his son Gerald, who began writing to defend his father's reputation in the 1930s, and his last publication was The French-Kitchener Dispute: A Last Word in 1960. Gerald French died in 1970. Affair Beginning in January 1915 French had an affair with Mrs Winifred Bennett, the wife of a British diplomat and former mistress of one of his own officers, Jack Annesley, who was killed near Ypres in November 1914. French wrote to her almost daily, sometimes signing himself "Peter Pan" and on the eve of