The Duke's marriage to a commoner, the widow Anne Horton (or Houghton) (1743–1808), on 2 October 1771 caused a rift with the King, and was the catalyst for the Royal Marriages Act 1772 which forbids any descendant of George II to marry without the monarch's permission. There were no children from this marriage. Anne, though from a noble family - she was a daughter of Simon Luttrell, 1st Earl of Carhampton, and the widow of Christopher Horton of Catton Hall - seems to have been rather loose with her favours, given one wag's comment that she was "the Duke of Grafton's Mrs Houghton, the Duke of Dorset's Mrs Houghton, everyone's Mrs Houghton."[7] The marriage between Anne Horton and the Duke of Cumberland was described as a “conquest at Brighthelmstone” (now Brighton) by Mrs. Horton, "who", Horace Walpole says, "had for many months been dallying with his passion, till she had fixed him to more serious views than he had intended."[8] Anne was however generally thought one of the great beauties of the age and Thomas Gainsborough painted her several times.