Benjamin Bloomfield , 1st Baron Bloomfield Lieutenant - General Benjamin Bloomfield , 1st Baron Bloomfield GCB GCH ( 13 April 1768 – 15 August 1846 ) was Private Secretary to the Sovereign 1817 – 1822 . Bloomfield was born in 1768 , the son of John Bloomfield and Anne Charlotte Waller . and educated at the Royal Military Academy Woolwich . He joined the Royal Artillery and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in 1781 . He served in Newfoundland , Gibraltar , and at Brighton in 1806 , where , as a brevet Major , he was in charge of a troop of the Royal Horse Artillery ( he was also appointed a Gentleman in Waiting in that year ) . In 1814 he was promoted to Major - General . By 1826 he was Commanding Officer of the garrison at Woolwich . He became Colonel Commandant of the Royal Horse Artillery . He was Member of Parliament ( MP ) for Plymouth from 1812 from 1818 , and made a Privy Councillor in 1817 . He was an Aide - de - Camp 1811 – 1814 , was Chief Equerry and Clerk Marshal to the Prince of Wales , and was Private Secretary to the King , Keeper of the Privy Purse , and Receiver of the Duchy of Cornwall 1817 – 1822 . He was knighted in 1815 , and received the GCB in 1822 , and ennobled as Lord Bloomfield in 1825 . He married Harriott Douglas , daughter of John Douglas , on 7 September 1797 . They had a son , John Arthur Douglas Bloomfield , 1st Baron Bloomfield of Ciamhaltha ( 1802 – 1879 ) who was created Baron Bloomfield , of Ciamhaltha in the County of Tipperary , in the Peerage of the United Kingdom , on his retirement as British Ambassador to Austria , and two daughters , Georgina and Harriott He died in 1846 . His body is laid to rest at Borrisnafarney Parish Church in the Bloomfield Mausoleum . which is located 1 . 5 miles from the village of Moneygall beside the Loughton Estate in County Offaly , Ireland . Private Secretary to George IV . Benjamin Bloomfield took over this rather wretched position in 1817 following the extremely successful tenure of his predecessor , Sir John McMahon . Bloomfield was selected partly as a result of his skills of negotiation , shown through a secret mission to Sweden by the government as Minister Plenipotentiary . Bloomfield ' s relationship with the Prince Regent was necessarily close , as the role of the Private Secretary to the Prince Regent was to suppress his most mischievous secrets to a media who so ferociously pursued his misdemeanours . This was no simple task as the Prince Regent ' s flamboyant lifestyle did not abate despite pressure from various sources . In the year that the Prince Regent became King , 1820 , there were over 800 cartoons depicting him in various states of disorder , which greatly distressed the new monarch . Bloomfield was ordered to prevent as many of these cartoons from being published as possible by bribing cartoonists using a ' secret service fund ' . From 1819 to 1822 , Bloomfield spent over £2 , 600 worth of taxpayer ' s money on such bribery , including noted men of the field such as J . L . Marks and George Cruikshank . This provided them a fruitful second income and even more serendipitously saved them the cost of both paper and ink . This line of work put an increasing strain upon Bloomfield ' s relationship with the King , and the former ' s criticisms of his royal master became unbearable . Indeed , it became apparent that Bloomfield ' s job of curbing the King ' s royal expenditure was no more successful than his predecessors leading to Parliamentary discussions concerning the matter . Bloomfield was summoned to a meeting with the Prime Minister , Lord Liverpool , and gave his most sincere assurances that he would do as much as he could to control the King ' s wild spending . From then on in , the royal household had a financial regime based upon accountability imposed , meaning that Bloomfield had to scrutinise every scintilla of royal spending with an even keener eye . Bloomfield ' s heightened meddling in royal expenditure infuriated the King , severing any last strands of friendship between them , with the King increasingly shouting at his secretary and even giving him a ' good hearty shake ' . In March 1822 , Bloomfield complained to the Tory MP Charles Arbuthnot that the King no longer even shook hands or spoke to him when he entered the room , and even publicly abused him in the presence of a royal cook . Bloomfield ' s persistence in curbing the royal purse was admirable , however , his efficiency now irked the King ' s mistress , Lady Conyngham , who wished him to be relieved of his post . This gossip became public knowledge , which the contemporary satirists delighted in mocking , noting that Lady Conyngham and Bloomfield were perhaps too similar to ever fall out : " < nowiki > ' Ben Bloomfield and the fat old cook , < / nowiki > " " Herself a perfect larder , " " A simple jig together took , " " The tune was Shave the Barber ' . " The King and Lady Conyngham ' s dislike of Bloomfield was further evident on the King ' s trip to Scotland on 10 August 1822 , as the rising star of the King ' s entourage , Sir William Knighton , was situated next to the King ' s cabin , whilst Bloomfield was rather coldly relegated to a cabin far further away . Furthermore , Conyngham encouraged her son , Francis , to shoulder some of Bloomfield ' s responsibilities , much to Bloomfield ' s obvious displeasure . There was even a rumour that some of Lady Conyngham ' s jewels belonged to the Crown , a fact known by Bloomfield , and therefore the royal mistress felt compelled to have him removed . As Bloomfield began to be undermined by Sir William Knighton and Francis Conyngham , his self confidence started to fade , his grip on the royal purse was weakened and he abruptly had his salary stopped by royal command - his demise was imminent . In an act of desperation he began to lobby Parliament , claiming ' royal betrayal ' , however , this was ineffective as Lady Conyngham ' s family were attached to Bloomfield ' s target audience - the Whig opposition - and therefore his pleas fell on deaf ears . Bloomfield ' s downfall was hastened further by a royal visit to Dublin in 1821 . In one incident , the King visited a local theatre , and believing Bloomfield to be an important member of the King ' s party , the manager began playing the national anthem as Bloomfield entered his box , responding by bowing and smiling jokingly as the crowd rose and began singing ' God Save the King ' ( believing Bloomfield to be a member of the royal family ) . The King , noted for his sense of humour , was unusually furious at this act , declaring it an insult . Another plausible explanation for Bloomfield ' s demise is provided by a courtier , Sir William Freemantle in a letter to the Duke of Buckingham . The King ' s expenses from the spring of 1822 showed a considerable amount of money had been spent on an undisclosed item , which Bloomfield revealed to be the purchase of diamonds by the King . The King considered this to be damaging , and showed beyond all doubt that Bloomfield had lost his ability to protect the King ' s image at all costs . The diamonds were most probably for the royal mistress , an assertion which the media exposed . In a last humiliating episode for Bloomfield , he was ordered by the King to pay J . L . Marks a sum of £45 to prevent the publication of a cartoon which implicated the King and his mistress in the diamond affair , after Marks sent a copy to the King ' s residence before its publication . Marks duly ripped up the plate before his eyes , despite having made copies sneakily beforehand . Finally , to the relief of the King , ministers agreed that Bloomfield should be removed from his position . The King wrote to Lord Liverpool , asking for the post of Private Secretary to be abolished to make Bloomfield ' s departure appear to be a matter of politics rather than the Crown . Bloomfield was offered the Governorship of Ceylon as compensation , or his current salary for life and the Order of the Bath . Bloomfield felt that his efforts deserved at the very least an English peerage , the King however flew into a rage when hearing Bloomfield ' s demand , threatening to have him alienated from society , just as his wife had been . Bloomfield pragmatically refused the position of Governor of Ceylon , but accepted the Order of the Bath , a sinecure worth £650 per annum and the Governorship of Fort Charles in Jamaica , that he would later exchange for the post of Minister at Stockholm . The King invited him to the Royal Pavilion at Brighton one last time to receive the Order of the Bath from the King , but thought better of it , and did not journey to meet his former royal master for the last time . Following his turbulent years in service to the King , Bloomfield unexpectedly embraced the values of Methodism and became a devout Christian . His house in Portman Square , London amused many a passer by as he would often have a placard on his front door , adorned with the words ' At Prayer ' .