Helena Faucit - After Macready

After Macready

When Macready left for America in 1843, Faucit emerged as an even greater celebrity. In the mid-1840s she toured in Scotland and Ireland. Her most celebrated roles included Pauline in Lady of Lyons at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, Antigone at Dublin, and various Shakespearean roles, including a revamped and now-successful Lady Macbeth. Acting with Macready in Paris in 1845, she received so much applause that Macready was jealous, and the two did not act together again.

Faucit occasionally returned to London, but her main activity for the remainder of her career was touring, especially in Manchester and in Sheffield, where her brother owned a theater. In 1846 she returned to Dublin to perform in Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis, which proved as popular as her Antigone had been the previous year. In October 1846 she took the part of Juliet to the Romeo of Gustavus Brooke at Dublin. In 1850, she acted in the title role of Iolanthe in Theodore Martin's adaptation of King René's Daughter. The last time she assayed the role was in 1876 at the Lyceum Theatre, London, with Henry Irving's company opposite Irving as Count Tristan.

Martin, the official biographer of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, had begun courting her as early as 1843; she finally accepted his proposal in 1851.