Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk

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Henrietta Howard (1688 - July 26, 1767), was a mistress of King George II of Great Britain.

She was the daughter of Sir Henry Hobart, 4th Baronet, a Norfolk landowner who was killed in a duel when Henrietta was still a child.

Having become the ward of the Earl of Suffolk, she married his youngest son, Charles Howard, in 1706, and they had one son, Henry Howard, 10th Earl of Suffolk. Henrietta met and became mistress to the Prince of Wales, the future George II, in about 1720, and was appointed a Woman of the Bedchamber to his wife, Caroline of Ansbach. In 1723, the prince made a financial settlement with her husband in exchange for her services as royal mistress.

She and her husband officially separated, and after Charles Howard's death in 1733, Henrietta re-married, in 1735, the Hon. George Berkeley, son of the Earl of Berkeley.

After leaving the position of mistress to George II, Henrietta purchased land on the banks of the river Thames, having received a very large financial settlement from him. Marble Hill House in Twickenham was built for her on this site by the architect Roger Morris. When her second husband died, in 1746, she retired there permanently. Her many friends included Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough, and Alexander Pope wrote of her,

I knew a thing that’s most uncommon

(Envy be silent and attend!)

I knew a reasonable woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Her correspondents also included Horace Walpole and Jonathan Swift.