Henrietta Ponsonby, Countess of Bessborough, born Lady Henrietta Frances Spencer, was the wife of Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough, and mother of the notorious Lady Caroline Lamb.
Background
Her father, John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer, was a great-grandson of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Being the youngest child, Harriet was often left in England when her parents and older sister Georgiana would visit the continent for her father"s health. As a child, Harriet was frail and sickly, which led her mother to send her abroad for schooling, thinking that foreign air would help strengthen her.
Career
Her sister was Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. However, she grew into a young woman of exceptional beauty and intelligence, witty, well-read and self-assured. On 27 November 1780, Harriet married Frederick Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, later 3rd Earl of Bessborough.
Frederick was also known to be abusive of Harriet, often humiliating her at public gatherings, as well as demanding that she find money to pay for the debts which he had incurred.
Among her more notable lovers were Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the playwright and Whig politician, and Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville, who became her most enduring lover. Her affair with Granville produced two illegitimate children: Harriet Emma Arundel Stewart, wife of George Godolphin Osborne, 8th Duke of Leeds (though she died in 1852 before he succeeded to the title) and George Stewart.
She later sadly remarked that for seventeen years she had "loved to idolatry." However, she came to believe that he loved her least of all the men in her life, "although I once believed otherwise". Although Harriet was anxious for Caroline to marry early, she had misgivings (which would come to be entirely justified) as to whether William and Caroline were well suited.
Richard Sheridan"s feelings for her became an obsession.
He distressed her greatly just before his death by saying that he hoped his ghost would haunt her. She asked him if he had not done enough through his life to make her unhappy. According to Lord David Cecil, she died peacefully and without regrets, worn out as she was by a life of emotional turmoil.
Cecil describes her as a woman of "indescribable distinction".