Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland (21 May 1806 – 27 October 1868) was Mistress of the Robes during the Whig administrations of 1837-1841, 1846-1852, 1853-1858, and 1859-1861 and a great friend of Queen Victoria.
Biography[]
Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana Sutherland-Leveson-Gower was born in 1806, the third daughter of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle and Georgiana Howard, Countess of Carlisle (a daughter of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire). She married her cousin, Whig MP George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland, in 1823 and produced four sons and seven daughters. She befriended Queen Victoria and became Mistress of the Robes (the most senior lady in the Queen's royal household) whenever the Whigs were in government. The Queen's refusal to part with the Duchess and her other ladies resulted in the Bedchamber Crisis of 1839, when the Tory leader Robert Peel refused to form a government unless the Queen dismissed the circle of Whig ladies surrounding her. She met Giuseppe Garibaldi at Chiswick House in 1864 before dying at her London residence, Lancaster House, in 1868.