Benedicta Henrietta of the Palatinate Benedicta Henrietta of the Palatinate Princess Palatine Benedicta Henrietta (Benedicta Henrietta Philippina; 14 March 1652 – 12 August 1730) was Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg, or of Hanover, by her marriage to Duke John Frederick. She was the third and youngest daughter of Prince Palatine Edward and the political hostess Anna Gonzaga. Born in Paris to the landless Prince Palatine Edward, "Bénédicte Henriette"'s paternal grandparents were Frederick V, Elector Palatine and Elizabeth Stuart, the "Winter Queen". Her maternal grandparents were Charles I, Duke of Mantua and Montferrat and his French wife Catherine de Mayenne, daughter of Charles de Lorraine-Guise, Duke of Mayenne.
Henrietta Maria of France her fellow Catholics and, in 1632, began construction of a new Catholic chapel at Somerset House. The old chapel had been deeply unpopular amongst Protestants, and there had been much talk amongst London apprentices of pulling it down as an anti-Catholic gesture. Although modest externally, Henrietta Maria's chapel was much more elaborate inside and was opened in a particularly grand ceremony in 1636. This caused great alarm amongst many in the Protestant community. Henrietta Maria's religious activities appear to have focused on bringing a modern, 17th century European form of Catholicism to England. To some extent, it worked, with numerous