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 of England Maria, who died after having taken an excessive quantity of opiates as a painkiller. Henrietta was devastated, and the situation was not helped by Philippe's immediate rush to claim all her possessions before she had even been buried. Henrietta was instrumental in diplomatic negotiations between her native England and adopted France. Her brother Charles II, to whom she had always been very close (it was he who gave her the nickname "Minette"), had been trying to establish a closer relationship with France since 1663, but it was not until 1669 that he set the wheels in motion by openly admitting