Henrietta Murray, Viscountess of Stormont

Henrietta Friederika Murray, Viscountess Stormont (née Countess Henrietta Friederika von Bünau; 1737–1766) was a German salonnière. Born into a noble family of imperial comital rank, she later married the British ambassador David Murray, 7th Viscount Stormont after the pair fell in love in Dresden. She accompanied her husband to his diplomatic post at the Habsburg court in Vienna, where she held salons and used her family connections to secure their position in society. Her health declined rapidly and she died in Vienna at the age of twenty-nine. Her husband had her heart embalmed in a gold vase and taken to Scone Palace in Scotland.

Biography

She was the daughter of Imperial Count Heinrich von Bünau, Privy Councillor and high nobility of the Electorate of Saxony, now part of Germany. She had previously married a Danish nobleman by the name of Frederik de Berregaard, but was left widowed young in 1757. Her first husband came from the rich Berregaard family, which in the 18th century was among Northwest Jutland's largest landowners, he left her his entire fortune and three Danish estates of Ørslev Kloster, Starupgård, and Strandet. Her inheritance was previously confirmed by King Frederick V of Denmark .

Von Bünau then met David Murray, 7th Viscount Stormont, a British diplomat, in Dresden court. They married in Warsaw in 1759. The marriage was considered one of love, and unexpected, as Lord Stormont was assumed to marry from within the British peerage. She received a letter from her husband's uncle Lord Mansfield welcoming her to the family. Following her second marriage, she sold her estates in Denmark in 1760 to the Mayor of Nyborg for £20,000 (£5 million today). That same year, she gave birth to a daughter, Eliza.

She went to England with her husband and their daughter in 1762 and was presented to King George III and Queen Charlotte. Another aristocrat from Saxony in England, Count Friedrich von Kielmansegge remarked that she had a beautiful face and was a cousin of the Hanoverian minister in London, Baron Philip von Münchhausen, who had previously suggested Charlotte as royal bride to the King.

Previously in 1761, Lord and Lady Stormont attended the coronation of King George III and Queen Charlotte. Lady Stormont attended the ceremony wearing her peeress’s robe. According to Kielmansegge, the procession of the peers and peeresses was “the most beautiful part” of the coronation, distinguished by its “majestic appearance" of gold cloths and array of jewels.

Von Bünau's husband was then appointed as the British ambassador to Austria in 1763 at the court of Empress Maria Theresa. Her status, as an Austrian imperial countess by birth, helped the couple find acceptance in Viennese high society. Von Bünau's father had served as an imperial diplomat, and through those connections she was able to host successful salons in the Austrian capital. Her charm and influence secured a connection for her husband with Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg, one of the most powerful State Chancellors and a close advisor to Empress Maria Theresa.

Remarks Mrs Anne Grant visited Scone Palace in 1777 and was pleased by the monument, "Lord Stormont it seems, was first married to a foreign lady... her heart is deposited in a white marble urn. I was pleased to think how good that heart must have been which could retain such warmth, amidst the frozen formalities and frivolous dissipation of a court."