Henrika Juliana von Liewen

The ´Hen Picturé' by Johan Pasch and Johan Henrik Scheffel from 1747, featuring six maids-of-honor to crown princess Louisa Ulrika: Ernestine von Griesheim, Henrica Juliana von Liewen, Charlotta Sparre, Ulrika Strömfelt, Agneta Strömfelt och Catherine Charlotte De la Gardie.

In 1744, she was made maid of honor to the new crown princess, Louisa Ulrika of Prussia. She belonged to the first circle of courtiers to Louisa Ulrika after her arrival in Sweden together with Cathérine Charlotte De la Gardie, the sisters Agneta and Ulrika Strömfelt and Charlotta Sparre, and is described as Louisa Ulrika’s first favourite. Louisa Ulrika described her in a letter to her mother: "... a girl with many merits and who had the mind of an angel, gay, cheerful and very strong." [...] All my ladies-in-waiting are very beautiful and very funny, each of the can take part in a conversation with no risk of ruining it." [4]

She was the confidant of the Louisa Ulrika, and she is believed to have been the informant to expose the first planned Coup d'état of Louisa Ulrika to the ambassadors of Denmark, France and Russia in 1748, a plan which did not have the support of von Liewen.[5]

In 1748, she married lieutenant colonel baron Carl Hårleman on Drottningholm Palace and retired from court. She was replaced as a favorite of the crown princess by Ulrika Eleonora von Düben.

Henrika Juliana von Liewen was a sympathizer of the Hats (party). She is pointed out as the anonymous editor of the political party paper of the Hats party, "En ärlig Svensk" ("An honest Swede"), which was published in 1755-56 by Nils von Oelreich. The monarch acted against the paper in the parliament, and H. Benzelius declared it to contradict the bible. It was well known that a great part of the Senate gathered in the salon of von Liewen to proof read the paper. Her political activism made her the target of slander: the caps politician Johan Arckenholtz accused her of having had an affair with William VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel during his visit in Sweden in 1732 and of having had a child with the Hessian president Dörnberg.[6]

In 1755, she was granted a pension by the parliament, at the time dominated by the Hats party. After the victory of the Caps party in 1765, she almost lost the pension. However, after the death of her spouse, she had made a donation of his library about architecture, his drawings and printings, to the royal library of Stockholm, and as this exceeded the value of her pension, she was allowed to keep it.[7]