Henrietta spent her early years at the family home, Toddington Manor, Bedfordshire.

When her father died in 1665, she became heiress apparent to her grandfather, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Cleveland.

[1] Lady Wentworth's mother swiftly brought her back to Toddington, but Monmouth followed her there and moved in with her.

When Monmouth's uncle James II acceded to the English throne in 1685, the duke launched a rebellion that was financed in part by Lady Wentworth's jewellery.

[2] After the short-lived rebellion failed, Monmouth was executed on Tower Hill but without final eucharist as he refused to acknowledge that his relationship with Lady Wentworth had been sinful.