Hedvig Ulrika De la Gardie

Hedvig Ulrika De la Gardie (1761 in , Sweden – 1832 in Stockholm), was a Swedish lady in waiting. She was married to Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt. She was the head governess of the Swedish royal children in 1799–1803.

Hedvig Ulrika De la Gardie was the daughter of count Carl Julius De la Gardie and countess Magdalena Christina Stenbock. Her mother was Mistress of the Robes to Princess Sophie Albertine of Sweden, and she herself was a maid of honor to the Queen, Sophia Magdalena of Denmark. She married on 7 August 1785 at Drottningholm Palace to the King's favorite Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt. The marriage was arranged by the King and Armfelt was said to have married her because of her rank and the status of her surname: he treated her with respect but never loved her and had a parallel relationship with Magdalena Rudenschöld. Hedvig Ulrika, on the other hand, was intensely in love with him and remained loyal to him. She was described as silent, serious and reliable.

In 1792, she followed Armfelt to Naples. She was entrusted some of his papers and buried them in the garden, but the servant who buried them sold the documents and replaced them with a blank paper, which contributed to the exposure of the Armfelt conspiracy. An order of arrest was warranted on her husband, and because of it, she was herself detained several times, in Rome and Venice, during her travel from Italy to relatives in Riga in Livonia in 1794. She was allowed to keep her pension as lady in waiting and was given a travel sum by Duke Charles. Her husband was sentenced to death in absentia for treason, and she was banned from Sweden and from using his name. The property of her spouse in Sweden was confiscated, but as was customary it given to his children. As Armfelt was sentenced to death, Hedvig Ulrika was the legal guardian of their children rather than him, and was therefore given control of his Swedish property. However she could not manage it because of her exile, so she named Axel von Fersen the Younger as her agent of her affairs in Sweden. She remained convinced of her husband's innocence, at least officially.

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