Maria Phipps, Marchioness of Normanby

Maria Liddell (1798–1882) was the daughter of Thomas Liddell, 1st Baron Ravensworth and Maria Simpson.

She married Constantine Phipps, 1st Marquess of Normanby on 2 August 1818 at Lamesley, County Durham, England.

After her marriage, Hon. Maria Liddell was styled as Lady Normanby, Countess of Mulgrave on 7 April 1831.

Lady Normanby was Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria from 1837–1841. She resigned from this position on the appointment of Sir Robert Peel to the Prime Ministership. This was on account to the famous "bedchamber row" as descibed by her sister, Georgiana, Lady Bloomfield, [1] or better known now as the "bedchamber crisis." Sir Robert had previously refused to accept the Queen's invitation to form a minority government unless the Queen dismissed some of her Ladies-in-Waiting who were relatives of Whig politicians.

The young Queen Victoria, who saw the previous prime minister, Lord Melbourne as her mentor, and whose political sympathies lay with the Whigs, was distraught by the request and refused.

Later Victoria replaced three of her Whig ladies with Conservatives.

Lady Normandy was styled as Marchioness of Normanby on 25 June 1838.

The Marchioness of Normanby died in October 1882, aged 84.

References

1. Reminiscences of Court and Diplomatic Life (2 vols.), 1883: by Georgiana, Baroness Bloomfield (1883), a record of her career of her life as courtier and the wife of a diplomat.
2. Lundy's Peerage