The English feminine forms of Henry, Henrietta, Harriet, Harriot, Harty, Hatty, Hetty, Etta, and Detta, did not become common until the sixteenth century, when the Queen of Charles I., Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of France, made it fashionable.  She was a beautiful and high-spirited woman, and though her levity and attachment to the Romish Church made her very unpopular in England with a certain party, the royalists were her warm adherents and her English namesakes were innumerable.  Even one of Oliver Cromwell's daughters was named after the Queen; but that was before Englishmen had realized the coming troubles of the reign of Charles I.
    Her daughter Henrietta Maria of England, as she is called, added to the charm of beauty that of great sweetness of character.  She married Philip Duke of Orleans, but the marriage was not a happy one.  She was induced to take an active part in the intrigues between the French and English courts during her brother Charles II.'s reign.  She died at the early age of twenty-six, probably from the effects of poison. (Girls' Christian Names, Swan, 1905).