to resign his post in 1828 and then in 1834. They typically returned to England during each interval. In 1833 their second son William, who may have suffered from a chronic condition, died at the age of seventeen; he is rarely mentioned in his mother's letters. In 1841 Granville suffered a severe stroke which caused partial paralysis, and he resigned his ambassadorial post a few months later. For the next two years the family travelled across Europe, before returning to England in November 1843. They resided in houses in Brighton and London, and spent portions of their time visiting friends and family at their various country estates. Granville suffered another stroke in October 1845 and died in January of the following year. Death and legacy Granville's death had an overwhelming effect on his wife's final years; later historians have described her behaviour as that of a typical Victorian era widow, as Harriet descended into a period of acute grief. In sharp contrast with her previous social activities, she lived in complete retirement. She found comfort in fervent piety and philanthropic works, donating as much as possible in private charity. After her brother's death in 1858, she inherited Chiswick House and took up residence. Her social circle was limited to immediate family members, and her household came to include her newly widowed son Frederick and his son George. She survived her husband by fifteen years, dying on 25 November 1862 of a stroke at her London home at 13 Hereford Street. Lady Granville's life has largely been overlooked by historians, who have chosen to focus on her exceptional mother as well as her sister Georgiana. A lifetime of correspondence has proven to be a valuable source of information on both Harriet and the period in which she lived. According to the writer Charlotte Furness, Harriet's many letters "give us a remarkable insight into life in the nineteenth-century aristocracy, and life as the wife of a travelling diplomat". The historian Virginia Surtees adds that Harriet's letters "provide an entertaining peepshow into the manners, habits and morals of that much inter-married section of aristocratic nineteenth-century society which also embraced the dandies, wits, and beaux". Since Harriet's death, four edited books containing her letters have been printed. In 1894, her son Frederick published a two-volume edition of letters written during his parents' marriage, condensing and cutting some of her correspondence in order to produce