Harriet Lennox

Harriet Lennox
"Who dares love me?"
Biographical information
Relatives	Nathaniel Lennox (Husband, deceased) Maggie Lennox (Daughter) Unnamed Son Benjamin Lennox (Step-Son)
Marital status	Widowed
Physical description
Gender	Female
Hair	Black
Eye color	Brown
Other information
Occupation	Harlot
Affiliation	Margaret Wells (Formerly), Emily Lacey
Portrayed by	Pippa Bennett-Warner

Harriet Lennox is a character in Harlots played by Pippa Bennett-Warner.

Biography

Harriet Lennox arrives in London with her husband, Nathaniel Lennox, who owned a plantation in America where Harriet was a slave. They have since married and have two young children together. Margaret Wells visits Nathaniel – a former lover – to borrow money for her new establishment and assumes the young black woman who answers the door is a servant – Harriet quickly puts Margaret in her places, and declares she is Nathaniel’s wife.

Unfortunately, Nathaniel abruptly dies shortly after his visit from Margaret, and Harriet discovers that he never completed the paperwork to make her a freed woman. Horrified, she realizes that she and her children are now the property of Nathaniel’s older son, Benjamin Lennox, who hated Harriet. Although he agrees to let her go, Benjamin refuses to free her children. With nowhere else to turn, she reaches out to Margaret, who agrees to let her work as a maid before realizing this work will not be enough to earn money to buy her children back – she turns to prostitution. However, she makes sure to choose when, where and how she has sex. Her choice is later taunted by Benjamin, but Harriet rebuffs that at least now she is being paid for her work.

Determined, and with the help of Margaret’s husband, William North, Harriet is able to outsmart Benjamin and get her children back. She and her children return to Margaret’s house but tensions begin to rise as Margaret begins to suspect William and Harriet are having an affair. Margaret’s jealously eventually gets the best of her, despite no indication that her husband was ever unfaithful, and she demands that Harriet (and her children) leave. Harriet happily agrees and later propositions Emily Lacey, who has decided to become a bawd. Though at first reluctant, Harriet insists she will make the house plenty of money, and Emily agrees to take her in. Thus she becomes the first girl in Emily’s “House of Exotics.”

Trivia

Probably based on "Black Harriot", a slave who later married a British-born plantation owner. The couple then returned to England, where Harriot joined high society until her husband died. She then turned to prostitution to earn a living. She became the only black madam in London.