Bettina Von Hutten

Bettina Riddle (1874 - 1957), also known as Betsey Riddle and later as Baroness von Hutten, was an American-born novelist, specializing in historical fiction. As an American in England during World War I, she was arrested and fined as an enemy alien, because she had a German ex-husband. She married Friedrich Karl August, the Baron von Hutten zum Stolzenberg, in 1897, in Florence. They had two children, Karl (1898-1971) and Katharina (1902-1975). They divorced "by mutual consent" in 1909, amidst...See more

Bettina Riddle (1874 - 1957), also known as Betsey Riddle and later as Baroness von Hutten, was an American-born novelist, specializing in historical fiction. As an American in England during World War I, she was arrested and fined as an enemy alien, because she had a German ex-husband. She married Friedrich Karl August, the Baron von Hutten zum Stolzenberg, in 1897, in Florence. They had two children, Karl (1898-1971) and Katharina (1902-1975). They divorced "by mutual consent" in 1909, amidst rumors of her infatuation with Italian tenor Francesco Guardabassi. She soon had two more children with actor Henry Ainley, actor Richard Ainley (1910-1967) and Henrietta Riddle (b. 1913). Henrietta was briefly engaged to Alistair Cooke in 1932. Bettina von Hutten lived in England but wintered in Rome. In 1921 she was badly injured in a car accident near Germany; in 1925, she was in bankruptcy. She regained her American citizenship in 1938 and lived in California during World War II. She converted to Roman Catholicism late in life and died in 1957, in London, aged 83 years. See less