List of House of Cards Trilogy Characters - Elizabeth, The Countess Urquhart

Elizabeth, The Countess Urquhart

Elizabeth Urquhart (Diane Fletcher), (created Countess Urquhart after his death) is the wife of Francis Urquhart. She appears to have a great deal of power over her husband, and often identifies his powers and abilities or persuades him to use a given situation to his advantage. When Francis is overlooked for a Cabinet promotion by Prime Minister Henry Collingridge, it is Elizabeth who encourages him to plot to remove Collingridge and take office himself. She condones his affair with Mattie Storin so that he may gain her trust and use his position to feed information to her, thereby influencing her articles.

It is implied in the first instalment of the trilogy that murdering Roger O'Neill, a colleague who Francis had been using to his advantage, is initially her idea. Unlike her husband, who clearly feels remorse after killing, she is cold and callous and does not seem to have a problem with arranging murders to suit their purposes. However she appears to truly love her husband, and kills him to spare him the disgrace and agony of exposure, resignation, trial, life imprisonment, and eternal historical damnation.

In the TV version of The Final Cut, she has Francis murdered to secure their positive legacies and her pension. Before he dies, she, her right eye spattered with his blood, lovingly holds him in her arms and assures him: 'Francis; my dear. It was the only way, my darling. You do understand?' Likewise, Urquhart's love for Elizabeth is shown by his last word, a gurgled, death-like 'Elizabeth'.

In the first book, she is called Miranda.